Good Thing, Coming to an End

by wjw on April 9, 2017

The 99-cent sale on Implied Spaces will end 10pm MDT, Monday, April 10, so if you want a copy at that price, you should venture over to Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks, and Google.

I’m sorry to report that this sale was a flop. Mostly that was due to BookBub, the largest venue for ebook promotion, deciding (for reasons best known to themselves) not to promote the work inside the U.S. I had to pay another outfit to do that, and they simply don’t have BookBub’s reach. Plus I tried to promote through Amazon’s new service, and it generated two whole clicks. (No way of knowing, apparently, if the clicks led to sales.)

But these issues aside, there are some books that just don’t sell very well, and I don’t know why. The Maijstral books, Knight Moves, Implied Spaces, Ambassador of Progress, the Metropolitan books . . . none of them generate much in the way of sales, and even when I do a promotion, they sell less well than my other works.

It had occurred to me that maybe Implied Spaces doesn’t sell as well because the guy on the cover might be mistaken for a Moozlim, and we’re all supposed to be terrified of Moozlims these days, at least when we’re not busy hating them. But the other books have no turban-clad folks brandishing swords on the cover.

I thought that perhaps poor sales were due to my amateurish cover art and design, but Knight Moves and Implied Spaces have perfectly awesome cover art by highly-regarded professionals, so that theory goes down in flames, too.

I could say that Ambassador of Progress and Knight Moves are early works, and simply not as good as my later works. But the other works were produced in my prime, so that theory doesn’t hold.

So I’m led to the conclusion that occult forces are at work. Some evil witch cursed those particular volumes, and I should hire an exorcist.

Anyone know an exorcist who works cheap?

Clyde April 9, 2017 at 11:31 pm: How very odd. Knight Moves and Implied Spaces are two of my favorites from your oeuvre.
As for exorcising a curse, I reckon you first need to know from which branch of the dark arts it came. Is it based on Voodoo, a Chinese hex, witchcraft, or what? 😉
Gary Gibson April 10, 2017 at 12:53 am: Because people are fucking idiots. Seriously.
Lee April 10, 2017 at 3:24 am: I have to admit I don’t think I’d ever heard of this one. Sorry! And I’m someone who rereads Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind and Knight Moves quite often, and could stand to see more from the Dread Empire’s Fall universe. But I’ve just taken advantage of this sale, so thank you!
Iain April 10, 2017 at 5:20 am: I am also surprised… Implied Spaces was, I think, my gateway drug in to WJW. Pity. (that the sale did not generate lots of sales, not that I started reading WJW).
Matt April 10, 2017 at 11:32 am: Just wanted to say that I bought one of the copies from the sale — and thought the book was amazing. I also loved Knight Moves which I bought a couple of years back. Don’t be discouraged by lack of sales! You’ve made at least one reader really happy. Thank you, WJW!
bkd69 April 11, 2017 at 12:27 am: You may have achieved saturation. I went to purchase it, and discovered I already had purchased it.
Camille Flynn April 11, 2017 at 6:23 pm: Maijstral and Metropolitan are still my favorites, always. They were how I discovered your writing. Sorry others have not discovered the same joy I get out of them.
drakes April 14, 2017 at 9:40 am: I too found Metropolitan/City on Fire and the Maijstral series to be my favorites. I’ll understand if more is never written in those worlds, but I will continue to bring them with me on vacations or whenever I need the purest pleasure in reading.
Mike April 15, 2017 at 12:18 pm: I don’t understand why Metropolitan and City on Fire are not famous books. I love them.
Fred April 22, 2017 at 4:58 pm: Metropolitan/City on Fire are two of my most liked books- and I’ve read quite a few during my life. I can’t comprehend why they aren’t much better known.
Susan Beaty April 22, 2017 at 5:31 pm: Like bkd69, I would have bought “Implied Spaces” but I already own it, so you didn’t get a sale from me. Playing catch-up on your blog post-April 15th. And I’m sad to say we decided we can’t afford to go to Helsinki for Worldcon this summer either. It just isn’t financially feasible this year.