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I have four e-books listed on Amazon through the KDP process. One is fiction (a full-length novel), and the other three are non-fiction (two collections of essays and a Vietnam memoir). Of the three non-fiction books, the memoir is steadily growing in sales each month. August saw average sales of 6 copies a day. The other books sell sporadically but consistently.
What I have learned from this is: you get more sales from books that have an audience that is interested in reading about the topic (duh!); non-fiction sells more easily than fiction; Amazon's system of ranking the top 100 in its various categories is a huge driver of sales.
I think that last point is important. The most obvious implication is to pay close attention to how your book is categorized in Amazon. My book has no reviews and a handful of thumbs up. But it is ranked in the top 100 in three different categories, making it easy for readers to find it. The 99 cent price makes it a reasonable impulse buy. The other books are harder to find and therefore much harder to sell. I assume I'm getting sales off of my author's page, another essential element of sales in Amazon that was mentioned by another poster.
The sales may be small compared to the big boys, but in terms of my expectations starting out, I am pleased beyond measure. I expect to sell over a 1,000 copies of the memoir this year, something I would never have thought possible.
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