I just had an exchange with a PressBooks user, who wondered why their book is not selling well in the Kindle store, which, I imagine, is a common question for authors. I answered:

• imagine that your book is in a bookstore
• imagine that bookstore makes it very easy for readers to find a book if they know the title or author
• now  imagine that that bookstore has 1.7 million books in it
• what will inspire people to look for (and buy) your book, rather than another one?

To put that in context: imagine you live in Kansas  City (population 1.7 million), and that a tourist is visiting your city. What are the chances that that one tourist will buy you a coffee tomorrow? About the same chance that they will buy your book, if it just happens to be in the Kindle store. (Statistician’s caveat: there are far more visitors to the Kindle store in a day than there are tourists visiting Kansas City).

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