Talion: Revenant Challenge Update #1

Talion: Revenant has been on sale electronically for three months now, so it’s time for an update on numbers. When I released the book I said that when I’d sold 10,000 copies, I’d write the sequel: Talion: Nemesis. I’m banking the money as it comes in, and your purchases will become my advance for writing that new novel.

Since the book went on sale we’ve sold 210 copies, which is much higher than I expected at this point. (I don’t have an accounting yet for the copies sold through the Appstore/iBookstore, but I’d guess that would be an added 40 copies or so at best.) So, in three months, we’re 2.5% of the way to the goal. If you want to look at the fact that another 9,750 need to sell before I start working, that could be a bit depressing, but I’m enthused by the results.

One aspect is momentum. Sales have been increasing, and that’s very promising. Through Amazon, the T:R sales have been smoking the sales of A Gathering Evil, which I’ve left at $2. I could draw some conclusions about price sensitivity for ebooks from this. It would appear to me that as long as the price is reasonable, readers are willing to buy. And one should remember, most of the folks who are purchasing the book already owned at least one paperback copy, so these sales are largely a down-payment on getting the sequel.

Digital publication and marketing are a brand new field. I’m feeling my way through it the same as everyone else. I know, for example, this update will spur some more sales. It will prompt folks to blog more about the project, and that will bring more sales. As we move forward, I’ll look at selling some more Talion fiction and tossing that money into the kitty, too. As I hit conventions over the summer, I’ll talk about the book and encourage folks to buy. I will also look at the efficacy of purchasing advertising on the net to see if that spurs things onward.

The power of the Internet can’t be denied. If everyone who already purchased were to convince just two friends to buy a copy, and those folks convinced two friends to buy, and so on; we’d sell that 10,000 copies by December and you’d likely have the new book by summer of 2011. Even if you don’t want to buy a copy, you can talk friends into buying copies, introducing the book to folks who haven’t read it, and you’ll get the sequel that much faster.

What I’m really enthused about is the number of folks who actually get it. This whole challenge isn’t just about getting enough money fto write a sequel. It’s about making a fundamental change in the way publishing is done. Instead of getting paid by publishers for what they guess I might sell in the future, I can work on the basis of being paid for work I’ve already done. The advantage there is incredible because it buys me the freedom to turn out the kind of work that I want to write and which, rather obviously, my patrons (that would be you) want to read. With this cycle ramping up, I’d be in a position to ask you what you want to see next from me, be it more DragonCrown War material, more stories in the Age of Discovery world, long work, short work, new and experimental work. (I will, however, draw the line at writing Fluffy Cat or Sparkly Vampire stories.)

Right now, we’re off to a good start. I’ll do more to keep awareness of the project out there. I appreciate your help in all this by Tweeting and Facebooking and posting reviews on Amazon and linking back to the store. This project really can turn publishing on its head. Thanks for joining me in the revolution.