AS HE SAYS:
The massive scale of the self-publishing world can easily overwhelm readers, writers and publishing professionals.
To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we have compiled lists of the top eBooks in three major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. We will update these lists every week, tracking how writers perform inside these booming marketplaces.
Amazon Self-Published Bestsellers
1. Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire
2. Easy by Tammara Webber
3. Weekends Required by Sydney Landon
4. Whispers from the Ashes by Patricia Hester
5. Not Planning on You by Sydney Landon
6. Big Girls Don’t Cry by Taylor Lee
7. Trial Junkies by Robert Gregory Browne
8. Lord of Vengeance by Lara Adrian
9. Wool Omnibus Edition by Hugh Howey
10. The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted by Andrew E. Kaufman
Barnes & Noble Self-Published eBook Bestsellers
1. Summer Secrets by Barbara Freethy
2. Take Me by Locklyn Marx
3. A Month at the Shore by Antoinette Stockenberg
4. SpellBound Cafe by Nora A Roberts
5.. Awakening by Karice Bolton
6. All She Ever Wanted by Barbara Freethy
7. Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire
8. Five Days in Summer by Katia Lief
9. Easy by Tammara Webber
10. Season for Love by Marie Force
Smashwords eBook Bestsellers
1. Motorcycle Man by Kristen Ashley
2. The Fifth Man by Randy Ingermanson
3. Wisdom by Amanda Hocking
4. Oxygen by Randy Ingermanson
5. Endless Magic by Rachel Higginson
6. On Demon Wings by Karina Halle
7. Settling the Account by Shayne Parkinson
8. The Wetherby Brides Bundle by Jerrica Knight-Catania
9. Perfect Day by Josh Lanyon
10. Conspiracy by Lindsay Buroker
These three eBook lists were recorded on Monday, June 11, 2012.
And many congratulations to Shayne Parkinson, who is one of my followers, as well as a bestselling indie author.
9 comments:
They state their methodology at the bottom of the post on how these indie books have been ranked, however, and admittedly only after a quick look, I can't find information on actual number of books sold. That would be the interesting figure, alongside a straight ranking.
It would indeed be interesting. I see in the Authors Guild magazine that three major NY publishers are allowing their authors day-to-day access to their book sales figures. This could be depressing! -- but it could also be very useful.
Yes, if these authors are selling in the thousands, then self-publishing would look like a viable option for well written fiction, perhaps just contracting for specialist marketing ... I do have my doubts though, and suspect we may be looking at sales in the hundreds for all but the very odd exception.
And I still don't know if the self-publishing model suits my reading: as a reader I like the quality filter of a publisher and editor, there's so much self-published dross to wade through otherwise. For (writer)me, self-publishing would still represent plan B after having failed the 'better' route.
Your comment regarding the three NY publishers is an interesting one. Crossing channels to music and film, and with the huge caveat that I support IP and hold the position that copying is theft, I always took that to be Dotcom's point of difference, and the harbinger of the future: a major rationale of the platform he was building was that the creators would have complete access to the accounting backroom: sales numbers, money and royalties direct to their accounts, etc. Authors' would surely push for that model themselves, and probably the main thing holding it back is Amazon's size and hold on the market ...
Cup of tea over, I'll just go battle the CAPTCHA.
Thanks, Joan! I was delighted to find myself in such company.
Regarding sales figures: I think most if not all of the authors named are selling in the thousands. Here's a list of self-published authors who've sold more than 50,000 books so far: selfpublishingsuccessstories.
As its compiler says, the list is incomplete.
Authors with rankings in single or double figures on B&N and Amazon are selling a lot of books. My own rankings are far less stellar, but I've been in the top 1000 on B&N for about a year now, and that translates to several thousand sales a month. A similar ranking on Amazon.com (which I've yet to achieve! although I have on Amazon UK) would represent about three times as many sales.
Those are astounding figures. Many thanks for the link, Shayne. I think Mark will be amazed, too.
Shayne, firstly kudos for the sales figures - per my previous post, more than I would've expected.
I'd love to know more about your self-publishing experience: why that route, etc. Particularly, how did you go about marketing to achieve your sales?
Yes, well done Shayne, I am impressed, and surprised, by the figures. Especially on your link: some of those authors are selling over half a million books ... a NZ bestseller is what? About 10,000 books?
The world is changing.
Many thanks for your overnight input, Shayne and Mark. Like Mark, I would love to know more about your publishing experience. You told this blog some time ago that you deliberately charged nothing for your first one or two books, to build up an audience for your series, and it looks as if this ploy was very successful.
Shayne, would it be Okay if I wrote a post about your link, for readers who have missed this "conversation"?
And Mark, you'd be surprised how low the figure is in the United States for a printed book to be touted as a bestseller. Certainly not in the millions, or even the hundreds of thousands.
Yes, I'd be quite happy for you to do that, Joan. Sharing information is a fine idea.
I do indeed make the first book in the series free. A reader is taking a risk on an unknown author (me), and this way if the reader doesn't enjoy the first book it's cost him/her nothing more than some time. If the reader does enjoy it, there are several more to follow. :)
A little about my self-publishing journey is in this interview: http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/02/smashwords-author-profile-shayne.html
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