How many self published books have you sold to date?

Tienci

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But you are a success now! And long term, no flash in the pan. Congratulations!!

Thanks, Sunshine.:Sun:

Dallionz, all I can say is keep writing, and prepare to put out the next thing! The game changed for me when I put out my fifth title under my romance pen name. And then again with my eighth. But even now, after 20+ titles overall (a lot of them 'just sitting there'), some babies I can't stop staring at--checking stats etc. :)

Plumone, yes, things certainly turned around for me. Writing in a popular genre (romance) made the difference. Also, Amazon is my main source of income, followed by Barnes & Noble. You are brave to work on building your base the way you are, and I wish you luck! But I don't have the time or energy--I prefer to keep writing, and gladly hand over Amazon etc. the percentage for access to their customer base!

Either way, good luck with getting the word out there about your babies, everyone! Now that my backlist has grown for the romance name, I'm looking into ads to increase my reach.
 
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HistorySleuth

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Basically the idea is that Amazon takes too much of a cut of your profits. The exposure Amazon provides is nice, I can't argue against that. However, after you have a bunch of books out, the price cut starts to take its toll. This problem is duplicated if you are selling your books on a personal website and Amazon, as Amazon will almost always ask you to sell at a discount. Then you are competing against yourself. Also, if I want to change the price of my book or update to a new edition, I can do that fairly easily without having to notify Amazon of it. (Admittedly, I don't know what Amazon requires you to do when you want to make changes).

I've followed this guy for a long time, and he's a big reason I wrote and self published my first book. All of my arguments come from him. Read this:

http://www.johntreed.com/amazon.html

Also, I think not selling on Amazon is also a good idea if you are selling real, physical books. I think with ebooks its a different issue since they are computer bytes and not something you can hold/ship/store.

I will say that I am a newbie, only one book out, and John Reed (the guy I follow) stopped selling his stuff on Amazon after he had published over a dozen books and had quite a following. So I am definitely trying to build myself up from the ground up.

With Amazon you can set it to keep 70% for kindle edition. The object is to sell books through as many sales channels as possible. I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Don't sell yourself short trying to sell only from your website. Too many websites to compete with and people instinctively go to Amazon to look for books. If you want to change the price of your book on Amazon you just go into your user panel and change it. No fuss, no muss.

I also should add some of his info seems faulty. If Amazon itself discounts your book (like my soft covers are lower right now) that is out of Amazons share not yours.
 
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Dallionz

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Thanks, Sunshine.:Sun:

Dallionz, all I can say is keep writing, and prepare to put out the next thing! The game changed for me when I put out my fifth title under my romance pen name. And then again with my eighth. But even now, after 20+ titles overall (a lot of them 'just sitting there'), some babies I can't stop staring at--checking stats etc. :)

Plumone, yes, things certainly turned around for me. Writing in a popular genre (romance) made the difference. Also, Amazon is my main source of income, followed by Barnes & Noble. You are brave to work on building your base the way you are, and I wish you luck! But I don't have the time or energy--I prefer to keep writing, and gladly hand over Amazon etc. the percentage for access to their customer base!

Either way, good luck with getting the word out there about your babies, everyone! Now that my backlist has grown for the romance name, I'm looking into ads to increase my reach.

Thanks for the advice! That's what I heard - just keep writing. That once you have several books up there, all of the others tend to sell better, too. I'm struggling with trying to keep sales going on my first baby while working on the new one. Sales have dropped quite a bit but I feel like I should focus more on the WIP.

I'm glad to hear that the game changed for you a couple of different times!

It's definitely all a very exciting roller coaster and well worth it!
 

plumone

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I JUST SOLD MY FIRST BOOK!!!!
GOD IS REAL. DRINKS ON ME.
(We will need to split my 12 bucks in profit, so everyone get something cheap)
 

AdamNeymars

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lot of discussion here about self published authors making 6 figures and nobody have heard of them

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/12/2014/amazing-times/

I was talking with another author, who does extremely well as an indie, and we started comparing numbers. He/she will earn close to two million dollars this year. Most have never heard of him/her.
I had an email exchange with another indie a few days ago who clears a cool half mil a year. You’ve likely never heard of him/her, either. He/she is friends with another author who works the same genre, who does a little better than he/she does – probably close to three quarters of a mil this year. We all trade tips and help each other – there’s no competitive snarkiness between any of us.

