It exists. Very much so. However, it does appear it’s possible to climb out of that abyss. For no apparent reason, sales in the month since the nose dive off the cliff are on an easily identified upward trend (sales dashboard graph) so apparently all is not lost when one dives off that cliff. It’s been interesting to watch. On the other hand, it’s time to publish another book. Good thing I’ve been working on a couple. :D
This is actually the most cliff-like drop in sales I’ve ever noticed. Probably because I don’t do typical promotions so all my sales tend to be spread out instead of in clumps that might trigger an algo adjustment. It’s possible I don’t know what I’m talking about here, fyi. This is also the longest I’ve gone without publishing a new novel, so I haven’t had a chance to see a six-month cliff before.
I have read about others who experience 30 day and 90 day cliffs but I haven’t noticed those before. My reports show fairly steady increases, and then declines, between releases. Spikes are unusual.
This started me digging into my numbers a little more, and lo and behold I discovered an interesting thing. My not-as-popular novel series has barely earned more than my short story series in the last 90 days. Makes me think I should write more short stories instead of novels, unless they’re novels in my popular series, because … ouch. Those novels are 6x as long (and probably take more than 6x as long to write!) and that hurts my ego just thinking about it.