Numbers Games – Do They Matter?
For someone who struggled with math in my early years, it might seem strange to say that I love seeing my numbers laid out, but for me it’s all about progress–and seeing in a concrete way what’s working and not for me in my writing career.
Having the ability to look over trends with sales and what I did to increase them [if anything!] lets me know what actions I can take in the future. In my case, it also gives me reassurance that I’m doing okay, not wasting my time or spinning my wheels. I don’t write to trend, so my stories sell strictly on their strength, personal appeal, and being found by the right readers for them. I’m also famously anti-capitalist in my approach and do very little paid advertising. I rely on social media, appearances, and community to get the word out there. Want to see how that’s paid off?
My first book, In Sleep You Know, came out on May 1st 2021.In those 3 years, 9 months and 14 days I have sold 504 books over three titles, in both paperback and e-book.
That doesn’t count anything I’ve given away, just sales counted via KDP and direct sales in person or through my Ko-fi.
Out of all three books, In Sleep You Know is my best seller, which is to be expected. It’s the first book in a series, and it’s been out the longest. Following books in a series often drop off in sales, and that’s the case for me. My third book hasn’t even been out for a year, so it’s still fairly new. I also didn’t push it quite as hard as I could have, though I did do several readings from it last year [four? five? my memory’s for crap, y’all. This is why I keep notes for everything!] Of course there’s also factors outside of my control to consider too, and that will probably have even more effect as we go through 2025. *shudder*
So do you want some further breakdown?Here’s how sales went by amount:
E-books, via KDP [246]Paperbacks, via direct sales [175]Paperbacks, via KDP [72]E-books, via direct sales [11]Out of those sales, CASOD sold the most in e-books, mostly via KDP. ISYK sold the most paperbacks, mostly via direct sales. Overall, as I mentioned, ISYK was my best seller, but CASOD wasn’t far away from it! ATKOM lags behind, which is unfortunate as it’s my favorite in some ways [sorry, my other book babies] but it’s also got some details that could affect its appeal: it’s written in first person, the main character is non-binary, it’s a little darker than the first two. I stand by all those choices, and I acknowledge that it’s the kind of book that takes longer to find its audience. I’m okay with that.
What can I do with these stats?Now that I have everything laid out in a way that I can analyze, what can I do with it? For one, I learned that I did sell more e-books by far than paperbacks but I sold a decent amount of physical copies. As I make more when I sell direct, I should focus on getting more people to buy e-books from Ko-fi. [also when you get them from Ko-fi, they’re DRM free.]
Selling direct is absolutely my strong point. Plus I make enough money that way that I can make special book bundles with reduced prices at events and still make more than I do through KDP. Nothing seems to beat the personal connection of meeting readers face-to-face. These numbers don’t factor in how much it might have cost me to vend at an event, and that reduces my bottom line, but doing them has so many benefits that it makes up for any loss.
Writer friends, are these numbers helpful for you? I firmly believe that my transparency can help other indie writers get an idea of what one average author in my genre does–and as I said, I generally take an anti-capitalist approach, so this is with a lack of advertising. As always, your mileage may vary. If you’d like to learn more about my approach, this is one of the topics I’ll be talking about at length in my course Emergence, which is in the early stages of launch right now. You can learn more at the course page, or on my Ko-fi.
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