Nook Sales vs. Kindle Sales?

[pam-livingimage]

I agree with MichaelWallace,

But I think that Barns & Noble does not want to promote successful indie authors.  If you type in search, for Hawkings, you don't see Amanda Hawkings, but you see other authors that don't sell many books.  She sells thousands of novels.  But she is not featured anywhere.  Only authors with traditional publishers get lots of publicity.

Amanda is much more popular than many of the traditionally published authors, but she is not featured at B&N.  I think they let indies publish, but only because they want to compete with Amazon and feel compelled to do so.  Many authors that are spectacularly successful at Amazon can't sell anything at B&N.

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(each complete novel is .99 cents)

Midnight Reflections  - Romantic Suspense

The Necromancer - Paranormal, witches, scary fun  

The Living Image  - Thriller, clones, twins, spies

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[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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pam-livingimage wrote:
If you type in search, for Hawkings, you don't see Amanda Hawkings, but you see other authors that don't sell many books.  She sells thousands of novels.

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You just need to spell her name correctly: Hocking.

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?store=EBOOK&WRD=hocking

[ABthree]

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Doug_Pardee wrote:

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pam-livingimage wrote:
If you type in search, for Hawkings, you don't see Amanda Hawkings, but you see other authors that don't sell many books.  She sells thousands of novels.

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You just need to spell her name correctly: Hocking.

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Stupid computers!  They're so literal that way. 

[frantastk]

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pam-livingimage wrote:

I agree with MichaelWallace,

But I think that Barns & Noble does not want to promote successful indie authors.  If you type in search, for Hawkings, you don't see Amanda Hawkings, but you see other authors that don't sell many books.  She sells thousands of novels.  But she is not featured anywhere.  Only authors with traditional publishers get lots of publicity.

Amanda is much more popular than many of the traditionally published authors, but she is not featured at B&N.  I think they let indies publish, but only because they want to compete with Amazon and feel compelled to do so.  Many authors that are spectacularly successful at Amazon can't sell anything at B&N.

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I believe I've seen one of Amanda Hockings books featured on the main nookbooks page a while back. I remember because it was the first I'd heard of her and I clicked and put a bunch of her stuff on my wishlist because of it. Right after that I started hearing her name all over the place.

Fran

[MichaelWallace…]

There's something else I've been noticing that is different between a Nook reader and a Kindle reader. I've received a few letters from my readers about The Righteous and it seems to me that the Nook readers are, in general, reading at a greater depth than the Kindle readers. Again, this is just on average, and the sample is still small enough that I'm not 100% confident, but the Nook readers are interesting in discussing some of the nuances of the story, whereas most of the Kindle reader comments have been about plot and/or the page-turning quality of the book.

I'm beginning to suspect there is an overlapping, but slightly different demographic between the two sets of readers.

[MichaelWallace…]

I've been talking to some writers on another board I frequent. It appears that erotica writers sell better on B&N than Amazon, relative to other writers. This seems to go against what I've been speculating here. Any ideas why that might be the case?

[skodobah]

I am about a year late to this thread, but found it because I am curious about the same thing.

All of my sales on Amazon pale in comparison to the hundreds of books sold on B&N. I have more reviews here, better rankings... but no explanation. The results at B&N have kept me out of the Amazon Select program because it doesn't seem worth it when my sales here are good and steady.

It could be genre, as one poster noted. I write YA.

- Julie

[RHWright]

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pam-livingimage wrote:

I agree with MichaelWallace,

But I think that Barns & Noble does not want to promote successful indie authors.  If you type in search, for Hawkings, you don't see Amanda Hawkings, but you see other authors that don't sell many books.  She sells thousands of novels.  But she is not featured anywhere.  Only authors with traditional publishers get lots of publicity.

Amanda is much more popular than many of the traditionally published authors, but she is not featured at B&N.  I think they let indies publish, but only because they want to compete with Amazon and feel compelled to do so.  Many authors that are spectacularly successful at Amazon can't sell anything at B&N.

---

(each complete novel is .99 cents)

Midnight Reflections  - Romantic Suspense

The Necromancer - Paranormal, witches, scary fun  

The Living Image  - Thriller, clones, twins, spies

---

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@pam:

Know you haven't posted in awhile, so you may not see this; but, I (finally) went to check out two of your books and the links don't go anywhere. Searching by title also didn't seem to bring up your works.

Was there a reason these got pulled? Did you go Kindle-exclusive?

[compulsiveread…]

I'm probably not going to say anything new, but maybe. Just my own observations and experience.

I have a kindle and a nook. Every day, there are several blogs promoting free and bargain ebooks for kindle. Sometimes, 100 or more a day. I usually find less than 20 for the nook. often as few as one or two. Not because they aren't there, but they are harder to find and there are fewer blogs devoted to promoting nookbooks. I have noted too that some of the blogs mention the difficulty of finding them as well. 

There is still a perception among some readers that indie authors aren't as good as published authors or they would be published as well. I find that not to be true. I have added several amazing indie authors to my favorite author list and rarely purcahse from published authors any more. They (published authors) are not always better and cost several times more!

90% of my purchases from indie authors are a result of a free ebook offer. If I loved it, I buy more of their ebooks. My purchases of new authors are usually based on reviews and ratings. But if you aren't being read, you won't have reviews and ratings. A free ebook can provide that. You have to get them reading to keep them reading.

There are devoted to promoting indie authors. Have you tried them?

[compulsiveread…]

meant there are websites devoted to helping promote indie authors.

