Talking Money

Sales for May 2011

Scroll to bottom of post to see total # of books sold in twelve weeks!

Return of the Rose (3/2/11 Release) $2.99 Medieval Time Travel - 400 pages
Morgan Hayes is whisked back in time where she is forced to marry in her twin sister’s place…a sister she knows nothing about.
B&N:               76
Amazon:      1,518
A Knight in Central Park (3/18/11 Release) $.99 Medieval Time Travel - 390 pages
A regular Joe, a guy who likes hot showers and toothpaste, ends up in 1499 medieval England and must use his Bic and nail clippers to fight off more than one armored man if he wants to live to see another day.
B&N                  314
Amazon           3,965
Taming Mad Max (4/25/11 Release) $2.99 Romantic Comedy - 390 pages
Kari Murphy must work side by side with the guy she spent one spectacular night with during high school, the guy she pined after for too long. Too bad he has NO idea who the hell she is.
B&N                 14
Amazon:          167
Finding Kate Huntley (5/6/11 Release) $2.99 Romantic Suspense - 362 pages

During a vacation in the Caribbean, 15-year old Kate Huntley's father, a prominent U.S. scientist, is murdered before her eyes. Kate grows up alone in Haiti, one of the most dangerous and poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Kate pushes herself to become stronger, mentally and physically. Every day is a struggle for survival. And yet she lives for only one reason...revenge.

B&N                   9
Amazon           174
ABDUCTED (5/31/11 release) - $2.99 Romantic Suspense/Thriller - 480 pages

Escaping from a madman should have been the end of her nightmare...but it was only the beginning.
B&N                 2
Amazon           22
Notes
As you can see above, A Knight in Central Park has dipped in sales (from 250 a day to 100 per day), but I am not complaining. I love that I have gained 4,279 potential readers in May alone. The other day I changed the category (as the author you get to choose 2 categories for each book on Amazon) from straight historical to Fantasy Historical where I believe my medieval time travels should have been all along. It took me a while to figure out categories and rankings and everything else. Still so much to learn.
Return of the Rose is still rising in sales and ranking.  1 to 3 books a day to 50 per day. 1,594 books in May. ROTR would be the book of my heart because I learned so much writing this novel. ROTR garnered me 3 Golden Heart finals out of 6, snagged me an agent, and I was able to work with an editor until she left to work for another publisher. Close but no cigar. What IF, and that's a big IF, I can make $2,000 a month or more off of this one book? And for how many years? Five? Ten? I'll let you do the math. Something to think about if you have a book you love, a book that you are willing to do line edits on and then send to readers before releasing. Just sayin'.  
Taming Mad Max is doing well, but I’m not sure about my cover. And I think I made a mistake by changing the title from Better Late Than Never to Taming Mad Max. I think I might change the cover AND the title and see what happens. What do you think?
Finding Kate Huntley was released two weeks after Taming Mad Max and has passed that book up. I do love this book and FKH was almost picked up by Grand Central a few years back.
ABDUCTED was released yesterday and has started off with a bang!

TOTAL # of BOOKS SOLD in 12 weeks:  13,711

Talking Money - Part I

I thought I was pretty good at numbers…until today.  Since I haven’t received any $ from Amazon or B&N yet…I thought I’d go ahead and share more numbers…and $ amounts!
Return of the Rose is selling for $2.99. March 2, 2011 to  April 30th I have sold approximately 1,010 books at Amazon and 171 books at B&N.
A Knight in Central Park is selling for $.99. March 18, 2011 to  April 30th I have sold 5,610 books at Amazon and 685 books at B&N.
The reports you get from B&N are straightforward, easy to figure out. Sold X #of books in March and you get this much $. You can see how many of each book you sold on a given day.
The reports you get from Amazon aren’t as easy to figure out. It can be done (I think) but since I am throwing this together, I already have a headache and the numbers are accumulative. For example, I can’t see how many books I sold on April 2nd at Amazon. The only reason I have an idea is because I was keeping my own records every day. So, if I had sold 26 books one day…and the next day the numbers for a particular book showed 35 books, I knew that I had sold 9 books so far that day. See! It’s sort of a pain in the butt. But I’m not complaining! No way!  Go, Amazon!
Okay, now the good stuff. For March and April I am expecting to receive…for two books.
B&N:               $   621.60
Amazon:         $4,310.72
Not bad. I’m pretty sure that’s more than I would have been paid in advance money from many traditional/legacy publishers.  Yes, I realize some of the big guys get much more than that…but hey, I’ve been writing for a while now and I’m a happy gal. Besides, give me until the end of the year.  I’ve got some more great books coming next week!
Okay, once I know how the payment thing works, I’ll be posting again! If you have any questions, you know where to find me.