July's Numbers, AKA, Why I Was Crapping My Pants in July

I promised I'd share my numbers with you as I went along this crazy-go-nuts road, and that's exactly what I'm going to do :).  Woo hoo!

Okay, so first, history:

In April I had a couple of short stories up and sold 19 e-books.

In May I had the two stories, and released LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS in the last couple days of the month. I sold 30 3-books, 7 of which were Legacies.

June, I sold 125 e-books across two names (this one and my pen name.)

So, July?  How'd it go???

Welp.

I sold over 3500 e-books in July.  Two short stories sold over 1000 copies each.

I flip flopped between feeling sweaty elation and then icy cold terror. Now, I'm much calmer :). 

What a great month, though.  Let me stress, too, that I only have one full length novel:  Legacy of the Empress.  The rest are all short stories, and a 15,000 word novella under my pen name. 

People who say short stories don't sell are wrong.  This is excellent news for all of us!  Have some shorts chillin' on the harddrive?  Well, if you publish them for kindle, nook, etc, you could make money and gain a following before you finish that first novel. 

What are you waiting for?  If you enjoy writing short stories, you have nothing to lose, except maybe $10 for a stock photo.  I edit my stories and make my own e-covers for these short tales.  Go for it! :)  You may be surprised.

August has slowed down already, and I've only sold about 550 so far. Summer is notoriously slow because folks are doing yardwork and chasing rambunctuous kiddos instead of reading, so I'm working on getting new stuff written for Fall :). 

I hope to have two new Veronica Grim, Fairytale Assassin stories ready by September 1st, and then it's time to write the sequel to Legacy of the Empress.  Woo hoo!

It's GO time.

How are your own projects going?  Do you have anything on the burner now?  Tell us about it!

Update Roundup!

Hi, All,

Man.  So sorry I've been neglecting you all lately!

I promise, I still love you.  It's just been one stressful/good/fun/crazy/sad/weird/funny week.  I feel like it's a been a month.  But, also in a good way?  It's like I'm in the Twilight Zone, and I ain't talking about sparkly nosferatu.

Since 7/9, bascially, I've sold 2200 books.  What??

Anyway, things are going really well, but I'm now working harder than ever getting the next installments of Veronica Grim ready to go, as well as getting ready for a sequel to Legacy of the Empress.  My alter ego has a trilogy planned. People:  It is ON!

I had a lot of highs this past week and a half, but I also got my first one star reviews. Egads! They totally happen, and I'm even sort of happy that I got that "milestone" over with ;). It's like waiting for the first rejection from an agent, or getting your period or something. It's a part of the beautiful cycle of Nature.

Okay... I admit I felt like this *just* a little bit:

But, then I read the one-star reviews from some of my favorite authors and felt a smile creeping onto my face.  Dude!  A one star means I'm like... a real author.  With books out there for people to have opinions about!

That's seriously awesome :).

Also, I got some lovely 5 stars for No Rest for the Wicked, Carnivore, and Legacy of the Empress. From Internet Strangers!  Wooo hooooo!

So there you go.  Roller coaster of happy/sad/happy and some hard workin's.

In other news, I promise to actually ship your books out, you lucky contest winners. I still don't have a couple of your addresses, so please email me forthwith to claim your treasures.

There have been lots of fascinating discussions lately in the blogosphere, so expect linkage later this week. 

In the meantime, how the hell are you all doing?  Any projects that you're working on?

I'd love to hear about them!

June Sales Numbers: Knowledge is Power!

I learned something recently that baffled me.  People in other countries, or even in unions in our own country talk about their salary all the damn time.

This came as a surprise because in Corporate America, talking about your salary with other employees can be enough to get you fired.  I started to think about it, and realized the only reason it's frowned upon and forbidden is to keep people ignorant.

You won't complain about getting screwed over if you don't know in the first place, right?

Well, in the book world, it was Indie Authors shirking the taboo to talk about their sales numbers that helped me decide this was the path for me.  So, now that I have two months' worth of data, I'm going to pay it forward and share it with you guys :).

Here's how it's going so far:

April Total Sales:  19  (I had 2 short stories up for 2 weeks)
May Total Sales:  30  (I put out a short story and a novella under a pen name)
June Total Sales:  123
(Legacy went live as well as 1 short story under that name, and 2 more under my pen name)

This month I more than quadrupled last month's sales!  My jaw almost hit the floor when I passed 60 for this month, much less 120... just... wow.

Amazingly enough, the more writing I did, the more sales I had :).

So far on this journey I've made $120.37 on my e-books, $45 on freelance editing, and have spent $133.18 on 250 business cards, 7 pieces of cover art and a domain purchase.  That's $32.94 in profit.

When I make money, I've been investing it back into the business.  I am treating this like it's my small business and I'm growing it for this first year.  When I'm in the black again, I buy more cover art.  Next, I'm thinking of paying $39 to produce a paperback version of LEGACY through Amazon's POD service, CreateSpace.

So, there you go :).  If I manage to double my sales each month (versus quadrupling), I'll be at 1000 sales/month by the end of this year.

That's what I'm working toward, and I plan to put out two more short stories and AT LEAST one novella, if not a full novel by January 1st.  I will also be releasing stories under my pen name.

I hope this was helpful to some of you who are deciding which road to take with your own career.  Best of luck to you, and let me know if you have any questions I can help with, either in the comments or through email.

Here's to July!

Edit:  Almost forgot to post this excellent blog post from super successful indie author Victorine Lieske comparing sales trends.  It's very helpful for gaining some perspective on where people are in this industry.

Goals, and the Art of Not Going Crazy

Well, I've been at this about 7-ish weeks, and I thought it was high time to share not only what short term goals I've set for myself, but about how this whole crazy "indie publishing" thing was really going.

I decided at the beginning, that the only way to not get overexcited or overly nervous was to set small, achievable goals for myself :).

My overall first goal was to sell 100 e-books.  I've heard several places that most people who self publish never make it to 100 sales and then quit in despair.  If I pass that 100 book mark, I'll know for sure I've beaten at least some of the odds and am doing something right.  However, if I can count all my sales on two hands, I've got problems.

My other goal after releasing Legacy of the Empress, was to sell 30 of those alone in the first month.

From haunting the Kindle Boards, I've learned that some folks only make 1 sale their first month, while others make 10-50.  I figured 30 was a good, challenging, but not overly ridiculous goal to set.  My stretch goal was 50.

So, how am I doing so far?

As of this afternoon, I've sold 90 e-books total, most of those sales coming in the past 2 weeks.  I've also sold 21 copies of Legacy in two weeks, so I'm on track to beat 30 sales.

So far I've made approximately $76.

I'll keep you updated as I go, because I want to be as transparent with this process as possible.

It was other authors sharing their numbers that led me on this path in the first place, and if I can help other writers out by sharing, then that's what I'm going to do :).

I hope this is helpful, and I can't wait to celebrate with you guys when I hit that 100 book mark!  After that, who knows?

What are your goals for your writing?  What keeps you going along the long and lonely road?