It’s been a full week since I let Breakers expire from Select and began enrolling it in the other stores. So far, it’s been up on Barnes & Noble for that week, Kobo for about four days, and Smashwords for four days. Here are its sales so far:
B&N: 9
Kobo: 0
Smashwords: 1
Nothing overwhelming, but that’s not zero! Subjectively speaking, I’m slightly overwhelmed by B&N, whelmed by Smashwords, and underwhelmed by Kobo. 0 sales? Those dudes have 9 million registered users. Surely one of them might have snagged this book in the better part of a week.
But you know what B&N and Smashwords have that Kobo doesn’t? A new release section. A proper one, anyway. Kobo has one, but at the moment, it only has 118 titles in it. Since Breakers hasn’t sold anything on Kobo, it has no visibility anywhere else, either, meaning the only way for shoppers to find it is to specifically search for my name or its title.
By contrast, B&N has a very comprehensive new release section, and Smashwords’ isn’t half bad, either. (Smashwords even gives you extremely detailed stats compared to the other stores–for instance, since its release, Breakers has been viewed there about 70 times, been sampled 7, and generated 1 sale.) Their new release section is how people are seeing the book, and when people see a book, some percentage of them will buy it.
I don’t say this to rag on Kobo. I like them quite a lot. They just launched their self-publishing wing, and they’ve already made a few upgrades to help books be seen. They recently added alsobots, too. Their search functionality is 1996ish, but I would be shocked if that weren’t something they’re working on right now.
But they could really use a proper new releases section. I’m getting the impression a lot of people browse that section of a store. A new release section is the only way for a new release to get visibility from within a store–by the very virtue of being new, a new release hasn’t sold anything yet. So it has no rank. No alsobots. None of the other methods through which ebook vendors automatically point customers to books they may be interested in.
In other words, it’s kind of huge.
There are two takeaways here, then. First, B&N is a tough market for an unknown to crack, but it’s a big market, so a nonzero amount of shoppers–those who trawl new releases, possibly with an eye for bargains (I’m selling at $4.95; most of the visible books at B&N are $7.99-14.99)–will find their way to your book. And second, the new release list is a powerful tool. It’s one of the few ways an unknown book will sell by itself. It’s an obvious tool to try to take advantage of. And in any stores without it, you may be sledding uphill.
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