QTP: Question the Premise (and numbers)

[renegadefolkhero]

The past month has really been something. I was able to publish a several ghosts that were sitting around mostly written, and conducted an experiment. I promised you numbers, so get ready.

Prefacing to remind everyone I am a wide, off-market queer writer, and a weird little contrarian dude in general. I'm sharing a snapshot of my modest sales data because I've seen so many sales reports from people who are launch-focused in KU in larger niches, and if you're not Doing That it's hard to manage expectations.

Managing expectations is crucial, IMO.

I released 3 MM books in relatively (eeeh wiggles fingers) comparable niches at different levels of launch complexity. One had a full launch including a lengthy preorder period and multiple ARC services, one was short preorder with less ARCs, and one book was off-brand and yeeted into the void with only a newsletter announcement.

• Long launch - 18 copies first week/33 copies first month ($119 expenses, $117 royalties)
• Short launch - 11 / 15 ($85 expenses, $4 royalties [this was the $0.99 book fml lmao])
• Yeet - 7 / 17 ($1 expenses, 0 expectations, $30 royalties)

Aaand as a bonus, I almost forgot about this yeet on an MF taboo sleeper pen:

• Yeet II - 16 / 24 ($1 expenses, $63 royalties)

There are a LOT of variables here, but taking length, storefronts, etc., into consideration they all performed in line with historical averages. My sales average is 12 copies the first week and 32 copies the first month.

Earlier this year, when my big book "flopped" I charted my launches to see if it was actually a flop based on historical data (it wasn't). I had to disabuse myself of some notions.

• The line doesn't necessarily go up. Meaning, it's not a given I'll sell more books with each subsequent launch. Each book is an isolated event. Doesn't seem to matter what I published before or after.
• Some books made $500 to 700 lifetime, and a few books made like $150. I never know which.
• I can't read the market to save my life. I literally have NO IDEA what will sell. The books that do sell are slow, steady earners. They don't sell a lot, but they sell consistently with no cliff. The ones that don't sell hit a cliff early and generally don't recover. (I'm looking at you $150 scraggler... you little piece of shit...)
• Critiques seemed to have no impact on results.
• Price doesn't matter as long as you're consistent in your niche, so pricing low is taking a hit for no reason
• Length doesn't matter. In fact, if you want to do the ROI thing, I have a best-selling 4-hour short that earned twice what a 5-month novel earned (and then I bundled the short, which gave it another boost). The sluttier, stupider books generally make more than my labor-of-love novels and I just have to accept that my readers are horny idiots (affectionate).
• I have fans, and some of them are wonderful cheerleaders, but that doesn't mean they'll run out and buy my newest book. Superfans have TBRs a mile long and unless you're handing them an ARC, they get to it when they get to it.
• I edit the shit out of my books which is time-consuming and tedious (e.g. 4 or 5 passes), and I always have That One Guy complaining about my editing no matter what I do but overall nobody cares.

QUESTION IT

Becca Syme encourages writers to question the premise (QTP), especially when confronting conventional wisdom or personal beliefs that don't appear to fit your current situation. So I've had some QTP moments over the past few weeks.

You should do ARCs: After swearing ARCs are essential, I have to conclude they probably aren't, and they add a lot of stress, work, and cost up-front, which messes around with my expectations.

You should have social proof (e.g. make sure you have some early reviews when the book first comes out): It's too soon to tell if the reviews from my more recent ARC campaigns will help long-term, if I can tell at all. In the past, I'm not sure they have. But more significantly, early reviews stress me out. If I KNOW reviews are forthcoming, I'm distracted and moody and it does impact the work.

You should edit: After swearing I will edit the shit out of my books and make sure they are as polished as possible, I have to conclude all that editing as much as I do is exhausting and who cares? (That one guy, and fuck him.)

You should have a launch plan: After busting my ass trying to improve my launch numbers, sales always level out. At best, I might be selling a handful of extra copies for all the effort.

You should get critiques: All the critiques I've gotten were from a market perspective and they stressed me out because I don't understand the market and don't understand the advice being given, and sometimes they're critical of my inherent weirdness which is NOT up for debate that is a Feature NOT a Bug and I have the wisdom to know it. Bottom line, I never know if I got good advice or not. My most heavily critiqued book sold the least by far, but it had other stuff going against it.

You must have a cover that's to market: How about you eat my ass? Go on. Get in there and get some. (Nicer version: I have tried really, really hard to do this, but I have seen no impact and I hate some of the current trends on covers and I wouldn't know a to-market cover if it rimmed me anyway)

As a wide author, you should publish direct in as many storefronts as possible: Each storefront is unique, and each one increases the workload, potentially by a lot. I think I have sold a total of 3 books on B&N in as many years. I have sold HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of books on other platforms.

After processing all this, I decided my next experiment is to yeet my books, cut back on editing, and narrow my publishing footprint for the remainder of the year. In other words, focus on writing and drastically reduce time and money spent on all the other stuff.

This sounds like a retreat and a huge step back... but is it? I think the truth is I have a brain that insists on Doing It Right and I got caught up in doing a bunch of crap you're "supposed" to do and I need to cut myself a goddamn break.