It’s been six solid months since I launched The Library of Lost Books. I want to use this post to look back and review the stats, but also to look forward.
I’m collecting the stats on my book launch so that aspiring writers out there can get a feel of what to expect when they publish an e-book. I’ve found it difficult to find hard data myself, so I hope this fills that gap.
First, I’m sure some books did better than mine and I’m sure others didn’t do as well. I hope my stats just add one more data point to what’s already out there.
To set this up, these are numbers from July 12, 2012 to January 12, 2013, or exactly six months of sales for Library. During that time, Library has been exclusively on Amazon Kindle, except for about one week were it was also available on Nook. I took it off Nook because sales were slow and I wanted to take advantage of KDP Select’s marketing programs again which had worked well in the past. Also, except for 1 short story, this was the first thing I ever published. Thus, name recognition was about zer
o.
Here are the headline numbers for Library over that time period:
- 1,537 total downloads (includes giveaways, sales and borrows).
- 175 sales.
- 10 borrows
I will break down the stats into three sections: Marketing, Sales and Income. Marketing discusses my marketing budget and dollars spent. Sales discusses the number of sales and downloads from Kindle. Income discusses how much I got paid in royalties.
Marketing Stats
So, these are the marketing activities I used to promote the book:
- A group email to friends announcing the book. Free.
- Simple pop-ups ads on Goodreads. My budget was small, spread from August until December. $210 total.
- I “attended”one author event. A Q and A session on the Readers and Writers group at Goodreads. Free.
- Started this blog, a Twitter and Facebook account to promote the book. Free.
Here are the stats for my Goodreads Ad Campaign:
- Total views (really # of times your ad is served): 750,592
- Total clicks: 470
- Click thru rate for all time: 0.06%
- Cost per click for all time: $0.48
In the end my marketing activities (ads, blog, Twitter, event) reached just over 500 people which for a book from an independent, unpublished author wasn’t bad. (My blog has had over 100 views and I have about 40 Twitter followers).
Sales Stats
How many books did I sell or giveaway in six months? Here are the numbers.
| USA | UK | Germany, France, Italy, Others | Totals per Category | |
| Sold | 109 | 33 | 33 | 175 |
| Giveaways | 1128 | 181 | 43 | 1352 |
| Borrows | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Total per country | 1247 | 214 | 76 | 1537 |
I never imagined my book would have reached over 1,000 people. I was hoping to sell about 30 copies just to get one paycheck from Amazon. It’s really exciting to think my book is on that many devices and that I’ve sold close to 200 copies.
Income Stats
I usually don’t discuss how much I make with strangers…but I can’t see any harm in broadcasting the fact that (based on my writing income alone) I’m dirt poor.
So, how much did money did Amazon send me in royalties last year?
- $66.48. (This includes four checks starting with September and going through Jan. 2013.)
So, you throw in the $210 I spend to advertise the book. Add in the dollars I spent to compensate the e-book designer, cover designer and proofreader…and you can see it was a money-losing venture. But hey, I’m doing this because I love it. I look at it as my hobby and if I spend a bit of money on my favorite hobby, there’s not harm in that.
Besides, now I can go buy a couple of nice bottles of wine with my Kindle royalties to celebrate.
Would I do it again?
Hell yeah. The most gratifying single thing about this process was the positive feedback I got from a small group of readers whom I had never met before. In particular, three reviewers gave the book five stars and were really blown away by it. To “only connect” (thanks, E.M. Forster) with just three readers was an enormous high for me and washed away the bad aftertaste from some less-than-glowing reviews.
So, looking ahead…What am I up to? Here it is:
- Done with a Sci-Fi short story and shopping it around to magazines. No bites yet.
- Done with a fantasy short story and shopping it around too. No bites either.
- Deep into a 2nd draft of a 19,000 word novella of historical fiction. I will probably shop this around to journals like The Seattle Review and/or Amazon Kindle Singles.
As you can tell, I’m taking a different approach to getting my stuff out there. I plan on trying to submit my works to magazines/publishers first. The pieces that don’t make it I will most likely publish on Kindle/Nook if I feel they rise to a certain level. For my readers, this means the pace at which new works get released will slow. But it doesn’t mean the pace at which I’m writing is slowing down. All I can say is, be patient and keep watching the blog for more news.
That brings us about to the end of this long post. It’s trite, but true that an end is also a beginning. I’ve learned a lot in the last year about writing fiction, about marketing and publishing and I’m looking forward to bringing that knowledge to bear this year. I’m also eager to get going on new stories, new novels, new plays. I can’t wait until Sunday, when I will settle down in the café and start tapping out some new stuff.
Before signing off, I want to thank all of you who bought/downloaded the book. And an especial thanks to all who read and reviewed it. Your feedback has really inspired me to improve as a writer and keep going. And thanks for giving me one of the great experiences of my life.
As always keep reading, keep writing.
,DJ
Inside the Writer's Mind 