There's Something Happening Here . . .

After sales of my soon to bestseller The Floating Man stalled at twenty-nine I began to get worried. Guess the number of friends and relatives I have is more than I can count on my toes and fingers—barely.

I needed to add some kindling to the smoldering embers that is my book. Fan the flames so to speak. I went to Fiverr.com to get a little help. For five bucks you can buy what is called a ‘gig’—but it usually ends up being more with added gigs. It turns out that people will do just about anything for five bucks. I can get someone to paint the name of my book on their forehead and walk around Manhattan for a day, write a theme song for my book, write reviews, give my website a few hundred thumbs up, and even post a blurb and picture of my book on a Facebook page dedicated to 5000 e-readers.

I went with the Facebook posting and contacted Hans through Fiverr. The name Hans should have been a dead giveaway, but I’m a little clueless. Anyway, Hans posted a picture of my book on his Facebook page and allowed me the full 350 word blurb I use to describe the book (my first post has that in case you are interested—it’s towards the bottom. I’m nothing if not humble).

So now I am on a German Facebook page that reaches thousands of Germans. My post is in English, Danka Schoen, the rest is in German. I hear those Germans love a good mystery and I’m sure they are wondering why in the heck would an American post an English page on a German language Facebook page. They’re probably intrigued. Being intrigued is a good thing—so says Steve my web guy.

As long as I was throwing my money away (it’s all a tax write-off thanks to my Uncle Sam) I decided to throw another five into the log pile. Keep stoking those flames (did I tell you that one of my characters, an elderly man, is always stoking the flames? You’ll have to buy the book because he enters the story on around page 136 depending on if you buy an eBook or softcover). But I digress. I bought a gig that promotes my website and YouTube video.

And then it happened.

What it is ain’t exactly clear. Yesterday I got thirteen orders for the Nook version and this morning three more. But the Amazon Kindle version is still stuck on fifteen—the same number it was three days ago.

What’s up with that?

Here is my theory.

Admittedly an optimistic one, but we all need our little things to cling to. Kindle outsells Nook nine to one. So I should have sold nine times as many Kindle books. But Barnes and Noble gives you a separate figure on their Nook page for recent sales (today and yesterday). After that they transfer over to your monthly totals. My theory (and fervent hope) is that Amazon does not populate their Kindles sales every day; maybe they do it weekly. In that case I can expect nine times as many Kindle sales as Nook. So my sixteen Nook sales of the last two days should translate into one hundred forty-five Kindle sales—give or take a few.

Well now, my German Facebook page doesn’t look so stupid after all. And you know what? I’m going to throw another five into the pile and buy me a theme song for the book.