Not to wax too philosophical, but there's a point we fear too many authors miss. Selling ebooks is a competition. It would be wonderful if selling ebooks were some utopia where everyone sold the same amount, and everyone could quit their day jobs to write. But, we all know, that's not the case. Instead, what exists is a cadre of authors who sell tons and tons and tons of ebooks, and then the rest of the author pool that sells enough for the dream to persist or not even that.
Make No Mistake About It, You Are Competing to Get Ebook Sales
At eBookHounds we promote free and discounted ebooks. So, why would we even want to stick our nose into this conversation? It's because we see the impact of competition on a daily basis. When we send a daily email out and there are four ebooks, we are fighting to get our subscribers to open the email. Then, we are fighting to get them to click on one or more of the ebook links. Then, hopefully, you have done your job to seal the deal at the major retailers to get your sales. But, the point is that you, as an author, and your ebook are immediately in competition with other featured ebooks when you advertise with eBookHounds or any other promotion site.
If you are in a daily email with an author that spent several hundred dollars on a beautiful looking ebook cover and that's one place where you skimped, who do you think will have the leg up in this competition? If that same author has a 4.4 star average review on Amazon and you have 3.8, doesn't that get taken into account? Finally, if that author has priced their ebook aggressively for free or for a discounted price such as $0.99, while you are at a discounted price of $2.99, you're toast. The reader goes with the other author. There's no other way to view this than you were just in competition, and the other author won.
How Far Should You Take This Competing Thing?
This entire "competition" thing is unsettling for authors...we understand. A big reason to become an author is to avoid competition, to revel in the relatively introverted (to completely introverted) life an author joyously leads. But, at the end of the day if you want to make authorship your career, then you're gonna have to sell some ebooks. Lots. Which is why we wanted to bring up the fact that you are in competition with thousands of other authors--in your genre alone. If you look at the entire landscape of publishing, you are in competition with hundreds of thousands of authors and millions of ebooks!
So, we wanted to embue you with a little bit of Pat Riley in this post. In our hearts at eBookHounds, we are not Machiavellian enough to say, "Yes, do whatever it takes to win." However, realize that to win in the world of ebook sales, you have to compete--and compete hard.