[kamas716]

I think that while there is a small overlap of Kindle and Nook readers, the two sets stay fairly separate.  I have a couple of friends that have a kindle (3 I think), but I have a whole bunch of friends and family with Nooks (20+).  The differences in what they read is also fairly distinct.

[MacMcK1957]

My wife has a Kindle while I have the nook. We also have iPads, which allows her to have the Nook app to read the morning paper from my subscription. As it happens, our literary tastes have almost no overlap, so aside from the paper there's nothing we need to be able to share.

[Coaxial_Creatu…]

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MichaelWallace23 wrote:

There's something else I've been noticing that is different between a Nook reader and a Kindle reader. I've received a few letters from my readers about The Righteous and it seems to me that the Nook readers are, in general, reading at a greater depth than the Kindle readers. Again, this is just on average, and the sample is still small enough that I'm not 100% confident, but the Nook readers are interesting in discussing some of the nuances of the story, whereas most of the Kindle reader comments have been about plot and/or the page-turning quality of the book.

I'm beginning to suspect there is an overlapping, but slightly different demographic between the two sets of readers.

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No offense, but how large is the pool of people you're talking about?   Because if it's only one or two percent of people reading ebooks in general, it might be more appropriate to say that you've noticed it about the people reading your books, althought that, again,  is not necessarily true.   What you've noticed is amongst the people who've both read your books and taken the time to contact you.

I read this earlier in the day and it's been bugging me.  I adopted a Kindle months and months before the Nook came out.   When I did get my first edition Nook, the bottom LCD screen triggered my migraines and I spent more time with my Kindle and almost none with my Nook.   By the time the simple touch came out, I was unwilling to drop my Kindle library.  

I'm obsessive about analyzing why I react to things, and the psychology behind the characters in books, and I consider myself to be a reader who looks for naunces.   I believe a lot of the people I intereact with on the Kindle forum feel the same way about their books.    Making a blanket statement about Kindle vs. Nook readers makes my eye twitch a little, right there at the corner.  For one, there are way, way too many variables.   While you know how many readers contacted you, do all of them say which platform they read the book on?   How many readers do you have versus how many ereaders there are in general is another variable, and unless you can provide me with that percentage, I'm like... eh...

And at the risk of sounding slightly snobby, I have no real interest in reading books by authors who publicaly disparage readers, seem to call me stupid - or at the very least not as sophisticated because of of which device I own, and throw around 'differences between readers' without backing up said disparages, possible insults, and differences with numbers, percentages, or any sort of manner of actually making some sort of concrete argument to back up his theory. 

And let this be a warning to authors - just because you post on a Nook forum, Kindlers may read this.   And I suspect that I'm not being called an idiot just because I read on a Kindle rather than a Nook, but may I emphasize phrasing here - there's clearly a 'Nook readers are more sophisticated' vibe here, and that can turn readers off.   I'm here because I'm a B&N employee, although if I were thinking of trading in my Kindle reading ways for B&N, I'd still be a little wary of read

[Omnigeek]

Way to be hypersensitive Coaxial.  All he said was that the Nook readers seemed to be reading (in general) at a greater depth than the Kindle readers based on the few letters he'd received and the questions they'd asked.  He also said it was just on average and a small enough sample that he wasn't confident.

His main point, that there is an overlapping but slightly different demographic, has already been shown by the difference in how they do between fiction and non-fiction.

[Coaxial_Creatu…]

So hypersensitive I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said that I suspect he didn't call me an idiot. No, I just pointed out that it can sound that way, that if he's trying to sell something he might want to be careful of insulting a potential audience and then pointed out that the sloppy logic made me twitch. Bs made a vaguely insulting comment followed up by even more vague 'proof'. Did ten people e-mail him? A hundred? A million? What percentage said what reader they used? How many of those read on Kindles Vs. Nooks? What ratio of Kindle readers wanted to talk in depth? What ratio of those who read on Nooks wanted to talk in depth? What percentage of purchasers took the time to e-mail him? How much of the market share does he have? Do you see how meaningless I find such statements without any numbers to back them up?

[keriflur]

Yep, still hypersensitive.  I'm guessing by post count that, unless you're bringing baggage from somewhere else, you and MichaelWallace have no standing relationship or connection.  So, you are getting worked up about something a stranger said on the internet.  And you've been worked up about it for... days?

I'll be the first to admit, I get annoyed with things people say on the internet.  But it's been DAYS.  That's forever in internet time.  It's probably time to let it go.

[Coaxial_Creatu…]

Look up the definition of hypersensitive. Unduly vulnerable. I personally would still buy Michael's book if I really loved the description; I know of his books, and have one or two from when he offered them for free. I'm precise and not swayed by flimsy arguments. Given his lack of detail, no, I would not say with confidence that there are necessarily different demographics between the two platforms. More proof, and concrete proof is needed. I honestly don't care what people think. I'm just pointing out the flaws in the argument - valid points. As for seeming upset for days, I check this forum rarely as it moves far more slowly than others I post to. *shrugs*

[cebj25]

This year, I've actually had more Nook sales than Kindle sales. I don't know if it's because I post both links everywhere I promote or if it just happens to be coincidence. I know on Twitter, a lot of my followers tend to re-tweet my nook links though. My biggest seller on B&N is Times of Trouble (Christian fiction) , and I have more reviews on Amazon, while on Amazon, it seems like my sales have hit a brick wall. If I could figure out which things work and which things don't, I would keep doing it.