E-Books and February Sales

To tie into L Diane Wolfe's post today -- where she asks three authors (including me!) -- to discuss the publishing options facing authors today, I thought I'd talk a bit more about my e-book experience so far.

February is almost over, and this month's sales of The Hating Game are almost at 2,000 on Kindle alone. Hopefully, by the end of the day, they will have topped it! Given that February's a short month, I'm thrilled with the number of copies people have bought. A massive thank you to everyone who has supported my debut novel so far and fingers crossed it continues. So far, total Kindle sales since December 1 have almost reached 4,000 (half of that generated this month!).

The great thing about e-books is that they don't need to fight for shelf space. There are no returns -- once an e-book is up, it's there for good -- which means e-books have more of a chance to succeed for a longer period of time. And, as I mentioned over at L Diane's, e-books don't face distribution issues that smaller presses like the one I'm published with often run up against.

Putting out the e-book before the paperback has proved to be a successful strategy. Strong sales figures means the book now stands a bigger chance of getting into stores, and word of mouth generated by e-book publicity has helped drive pre-orders. Not only that, but when the paperback launches next week, it will already have a plethora of reviews, since any review written for the Kindle version automatically appears on the paperback listing.

And on that note, if you're in the UK and you'd like to win a paperback copy of The Hating Game, head on over to Chick Lit Reviews!

Happy Monday, all!