I recently spent some time analyzing how many sales I’ve had through Amazon. Keep in mind, this doesn’t count sales through other services (just Amazon). But what I discovered was kind of fascinating, because if you haven’t been paying attention to it, the information kind of sneaks up on you and tries to stab you in the back. Or at least jumps out from the shadows and says “boo!”.
For the record, I’ve been selling books on Amazon as ebooks since 2008. Granted, hardly a single one sold back then, but I was trying to sell one book (Thompson’s Bounty) way back then. Shortly after, Innocent Until Proven Guilty came along, and then a few years later, everything else sort of exploded into print. What’s interesting is that if you look at the numbers (and yes, most people know I’m a number crunching kind of guy), you’ll discover that in 2008, combined with 2009, I sold 9 copies of Thompson’s Bounty. And that’s it. In 2010, I sold 7 books, mixed between the first two I mentioned earlier. And then 2011, well, just kind of went nuts. I sold 181 books, spread out over 8 different titles. 2012 was a little less successful with 135 books sold. Strangely enough, 2013, of which we are only in June, has had 110 sales. Not counted were 77 sales that occurred just last month, so you can see that 2013 has already surpassed both 2011 and 2012, and we’re not even halfway through the year.
As for money, that’s increasing as well, which makes sense when you follow the number of sales.
The quandary for me in publishing has always been trying to figure out how to sell to more readers, or at least how to get readers to at least know my books exist. I wish I could say I’ve found the answer to that, but I haven’t yet. But I’m still searching, experimenting and performing ritual sacrifices to The Shania in hopes of figuring that out.
Anyway, not much of a post about the usual stuff, but as I rarely discuss the business side of the craft, I thought I would share this with you all (which by “all”, I obviously mean my two stuffed animals who make up my readership).
I’m in a similar situation. I started out in 2012 and sold just over 400 books in the whole year. In December I broke 100 in a month for the first time, and now in June I’m heading towards 100/month for the seventh straight month. Thanks to promos I’ve broken 300 and 200 once each, but my expenses are generally more than my income. I’m definitely in the same “have a platform but haven’t taken off” boat that you’re in.
Good luck with many future sales!
Chris Ward