Monday, December 31, 2007

Lulu Book Sales Ranking

Three months ago I became a POD Lulu self-publisher (see my post of Oct. 1st) with a goal in mind - to prove that there will be no book sales without my own marketing and promotion. Here's my booklet available in print and as a download: http://www.lulu.com/content/1233344

It is a how-to on one of the hottest topics today; it appeals to the right niche of 25 million readers, the price is right - not too low, not too high; keywords are right too; seems like no problem to sell? (Please remember that I deliberately haven't done any book promotion)

How many sold? One...

My Lulu Sales Rank is 71,754 ... What does it mean?

As Lulu explains on their website:

"What does the Lulu sales rank mean?

Similar to sales ranking lists at leading bookstores and news outlets, Lulu determines the top sellers based on monetary amounts rather than number sold. (Lulu feels that authors whose books cost $19.95 shouldn't have to compete head-to-head with creators who give their content away.)"

There are about 1.2 million of Lulu books, among all of them some are priced in the same common range as mine - I guess they make about 80% which means I compete with about 1 million books.

So, among 1 million books I have the sales rank of 71,754 with one sale only... which means that over 90% of other books do not sell even one copy???

Anybody willing to correct my math? Welcome to leave a comment then...








Monday, December 24, 2007

After 8 months on LinkedIn I have 4,000,000 connections

After 8 months on LinkedIn I have about 300 first degree connections, 100,000 second degree and 4,000,000 third degree which means that I'm able to reach about 30% of all LinkedIn members worldwide.

It's interesting to mention that I haven't done anything special to get all these connections. I just answered questions and got connected with some of the askers after some post-discussion. Also I have to mention that while during December I had no time to answer questions on LinkedIn, my network stopped growing...

Based on my answers LinkedIn considers me having expertise in the following categories:

Using LinkedIn
Writing and Editing
International Law
Business Development
Business Travel
Job Search
Professional Networking
Economics
Personnel Policies
Staffing and Recruiting
Exporting/Importing
Internationalization and Localization
Events Marketing
Lead Generation
Manufacturing
Interface Design
Incorporation
Starting Up

It doesn't make me an "expert" in all these categories of course, but anyway people who asked these questions considered my answers as "best" which means I'm capable of something ;-)

As I am l looking for interesting projects in Internet Research, Internet Marketing, International Business, Translation and Localization, the more people know me and see that I have knowledge, the higher are my chances to land the projects.









Monday, December 17, 2007

LinkedIn Absenteeism

I've been busy with some other stuff lately and dropped my every day visits to LinkedIn for a while...

What happened?

I don't show up among the experts, don't receive new invitations and inquiries; my network stopped growing and my LinkedIn life became actually very dull ;-(

So, the conclusion - if you want to get anything from LinkedIn, you have to be really active on the site!








Monday, December 10, 2007

Interview with Kathie M. Thomas, the Author and Lulu Self-Publisher

You are welcome to read the interview with Kathie M. Thomas, the Author of Worth More Than Rubies: The Value of a Work at Home Mum, who sells her books from Lulu and her own website too. You'll find out what promotion she does for her newly published book.

General Info:

Q1. Title:
A1. Worth More Than Rubies: The Value of a Work at Home Mum


Q2. Author:
A2. Kathie M. Thomas

Q3. Genre:
A3. Christian Living

Q4. One-Line description of the book:
A4. Women are encouraged to return home to work, and care for their families.

Book Sales:

Q5. For how long has your book been on Lulu?
A5. 2 months

Q6. How many copies have been sold from Lulu during this time?
A6. 12 (192 views)
I've sold nearly 200 from my own website though

Book Promotion:

Q7. Is the book being promoted from your own website(s) and/or blog(s) that link to your Lulu listing?
A7. Yes

Q8. What other Internet promotion venues have you used - free and/or paid? Direct emailing, writers' websites, etc.? Any paid advertising?
A8. Articles, book reviews, book websites

Q9. How much time have you spent promoting your book? (approx)
A9. Every single day, some days only 5-10 min, other days an hour or more

Q10. How much money have you spent promoting your book? (approx)
A20. Hard to say, but over $1,000 so far

Thank you, Kathie, for sharing this valuable info with us.

The Conclusion: BOOK SALES ARE THE DIRECT RESULT OF THE BOOK PROMOTION.

Kathie sells almost 20 times more books from her own website http://www.worth-more-than-rubies.com than from the Lulu listing as the result of her promotion efforts.








Monday, December 3, 2007

Interviewing Lulu Self-Publishers on LinkedIn

About two weeks ago I posted a question on LinkedIn: "Self-Publishers on Lulu.com, would you like to be interviewed (by e-mail) for my Blog?

We'll be talking book sales and money in self-publishing.

You are free to choose whether you want to make it public and it'll be some promotion for your book, or make it private if you are not comfortable with revealing your numbers.

All stories are welcome: making money with self-publishing or spending money and getting nothing in return..."


The response was rather active: several Lulu authors of one or two or three books and even one Lulu publisher of 1,500 titles!

I emailed everybody my questions concerning sales of their books and promotion the authors did to get those sales. Guess what? Only ONE author replied... I'll publish her interview in my next post. So, what happened to the rest? No sales from Lulu I believe...