Happy Saturday, everyone!
I know I always find it super helpful when self-pubbed authors post their sales stats, so I’ve collected my stats for January and February and detailed them below.
A couple of notes, and a couple of takeaways:
NOTES:
- This is all ebook-related — I think I sold maybe 1 print book, so I didn’t include that in the stats
- “sold” means an actual sale
- “borrowed” means the book was borrowed as part of the Kindle Unlimited program (basically an online library) — if they read past 10% of the book, I get a certain amount of money based on that month’s Unlimited Fund (about $2 per book, I believe)
- “free” means a free download (from one of the free download days I ran as part of KDP Select)
TAKEAWAYS:
- The number of books borrowed almost doubled the number of books sold — which means that 2/3 of my money is coming from KDP Select — so, in the eternal Smashwords vs. KDP Select war, I’m a fan of KDP Select right now, as those borrows are really doing work for me
- I made about $100 a month (approx), on a first title by a new author, with not too much advertising — which is great! Hopefully A) that continues for future months, and B) the amount will rise when I eventually publish Chasing Nonconformity
- Denmark randomly buys/borrows/downloads my book a lot more than other European countries — no idea why
That’s all the analysis I can manage on a snowy Saturday afternoon. I’m off to get tasty, delicious pizza now. Below are the stats. View and enjoy!
January
.com 17 sold, 31 borrowed, 1063 free.uk 5 sold, 9 borrowed, 89 free.denmark 1 sold, 2 borrowed, 22 free.france 3 free.ca 143 free.italy 1 free.in 5 free.aus 1 sold, 1 free~~~February.com 12 sold, 38 borrowed, 690 free.uk 6 sold, 11 borrowed, 124 free.den 1 sold, 2 borrowed, 60 free.fra 5 free.jap 2 free.ca 3 sold, 3 borrowed, 31 free.it 2 free.in 2 free.aus 16 free.neth 2 free~~~Total stats for 2 monthsSold: 46Borrowed: 96Free: 2261~~~January.com $76.52.uk $20.45.den $4.52.aus $2.12TOTAL $103.61~~~February.com $77.50.uk $25.34.den $4.70.ca $9.08TOTAL $116.62~~~Grand total for 2 months: $220.23~~~
Unrelated media of the day:
(forgive the blurriness)
Source: http://imgur.com/gallery/RDAhF
Michelle Proulx - Author 
How to not be evil: Pity the fools.
Lol! I like “fool” as an insult — it’s kind of mean, but also totally tame.
That meme makes a lot of sense.
Truth.
cool. cool. I’ll be publishing my first book next week and I’m going to go with KDP select and enrolling it in kindle unlimited. I’m hoping it doesn’t disappear into nothingness 🙂
That’s the goal! Definitely use the free giveaway days — I’m not sure if this is true for everyone, but I’ve found that I get the most sales/downloads on Sundays. No idea why. Do with that info what you will 🙂
That’s a lot of sales! Good for you. 😀
Since I’m re-editing Puppet Parade now, I’m going to take down the ebook from all channels (Nook, iBookstore, B&N, Smashwords) and make it available exclusively through Amazon because I’m really not getting any sales from those websites and everyone seems to have had such a positive experience with KDP!
It’s gone pretty well for me so far — I really love the Kindle Unlimited thing, because the people are technically downloading your book for free, but you’re getting paid! So as of today, I’d definitely recommend KDP 🙂
Those are pretty good stats! I’m so happy for you 🙂
Thanks! Nowhere near enough to live off of, but as long as people are reading my book, I’m happy 🙂
Lol – I know the feeling 😀