Transparency in Indie Publishing, Month 9

I can't believe it's been nine months since I started self-publishing The Steam and Steel Chronicles! Sales were good this past month, better than they've ever been, which is nice. I seem to sell between 145 and 165 books per month without doing much marketing (other than the occasional Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ post), so that's encouraging. It means the word is out there at least to an extent.

I'm hard at work on books three and four as part of NaNoWriMo (over 7k words into book three already), and hope to release them in January and February. I'll be doing a tight release schedule like I did with the first two, so you won't need to wait too long between them. I'll also be putting together some special editions, and will probably do a contest or two surrounding the launches of the books. I'm even thinking about giving away a Kindle! (It'll be one of the ones with offers, because while the books are selling well, they're not selling that well. Of course, if someone wanted to sponsor an iPad giveaway, I'd be more than happy to oblige!)

Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris

Amazon US: 89 (last month was 69)
Amazon UK: 1 (last month was 4)
Barnes & Noble: 7 (last month was 16)
Smashwords: 0 (last month was 1)
TOTAL: 97 (last month was 90)

The Great Healion Race

Amazon US: 58 (last month was 49)
Amazon UK: 2 (last month was 4)
Barnes & Noble: 5 (last month was 4)
Smashwords: 1 (last month was 1)
TOTAL: 66 (last month was 58)

So sales were up at Amazon, but down pretty much everywhere else, which resulted in only slightly better sales (163 this month vs. 148 last month). But, this was my best month to date as far as sales go (the best month prior to this was 154)! So that's good news. I'm hoping that once the third and fourth books come out, I'll see a jump in sales. I'll also be doing a lot more marketing at that point, and will likely release one long ebook with all four books included, plus a bonus short story that I've been thinking about writing. Or I might release the short story for free, as an enticement to buy the rest of the books.