THE WALK is, by far, my best-selling book on the Kindle. It out-sells the e-editions of all of my MONK novels and the e-editions of all of my previously out-of-print stuff. Every month I sell more copies than the month before. And today, a little over 12 months since I put the book on the Kindle, I reached a milestone: I sold my 7000th e-edition of THE WALK.
So today I am changing the cover.
What!? Am I insane? Why the hell would I mess with success? Because I think I can sell even more copies with a slicker, bolder, updated version of the same concept…and because it will tie in graphically with my other books on the Kindle. Besides, one of the great things about the Kindle platform is that if the change flops, I can go back to the old cover in a few hours. So here's the old cover…
And here's the new one, designed by Carl Graves.
I think Carl did an amazing job…and I predict my sales, which have gone up every month, will shoot up even more with this cover. What do you think? Am I sabotaging myself…or is this a smart move?
I like the new cover better than the old one. It’s more modern. I really enjoyed the book, too. I like ebooks fairly well, but I get tired of the format after a while and usually can’t keep reading long into the night–my eyes can’t take it. I stayed up later than I should have to read THE WALK on my iPhone. 🙂
I think that this is a smart move. Now I wait to see your results, having opened my mouth.
One of the reasons I stopped reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books was the publishers kept changing the covers. I was never sure which of his books I had all ready bought and read. So rather than buy the same book twice I did not buy any more of his books.
But this is an e-book on Kindle where the cover is not what attracts me to the book. Will this be a separate edition? One of the nice things Kindle offers is when you visit the location of a book Amazon has a banner warning you if you had all ready bought it.
So with e-book edition I don’t think the cover change will matter much either way.
I like the new one, Lee. The fonts are stronger and the image of the man is more effective. He’s wearing a coat, his head is down, he’s more prominent. Also, the yellow flames work better than the red-orange. Yellow can be a dangerous color. It looks not so much like he’s headed for destruction (as with the red-orange) but for corruption.
Love the new cover — I think you’re right, you’ll sell even more copies.
Dang, dude–that new one is a big fat slice of awesome!
Way to go!
the new cover is waaay better. I wonder why aren’t you using the Search Inside feature of Amazon to show excerpt of the book to increment the sales and why aren’t you offering your books in paper through CreateSpace. I think those will be an even better move.
JD,
I will be offering THE WALK in paper through CreateSpace in a few weeks…I’m just waiting for Carl to finish the cover!
Kindle offers readers a free sample of the first few chapters, so you don’t need a “search inside’ feature (not that one is offered for e-books, as far as I know).
Lee
I like it!
Smart move, I say. The new cover has a better image of the character, which makes it more compelling. The first one was too much fire, not enough character. Big improvement.
David