More Sales Numbers for the Curious

These sales numbers are from 5/1/11 thru 5/18/11. A total of 18 days.


A Knight in Central Park, time-travel romance (released on 3/18/11 and offered at $.99)

Amazon:    2,662
B&N:             187

Return of the Rose, time-travel romance (released on 3/2/11 and offered at $2.99)

Amazon:     854
B&N:             51

Taming Mad Max, romantic comedy (released on 4/25/11 and offered at $2.99)

Amazon:      93
B&N:              8

Finding Kate Huntley, romantic suspense (released on 5/6/11 and offered at $2.99) 12 days for FKH.

Amazon:     60
B&N:             2

The reason I think these numbers might be helpful to other writers is because we can all get a snapshot picture of what's happening in self-publishing as more people buy Ereaders. I have never changed the prices of my books because I want to see what happens with the $.99 vs. $2.99 pricing and because I feel that $2.99 is a fair price for all (I know I'm repeating myself.)

Will my newer books slowly rise or slowly drop? How about the time travels? Do time travel romances have a built-in fan base? Do people read more in May or more in October? So many questions. I could go on and on.

In April, 2011, I sold 5,431 of the $.99 book at Amazon. If I double the number above (2,662) by the end of May, I will be close to the 5,431 books I sold in April. If that number keeps up or even rises in the next few months, I am going to assume lots of people are buying kindles and they all like romantic time travels. :)

Truthfully, I have no idea what to do with all these numbers, other than share than with all of you. In a few months, after I release my other books, I might be able to do some concrete analyzing. Believe it or not I am writing and editing more than I am blogging or checking numbers.

I try to spend about 15 minutes a day looking at tweets, another 15 minutes looking over interesting sites or blogs. I probably spend an hour a day over here and I check my sales numbers a few times a day. I'm getting better about that. Checking numbers gets less addicting as time goes by because I'd rather write books than check #'s. I spend a minimum of five hours a day writing.

Disclaimer: I am not promoting self-publishing over any other kind of publishing. If you self-publish your book, I have no idea if you will sell 1 book or 20,000 books. Nobody knows. Self-publishing a book ten years ago or even one year ago is not the same as self-publishing a book today. Writers now have one more option to choose from when thinking about publishing their book(s).

Any questions?

Lions, and tigers, and crappy unedited books! Oh, my!

For the sake of discussion, I need to get something off of my chest. I keep seeing writers on different blogs and loops talk about how crappy unedited books are going to hurt us as writers.

Let me see if I have this right...I think what writers are saying is that if everyone in the world throws a crappy, non-edited book on kindle it's going to hurt them, or me, or some other author.

I don't agree. I think it will only hurt THAT author. 

Whether it's books, music, or movies, people have SO many choices...BUT the decent fun books, movies and songs always seem to find their way to the top...or somewhere close to it. I've watched a lot of movies that probably never should have been made...but I could stop watching it at any time.

Readers of books can read a blurb and download a sample for FREE. That's about three chapters to figure out if they want to read that book or not. Even if they go on to buy the book, they can return it!

I think this whole "indie authors are putting out crap" is a bunch of crap. Someone needs to start giving me names and titles because I've been reading a lot of great indie books lately. I don't think the people who are worried about this have even read a book by an Indie author.

I think they're scared...of nothing. Or maybe of a little more competition.

Nobody is forcing anyone to buy a book. Whether there are one million books on Amazon or ten million, and half of them are crap, all the reader has to do is read the blurb, read the sample chapters for FREE, and then decide. I just don't get how having crappy books out there is going to hurt ME or anyone else. I really don't get it.

And, speaking of editing, I have never read a book, EVER, that didn't have typos and/or grammar problems. Suddenly this is a problem? No one has ever bought a CRAP book from Borders, Barnes & Noble, or Wal-Mart???

There are a LOT of books on Amazon that aren't selling. I think readers know what they want to read.

And still, I'm not telling writers out there to self-publish crappy, unedited books, I'm just not worried about it hurting me and my career if they do. In my opinion, a little competition, crappy or not, never hurt anyone.