Self Publishing – My Stats
I’d like to preface this post with a little note. Simply, for those of you out there that think self publishing is a sure fire way to get rich quick, you’d be sadly mistaken. Unless, of course, your novel is fantastically outstanding, written to perfection, has an active reading target audience, and is promoted to a high standard. My novels – I’ll admit – have not done fantastically in the sales department, but they have done reasonably well considering I am not a great promoter of my own works.
So, I’d like to briefly just state what my total amount of sales are for my three current published works.
1. Ashlyn and the Lost Prince (ebook) – published February 13th 2013
Ashlyn’s ebook sales currently stand at 911. I’ve had a handful of copies that were bought and then refunded. It has had mixed reviews. It’s been rated 5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars, and 2 stars. Some people love it, some people like it, some people hate it.
I got my first royalties payment from Amazon a little while ago and I think it was something like £11.77. So, Ashlyn is not making me rich.
2. When Your Novel Strikes Back (ebook) – published April 17th 2013
WYNSB is a free ebook so I’m making nothing from it. This is the first ebook that I published through Smashwords and once Ashlyn’s KDP thing runs out I’ll be putting Ashlyn on Smashwords too as it seems to be the best ebook site. Through absolutely no promotion – other than a quick word about it here on my blog and on my Facebook page, as well as links in my ‘Published Works’ and ‘Titles for Sale’ pages on the blog and website – I have ‘sold’ 91 copies of WYNSB. It’s had one review on Smashwords, which was 5 stars. It’s also had one review on Goodreads, which was 3 stars.
3. Of Time and Space (ebook) – published April 20th 2013
OTS is an odd cookie. I didn’t revise it much and so it probably isn’t the best story on the market, I’ll admit. It’s set at $0.99 on Smashwords and I’ve promoted this one less than WYNSB if that’s possible. It has an option to download, I think, 20% of the book before buying. 8 people have taken up that offer, with no one actually buying the book. Not surprisingly, it’s had no reviews.
As you can see, I’m not really focusing that much on marketing – perhaps if I was my sales would look better. I’m happy to plod along though, I’m still working on several other works that will hopefully be worthy of 4 stars and more in all reviews, but I know we can’t please everyone all of the time.
At the moment, I have a fantastically thorough and fast beta reader looking at Ashlyn and the Lost Prince and The Daisy to give me some pointers on how to make those better. I’ve got a couple of critiques to work from for That’s Charming – which I will be rewriting in the coming months. I’ve outlined most of the Ashlyn series and will be writing the next one for Camp NaNo in July. Then there is An Epic Tale, which I’m hoping will work out to be epically awesome.
Long story short, I’m keeping busy with lots of stories.
