Time for a bit of reality - a thread.
Sales in the shop are doing well, but we're reliant on sales on the website to help pay the bills.
The website is reliant on social media, particularly twitter.
Since September, we've seen a big decline in people seeing our tweets.
Sales in the shop are doing well, but we're reliant on sales on the website to help pay the bills.
The website is reliant on social media, particularly twitter.
Since September, we've seen a big decline in people seeing our tweets.
Comments
I'm never going back to it, even if sold to anyeone else.
And it's being extended to meta, amazon, and probably soon anything from the (former) usa.
Like many, I no longer post or repost on Twitter.
I haven't closed my account, but I'm not active.
Maybe we all have to get better at working out how to (re) build community offline...
I hope traffic picks up from here.
The tide is turning. A nimble business can pivot to different platforms.
You have a great platform going right now, more people will come 😊
The report was suggesting that Bsky had a 10x higher rate of conversion into sales. Hopefully that will work for you here .
I know that sounds snobby, but the tone of that place does not feel like a gathering of people who read anything other than hate propaganda.
Most people who read aren't so angry or scared of things they don't understand. They're curious about it
.....
Because they READ.
Our subscription sales were flat, which is a great result, considering the cost of living pressures many of us are facing. (If you're a subscriber, thank you!)
For example, this time last year, Hodder were re-releasing the Stephen King books, which we did really well on.
But even excluding those books, the websites sales are still down 25%.
But a BIG part of it comes down to pre-orders - they're down 41% compared to last year.
It all boils down to fewer people seeing our stuff on social media.
Firstly, mostly, nowadays, I listen to audiobooks; I actually am consuming more but via a different medium.
Secondly, having horrified myself at how much I was spending on Audible, I’ve joined 1/2
Thirdly, I have not bought anything from Amazon for two months. If I want a book, I contact my favourite Indy bookshop and they post it. Marginally dearer and marginally slower. But, hey
We're going to do lots of things in the background to make the website better and easier to use. We're also doing some more stuff in the shop which is working.
1) Follow us on all our social media. We're active on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Facebook - all @bertsbooks
2) Share our stuff, repost or just like. It all feeds the algorithm which shows what we're doing to more people.
And when you do, share that with other people. Reviews, posts, pictures. It all helps!
I think we all need this right now.
There's more details on our FAQ here:
https://bertsbooks.co.uk/2021/07/24/frequently-asked-questions/
International orders definitely help, so if you'd like to order something from us (and can afford it, we try to minimise the postage cost as much as we can) then I'd definitely appreciate that!
#indieauthors don't always have access to bookshop placement/ sales. We rely on online sales. No answer but to keep going!
I appreciate so much of what you post and try to repost.
It's clear that you're doing everything you can.
Admiring.
Wishing you 🍀🍀
And more often than not come back to us because customs reject them...!
It's ever since the EU took away the 'small orders threshold' a couple of years ago :(
Definitely have one.