Call for Authors - Spring Based Book Sale

And 2024 in Review - More than 5,000 Book Sold!

The next Based Book Sale is coming up, and with more than 5000 books sold last year, there’s plenty to discuss about the great results from 2024, too. We’ll review all the top most popular based books from 2024, after explaining how authors can sign up for the Spring Based Book Sale, starting next week!

Signup for the Spring Based Book Sale Now!

The next Based Book Sale starts Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 12:00 AM PST and ends Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 12:00 AM PST.

Authors, want your book included? If you want to participate in the week-long Spring Based Book Sale, here’s what you have to do.

1. First, you have to subscribe so you’ll get the email updates when the sale is live.

   Based Book Sale is a cooperative effort for authors and readers alike. There is no cost to participate, although you may upgrade to a paid subscription to further support our mission.

2. Second, put your book in the comments of this post in this format, a. Whether new to the sale, b. author, c. title, d. link. Example:
   NOT new to the sale; Hans G. Schantz; The Hidden Truth, https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Truth-Science-Fiction-Techno-Thriller/dp/1532712936/
   If you prefer a Book Funnel or other link, you may provide that instead, but then, I won’t have visibility to your sales, and you won’t be listed in the sale rankings.

3. The sale leans heavily toward science fiction and fantasy, but we also end up with thrillers, romance, mystery, and even non-fiction. If you’ve been in the sale before, acceptance is pretty much automatic. I will exclude books that I think don’t fit or may be too salacious, and that certainly includes topics like erotica or LGBQ-themed books. I can’t possibly read all the entries in detail, so I leave it to you to decide if yours is “based:”

   based [ beyst ] / beɪst / adjective
   1. Well-grounded, resting upon a firm foundation.
   2. Principled, devoted to fixed standards, especially in defiance of conventional wisdom.
   3. Rejecting politically correct attitudes and celebrating nonconformity with woke opinion.
   4. Committed to upholding and advancing the good, the beautiful, and the true.
   antonyms: debased, cringe

4. I’ll either "like" your comment or reply with a note if there’s a problem. It may take me a few days to catch up with all the comments. Make sure your book is priced to be free or $0.99 for the sale period, in this case: Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 12:00 AM PST and ends Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 12:00 AM PST. Either schedule a Kindle Countdown deal, if your book is in Kindle Direct, or put in a sales price change a few days in advance of the sale. Don’t cut it too close, since it may take up to 72 hours for the change to go through, and you usually cannot change it again for another month, anyway.

5. I’ll send out a link when the sale goes live. The price you pay for inclusion? Make a good faith effort to promote the sale to your readers through your email list and social media. Introduce your fans and readers to the other author’s books in the sale as the rest of us are doing the same for yours.

More Than 5000 Books in 2024!

Based Book Sale cumulative moved 5392 books in 2024: 612 Kindle Free E-books and 4780 Kindle Paid E-Books.

The Top Ten Based Books

A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day took top honors. John C. Wright authored the next two most popular books. In second place was his first Starquest book, Space Pirates of Andromeda, followed by his 2016 Dragon Award winning Best Novel, Somewither. Vox Day closely follows in fourth and fifth place with A Throne of Bones (Arts of Dark and Light Book 1) and Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy (Arts of Dark and Light). In sixth place was sale newcomer, Devon Eriksen, with Theft of Fire: Orbital Space #1. Michael F. Kane secured seventh place honors with After Moses. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon came in eighth place. Based Book Sale perennial offering, The Hidden Truth was ninth. Henry Brown’s six-book Paradox series in a box set completed the top ten.

The Rest of the Top Twenty Based Books

David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus earned eleventh place. The twelfth most popular book was Titan (Mammon Book 1) by Robert Kroese. Another sale newcomer, David Herod took thirteenth place with Improvidence. John C. Wright shows up again in fourteenth place with Swan Knight's Son (Moth and Cobweb Book 1). D.W. Dixon had a fifteenth place showing with The Buchanan Brothers and the Botanical Bandits (Steampunk Sleuths Book 1). J. M. Anjewierden came in sixteenth place with Mech Bunny. Robert Kroese shows up again in seventeenth place with Codex Babylon: A secret history sci-fi adventure (The Cross-Time Crusade Book 1). J. M. Anjewierden makes a repeat appearance in eighteenth place with The Long Black (The Black Chronicles Book 1). The nineteenth most popular book was Heir to the Sundered Crown (The Sundered Crown Saga Book 1) by Matthew Olney. Returning sale veteran S. Kirk Pierzchala closed out the top twenty with Echoes Through Distant Glass: Beyond Cascadia: One.

How do the Rankings Work?

The numbers are generated from Amazon Affiliate links on the sale pages (from which I get a 4% royalty), and they do not include purchases outside the sale. Authors typically report sales 50% to 100% higher. Also, you have to be present to win. Books not in the sale are not eligible for Top Based Book honors. And books that appear in multiple sales have an edge over those that only appear in one sale. Nevertheless, the 2024 Based Book Sale Top Twenty is a crowd-sourced list of some of the best Based Books available, crowd-selected from a list of over two hundred.

You should take a look at these fan-favorite authors, if you’re not already familiar with their work. Here’s a complete list of the top fifty.

The Top Fifty and Sale Quantities

And The Rest of the Top Hundred

Thanks for making the Based Book Sale a success and for demonstrating that distributed, crowd-sourced marketing can bypass ideological gatekeeping.

Let’s work together to make 2025 even more successful.