Happy New Year everyone!
The advent of 2013 also marks the end of my second full month as a published author. It’s time to check on how sales went during the month, and make some predictions for the future. Also–graphs!
December Sales and Earnings
- Copies sold: 26 (Kindle–11, Paperback–8, iTunes–2, Kobo – 5)
- Earnings: $77.89
Overall
- Copies Sold: 60
- Earnings: $171.26
- % to Profit: 20.0% (or % of expenses recouped)
Graphs
If I didn’t enjoy playing with Excel so much, I estimate I would get 7% more writing done. Hmm. Maybe I should work it out in a spreadsheet…
Slightly fewer sales in December than November, but…
…I actually earned more, as a greater share of the sales were ebooks. (They give me a better royalty rate than paperbacks, by about 2:1.)
Finally here’s a nice pie showing where each of my total sales has come from.Too early to draw any conclusions yet, though I’d expect the Paperback UK section to grow more slowly for a while, after it’s initial explosion in November when friends and family grabbed their copies.
Promotion
As in November, I didn’t do a huge amount.
- I managed to get ASCENSION POINT listed as part of Kobo’s Boxing Day Promotion, a list of ‘Fantastic Fiction from $1.99’. This prompted the five Kobo sales in the last ten days of the month, after zero sales there for five weeks, so that was productive.
- I got five more Amazon reviews, and as before, for every review I tweeted it, e.g. ‘Another 5* review for #AscensionPoint’ then the link to the review. And, as before, I’ve no idea if these prompted anyone to buy a copy.
Thoughts
- I had my first sales on iTunes. Nice to see action at a new retailer. Come on Barnes and Noble readers, you’re next 🙂
- Most of December’s sales came in the first half of the month, with the rate dropping significantly around the 15th. I’m attributing this to all of my ‘early adopters’–friends, family, blog and Twitter followers–having bought their copy of the book.
- If this is true, then there’s a good chance that sales will stay low in January, or even continue to trend downwards. However, the theory goes that the release of VENUS RISING in (hopefully) April, and the initial promotional kick for that book, should also trigger a bump in the sales of my other books: i.e. ASCENSION POINT. Fingers crossed!
- The only other major promotional effort I have planned is a run on a site called BookBub, which sends email blasts to subscribers who sign up to hear about great books in various genres. Once ASCENSION POINT has a few more good reviews, I can buy an ad, and they’ll market the book to their sci-fi mailing list of ~100K subscribers. Hopefully that will pick up a few sales, some more good reviews, and a bit of visibility.
A new year, a steady start, and another book on the way. Pleasing stuff. All the best in 2013, folks!
DAN HARRIS: 10% SCI, 90% FI 
Wow, I wasn’t sure how all that worked, but your post gave some good insight. Thanks for the information and good luck.
Glad to be useful! That’s what I’m aiming for with these posts. Cheers!
I peeked at the numbers you posted because I’m more familiar with how traditional publishing works versus self. The 20% profit number in your overall confuses me a bit. Am I understanding it correctly when I read that as the percent of costs you had to lay out as a self-published author that you have earned back?
Exactly right. I spent somewhere around $900 on professional editing, cover design, and various other costs that I chose to offset against this book. (Like a copy of Scrivener, the writing application.) I’m just over 20% of the way to earning that back, and being in profit.
Thanks for commenting!
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