It was one year ago today, Dec. 22, that I finally decided to try this "e-book thing" I'd heard all the kids raving about. I figured I would put up an old novella, Burial to Follow, and hardly anyone would notice, especially those peers I was so worried about.
And I sold two copies as 2009 drew to a close, but I also uploaded The Red Church. In January, when the price was $1.99 and I was making a 35 percent royalty, I sold 67 copies of Red Church and 12 of Burial to Follow. The next month, I sold 413 copies combined. In March, I sold 771 copies as I added another book. It still wasn't much money, but it began to look reasonable and I softened my stance on self-publishing.
April took me a step back to 667 copies total. March moved up to 793, followed by 1,119 in June, 1,152 in July, and back down to 1,146 in August, when Amazon's 70 percent royalty kicked in and I raised some prices to $2.99.
September made a nice little jump, to 1,949 copies, and my first United Kingdom sales trickled in. October saw the first significant surge, up to 2,799 copies. November got crazy when Disintegration broke into the Kindle Top 100, reaching as high as #30 overall. For the month, I sold 12,422 Kindle e-books.
I'll be down for December, as Disintegration did its inevitable cooling, and as of last night I had 5,810 sales for the month to date. All these numbers are for Kindle e-books in the U.S. only. More books than I sold in any NY year except my first. More money made than in any of them.
In my first full year in the
Scott Nicholson industry, I sold 29,120 copies on the U.S. Kindle. I'm not laying out these numbers to brag or send anyone scurrying to measure themselves against me--there are plenty doing way better than me. But I have a pretty nice level that works for me and is easy to sustain and build, and that's all any writer should seek.
After six books in NY, I like this way a lot better!
Full analysis
at my blog
Scott