Last Report of the Year 2014
Well, I don't know if this will actually be the last report of the year, but it's going to be the blog posting that contains the annual stock-taking and reflections on the year past, along with juicy sales figures.
As usual in terms of book sales, 2014 began with a whimper at Smashed-Rat-on-Press, but I had already set the corporate goal early by budgeting to get one new reader per year from now on. That happened in February, so the rest of the year was just a boat load of good gravy for the furry-faced folks at SROP.
But for my main alias, the guy who wrote all those quaint Martian Women books, it was a complete wash-up year. He didn't publish anything. Boo hoo! Instead, 2014 was a bonanza year for a few pseudonyms who got all the glory. Their publications, in order, are discussed below.
One of our favorite SROP authors, Kajolium Broadwick, got the SROP year started with a little samizdat offering, Do Anarchists Dream of Exploding Ice Cream? on March 1, then followed up with his main book of the year, Three Maidens in the Dark on April 2.
This year's first authorial debut was by young Ginger Amelia Sprockette, who published two books rather back-to-back in the spring. Those were her autobiographical offerings, Soft Pink Rain on April 15 and Time Enough For Picnics on May 30.
Ms Sprockette's sales have unfortunately been zero... Er, I mean, uh not very high to date. But we've been pleased that everyone who read her books seems to have enjoyed them. LOL. I suppose if they were made available on Earth she might have sold a few more, but with the embargo situation, that's just not possible.
Then, in the middle of (northern hemispherical) summer, on the Fourth of July precisely, SROP published the second (small, and probably final) Shenanigan Cheesefield book, The Mildewed Paper Collection.
That's a free print-it-yerself poetry book, but it still doesn't sell, probably because poetry doesn't sell very well anyway, as most poets know.
And then, on Halloween Day (October 31) was the highly anticipated block-buster event of the year with the release of Sanguinity Hematode's break-out bannable novel The Girl Who Grew Crutches From Seeds in a Garden of Exotic Delights. (Which won an obscure literary award. Yawn.)
Someone (besides dear Fernij) actually read it, by the way, and then reviewed it, which was excellent news for Ms Hematode, considering the unfortunate price-hike she was forced to endure not long after the intial publication.
And that about sums it up for SROP releases in 2014.
Maybe next year will be more productive, but I may have to offer the little rodents even more carrots, seeds, and parsley to get them working harder.
And now, on to the topic everyone loves: book sales.
It turns out that 2014 was the biggest SROP sales year in history, during which we sold nearly as many books in a year as we did in the ten years before!
This year, sales nearly doubled from 2013. Yes, believe it or not! Exclamation marks, ahoy! Total sales volume across the entire SROP catalog was an unbelievable 22 books (many of which came in a November surprise deluge, coincident with the arrival of actual rain in Santa Banana). However, sales revenue was little more than half of what it was in 2013. Our little underground press made $3.54 in 2014, all of which was due to e-book sales. Last year, surprise sales of A Modest Collection of Slightly Shocking Fairy Tales (SSFT) brought in $6.00 for the year, which was weird and resulted from a regrettable "pricing problem". This year we corrected the prices on SSFT paperbacks downward so, although we sold seven copies, revenue on those sales was back down to a comfortable zero dollars.
And that brings us to the weirdest statistic of all... In the last two years, SSFT has sold 14 copies to the general public, topping all other books ever. (Not counting a handful of giveaways and artist's copies.) This is just inexplicable, as far as the SROP-ly rodents are concerned and we're huddling now trying to understand what went wrong.
We have a warehouse full of all-natural non-GMO grass-fed beef-steaks that we're willing to give away at the back door, and yet potential customers just want to nibble the colorful sugary cupcakes on our doorstep.
To be fair, however, every new book published by SROP in 2014 was read by at least one person who was not actively involved in production. That's spectacularly awesome, given our glory-free past.
Onward. Upward. And thence back to the comfort of our safe little subterranean haven.
As usual in terms of book sales, 2014 began with a whimper at Smashed-Rat-on-Press, but I had already set the corporate goal early by budgeting to get one new reader per year from now on. That happened in February, so the rest of the year was just a boat load of good gravy for the furry-faced folks at SROP.
But for my main alias, the guy who wrote all those quaint Martian Women books, it was a complete wash-up year. He didn't publish anything. Boo hoo! Instead, 2014 was a bonanza year for a few pseudonyms who got all the glory. Their publications, in order, are discussed below.
One of our favorite SROP authors, Kajolium Broadwick, got the SROP year started with a little samizdat offering, Do Anarchists Dream of Exploding Ice Cream? on March 1, then followed up with his main book of the year, Three Maidens in the Dark on April 2.
This year's first authorial debut was by young Ginger Amelia Sprockette, who published two books rather back-to-back in the spring. Those were her autobiographical offerings, Soft Pink Rain on April 15 and Time Enough For Picnics on May 30.
Ms Sprockette's sales have unfortunately been Then, in the middle of (northern hemispherical) summer, on the Fourth of July precisely, SROP published the second (small, and probably final) Shenanigan Cheesefield book, The Mildewed Paper Collection.
That's a free print-it-yerself poetry book, but it still doesn't sell, probably because poetry doesn't sell very well anyway, as most poets know.And then, on Halloween Day (October 31) was the highly anticipated block-buster event of the year with the release of Sanguinity Hematode's break-out bannable novel The Girl Who Grew Crutches From Seeds in a Garden of Exotic Delights. (Which won an obscure literary award. Yawn.)
Someone (besides dear Fernij) actually read it, by the way, and then reviewed it, which was excellent news for Ms Hematode, considering the unfortunate price-hike she was forced to endure not long after the intial publication.And that about sums it up for SROP releases in 2014.
Maybe next year will be more productive, but I may have to offer the little rodents even more carrots, seeds, and parsley to get them working harder.
And now, on to the topic everyone loves: book sales.
It turns out that 2014 was the biggest SROP sales year in history, during which we sold nearly as many books in a year as we did in the ten years before!
This year, sales nearly doubled from 2013. Yes, believe it or not! Exclamation marks, ahoy! Total sales volume across the entire SROP catalog was an unbelievable 22 books (many of which came in a November surprise deluge, coincident with the arrival of actual rain in Santa Banana). However, sales revenue was little more than half of what it was in 2013. Our little underground press made $3.54 in 2014, all of which was due to e-book sales. Last year, surprise sales of A Modest Collection of Slightly Shocking Fairy Tales (SSFT) brought in $6.00 for the year, which was weird and resulted from a regrettable "pricing problem". This year we corrected the prices on SSFT paperbacks downward so, although we sold seven copies, revenue on those sales was back down to a comfortable zero dollars.
And that brings us to the weirdest statistic of all... In the last two years, SSFT has sold 14 copies to the general public, topping all other books ever. (Not counting a handful of giveaways and artist's copies.) This is just inexplicable, as far as the SROP-ly rodents are concerned and we're huddling now trying to understand what went wrong.
We have a warehouse full of all-natural non-GMO grass-fed beef-steaks that we're willing to give away at the back door, and yet potential customers just want to nibble the colorful sugary cupcakes on our doorstep.
To be fair, however, every new book published by SROP in 2014 was read by at least one person who was not actively involved in production. That's spectacularly awesome, given our glory-free past.
Onward. Upward. And thence back to the comfort of our safe little subterranean haven.
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