At a talk I did in February I mentioned the concept of conversion rates and napansin ko na marami sa audience (na baka authors din) ay hindi pa pala alam ito. So uulitin ko dito sa Wattpad. (Authors, feel free to comment if you know your conversion rates and want to share!)
"Conversion rate" is a marketing term referring to how much of your audience will actually do something that you ask them to do, or in our case as authors, buy our book if we ask them to buy it.
Just by observing my Wattpad stats and the stats of others, it looks like Wattpad's conversion rate in terms of sales for a book is 1% or less.
For example if you have 500 readers for your story you can probably expect 5 people or less to buy the book.
If you have 1000 readers, then maybe 10 people (or less) will buy the book.
If you have 50,000 readers, and you self-publish a book, you'll probably get 500 orders (or less).
I think the audience of that talk in February was mostly literary authors, so hindi sila masyadong nagbabasa online on Wattpad (or AO3 lol), at baka hindi rin sila nagbabasa ng ebooks. Or kung nagbabasa sila ng ebook, baka free or unauthorized/pirated copies lang kaya hindi nila alam yung buyer behavior of people who pay for ebooks or digital books. I was asked, totoo ba na may bumibili pa rin ng book na libre naman na mababasa online?
Oh my god yes, sabi ko. So many authors are selling books even if their books can be read free online (on Wattpad and elsewhere). Because of conversion rate.
I compared it to a band (Korean or Pinoy) that you love and whose songs you can listen to on streaming for free every day. Will you buy an album, merch, or a concert ticket? Not for every artist you listen to. But for your faves, yes. When you look at the number of streams their music or videos get, does that equal to 1 album sold? No, albums sold will be less. There will be a conversion rate. It might be around 1% din or less.
But when their music is accessible to so many people, then that 1% could be 100, 500, 1000, 10,000, 500,000 people buying a song or album.
When our story is accessible to and read by more people, then our 1% conversion rate could be 100, 500, 1000 people.
Some writers don't want this and will not try it. It's not for every story din naman! But for me and us here on Wattpad, and want to eventually sell and publish stories, conversion rates will apply.
What's your conversion rate? Do you know what it is?
BINABASA MO ANG
Publishing and Self-publishing: Advice for Writers
Non-Fiction[FILIPINO/ENGLISH] Advice for writers based on my experience self-publishing (more than 20 novels as of now) and traditional publishing (more than 10 novels with a traditional publisher, and consulting for other fellow authors). Read and learn, but...
