Track sales?

My thoughts on tracking sales of books...

Do I track sales?
No.

Do I plan to track sales?
No.

 

Why?

Sales are not cookies in danger of burning if I'm not watching. They are going to be what they are going be whether my eyes are focused on them or elsewhere.

It boils down to:

Do I need one more thing on my plate?
No. I already feel like this:

(Now, now...all ass jokes and references need not be stated. I've already thought them and giggled incessantly.)

If I did track sales, sure, I'd see trends. I'd see numbers good and bad. Those would impact my decisions. I'd maybe advertise more, hype more, interview more, tweet more, fb more. Yanno, do anything but write more.

Kudos to those who can juggle it into the rest of their writerly activities. I willingly admit that those activities have every possibility of impacting and growing sales, which is of course a good thing I would like very much. It's not that I don't care. It's not that I'm too lazy to go look, though 'how to find sales info' is admittedly not presently in my arsenal of knowledge. It's not that I am unwilling to do promotional activities. What it is is: with work, two boys, a house, a yard, a dog, an aging mom...I fight for my writing time...and writing is where the passion, the emphasis, and the drive, is for me. It's the reward. If I weren't spending up to 40 hours a week at someone else's desk, if the boys were grown and on their own and they were no longer under my direct management, then sure, I can see how I'd have time to track sales and react to it accordingly. I'm not sure I'd find it any more interesting than I do now. I'm not a business person and never claimed to be.

However, I most assuredly am a writer.