Transparency in Indie Publishing, Month 10

Wow, it's hard to believe that I've been self-publishing for ten months now! I hit a big milestone this month: I sold my 1,000th ebook! This is a huge deal to me, since most self-published books never sell more than a couple hundred copies. I've also had my best sales month to date.

As far as marketing this month, I've been plugging a little bit on Google+ and Twitter, which I know has generated a few sales. And I had a couple of new reviews on Amazon (if you've read either of the books and feel like leaving a review, I really do appreciate them!), some of which were really favorable. One of my favorite quotes from a review of The Great Healion Race:

This is not Edward and Bella, living in perfection for all eternity. These are two adults with overwhelming baggage as the ballast for their journey. I especially appreciated how Ms. Chapman allowed her protaganists to be messy, angry and human.

Seriously, that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my books. Because that's exactly what I was going for: complicated people who have messy, screwed-up lives, and find a way to love each other anyway.

Below are my sales numbers for this month. I saw a drop in sales for the second book, but a big jump in the first book. Hopefully that will translate to more sales for the second book in the next couple of months.

Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris

Amazon US: 102 (last month was 89)
Amazon UK: 3 (last month was 1)
Barnes & Noble: 14 (last month was 7)
Smashwords: 1 (last month was 0)
TOTAL: 120  (last month was 97)

The Great Healion Race

Amazon US: 53 (last month was 58)
Amazon UK: 0 (last month was 2)
Barnes & Noble: 5 (last month was 5)
Smashwords: 0 (last month was 1)
TOTAL: 58 (last month was 66)

Total sales reached 178! By far my best month yet. Which is really great since I had a rather nasty review on a rather influential blog. I was afraid it would have a negative effect on my sales, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm hoping to have the third book out in late January. The fourth will hopefully follow sometime in February.

I'm hoping to release at least two more books in 2012, and I might push for three or four. I have one that's half-finished that I want to finish, and two others planned, and I have a fourth in a different genre that just needs a final round of edits. So I think it's do-able to manage four books this year. Maybe.