Monday, September 5, 2011

The Basement Soars Back Into The Charts

It's been a rough two months. Amazon has been running a Summer Reads promotion where hundreds of books had their prices slashed, many to less than £1.

The promotion started at the start of July and ended on the last day of August. I had no doubt that such a large promotion would play havoc with the bestseller lists, and I was right. The promoted books soared through the charts pushing the Indie books - including mine - out of the way.

Once Bitten, my vampire story, fell to about 50 and The Basement was pushed down to 17 and at one point I feared it would leave the Top 20 for the first time in ten months.

Happily the promotion ended on August 31 and within hours my books started to climb the charts again. Yesterday The Basement reached Number 3 in the Kindle UK store and last week it was the fourth best-selling eBook in the UK, according to The Bookseller magazine. But what's fascinating is that my sales actually increased when I went down the charts. I sold about 12,000 copies of The Basement in July and 14,500 in August, even though in August I was five places lower in the charts. I think the promotions help sales because they create more interest in eBooks generally.

Here's what The Bookseller says:

Philip Stone, charts editor: David Nicholls' One Day comfortably remains both the bestselling printed book and bestselling ebook in the UK. The novel, recently adapted for the big screen, currently tops the ebook bestseller lists at Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones.com, WHSmith.co.uk and the Apple iBookstore. It is currently available to download for £4.99 at all four e-tailers, about 64p cheaper than the print edition's average selling price at UK book retailers.

Stephen Leather's 'serial killer thriller with a breathtaking twist', The Basement, one of the bestselling ebooks of 2011, re-enters the chart following a five-week hiatus, while Charles James 'C J' Box's Three Weeks to Say Goodbye hits the top 10 for the first time.

Once again, the top 10 is dominated by thrillers, although a couple of erotic novels, which many predicted would sell well in e-format sit a little lower down the chart. In fact, Cosmo's Sexiest Stories Ever is currently the fourth bestselling ebook at the iBookstore, despite a poor review from one **Aimee** who states that 'It's short [30 pages] and not that hot'

Pos Title Author
1 (1) One Day David Nicholls
2 (6) The Alchemist's Secret Scott Mariani
3 (2) Confessions of a GP Benjamin Daniels
4 (-) The Basement Stephen Leather
5 (-) Three Weeks to Say Goodbye C J Box
6 (8) Cold Kill Neil White
7 (-) The Leopard Jo Nesbo
8 (9) A Game of Thrones George R R Martin
9 (-) Passenger 13 Scott Mariani
10 (7) Second Son Lee Child

No comments:

Post a Comment