Halo Effect

In my post about WIZARD-ASSASSIN being in Kindle Unlimited, I mentioned that publishing a new book in the series had a very strong “halo effect” on the previous four books in the series.

Just how strong of a halo effect?

In December, the first four books in the series – HALF-ELVEN THIEF, WIZARD-THIEF, HALF-ORC PALADIN, and ORC-HOARD – did 232% more than they did in November.

It should be interesting to compare that to CLOAK OF WORLDS, which came out in October. In October, all the other CLOAK GAMES/CLOAK MAGE books did 28% more than they did in September.

But! Without context, this is a good example of how its possible to be deceived through clever use of statistics. On the surface, 232% versus 28% looks like Kindle Unlimited is far stronger than having books wide like CLOAK MAGE.

However, the wider context is that CLOAK GAMES/CLOAK MAGE actually made 2.72 times more in October than the entire HALF-ELVEN THIEF series, including WIZARD-ASSASSIN, did in December.

The reasons for that are simple. HALF-ELVEN THIEF has five books, while CLOAK MAGE has thirteen and combined with CLOAK GAMES, CLOAK OF WORLDS was the twenty-fifth Nadia book. Additionally, CLOAK MAGE is available on all ebook platforms, which means even if it had only a slight increase on one platform, that added up across all the others. So that really demonstrates the benefit of a long tail building up over time, since the first Nadia book came out all the way back in 2015, while the first Rivah book came out at the end of 2023. So the CLOAK MAGE series has had a long time to build up steam.

So Kindle Unlimited tends to be good for a short-term shot in the arm, so to speak, while a wide strategy has greater benefits over the long term. I am fortunate that I can write fast enough that I can sort of pursue both strategies at the same time.

-JM