I’m part of a group of authors on Facebook, have been for about two years. In that time, more than a few have gone from earning a few hundred a year to tens of thousands, and in several cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. You’ve probably never heard of any of them, either.
 

knight_tour

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My book has been out for only a couple of weeks, so not much data to go on. I've sold around a hundred copies of both print and ebook. I think the quality of the book is such that it deserves better, but I don't have a big 5 marketing budget, so it's very hard for people to even know my book exists.
 

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Adam, everything in the paras you quoted could be true of some of the authors I know who are published with trade publishers, too. I applaud their successes and I'm happy for them: but they're all enjoying successes which are not to be expected by most of us. It's a pleasing anecdote, nothing more.
 

Polenth

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My book has been out for only a couple of weeks, so not much data to go on. I've sold around a hundred copies of both print and ebook. I think the quality of the book is such that it deserves better, but I don't have a big 5 marketing budget, so it's very hard for people to even know my book exists.

You're not doing badly if you've sold a hundred copies in a few weeks.
 

akaria

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My book has been out for only a couple of weeks, so not much data to go on. I've sold around a hundred copies of both print and ebook. I think the quality of the book is such that it deserves better, but I don't have a big 5 marketing budget, so it's very hard for people to even know my book exists.

Don't beat yourself up! You're doing well so far.

A little over a week and a dozen sales. I ordered pizza AND mozzarella sticks last night to celebrate!
 

CrystalCierlak

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I've sold somewhere between 600-700 since September 2012. I have my 12th title cooking in the Amazon oven right now, a 13th that will be released later this month, and I'm hoping to release at least 10 next year in total.
 

jmichaelfavreau

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My first book's been on the market for about a month and I've "sold" about 200 copies. I'd say 25 are ebooks people paid for, about 10 are physical books through CreateSpace, and the rest were free ebooks "sold" through promotion.

Once my KDP Select time is up and I can sell on other sites, hopefully that will go up.
 

Winfred

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I hope it's okay to ask. I know it's a sensitive topic.

....but if you are willing to share your sales data, please drop a line. I'm sure many posters and lurkers are curious.

Also, how would you grade your self publishing venture to date? A huge success? a success? a semi-success? below expectation? Of course, everyone has their own definition of success.


And if you know the sales data of other self published authors, please share the links with the AW community. As they said, the more the merrier.

Hi KatyPerryFan19!

Thanks for having this post as it is an education to certain realities for me. I didn't realize that ePublishing for the most part does not mean gaining some real income. I had thought many with ePublishing were finding financial freedom to write etc. more. I write because I love to, yet selling would be nice. I've written a lot and won $1,000 once and some artist residencies, yet still wrote out of my soul and love of creativity.

I never realized sales results are a sensitive subject with writers. I wonder why that is? I hope to ePublish my novella. I feel it is a more "commercial" work than anything I've written, yet it is a meaningful story utilizing literary elements like metaphor and involving allegorical characters. I loved writing it. I was hoping though, hearing about ePublishing and its tremendous success rocking the traditional publishing world etc., and thinking my book would get me out of poverty. With this thread you've created I'm very grateful as I realize I better not hope getting out of poverty, living freely, and writing with no other financial demands. Thanks for your thread as it has put things in better perspective for me!

Carpe Diem!
Winfred
 

RedWombat

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I never realized sales results are a sensitive subject with writers. I wonder why that is?

They equate pretty closely to income, and we have a fairly strong social taboo--in the US at least--about talking about how much money we make, so it really doesn't surprise me.

Plus if we're doing well, it's bragging, if we're not doing well, we're embarrassed, so...y'know.
 
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Here's another inspiring story
http://brennaaubrey.net/2014/12/07/one-year-no-regrets/

Total Number of Books sold from 12/5/13 to 12/4/14: 80,313

Total Number of copies of At Any Price (released officially 12/9/13) sold: 50,011

Total Number of copies of At Any Turn (released 4/30/14) sold: 19,871

Total Number of copies of At Any Moment (released 10/27/14) sold: 10,431

**Note: These numbers are for individual ebook sales only and do not include boxed sets or print copies.

That whole blog post is worth a read. Highly recommended especially the part where she wrote what she has learned in her first year as a debut author

Some Things I’ve learned About The Biz
 

Arpeggio

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One way I look at it, is if one stopped writing and make the same amount per year for the rest ones life, based on say, one years worth of full time writing that you did, then you could consider yourself as having made that much money for a years full time work. The younger you are and the longer you live the better it sounds. Actually that sucks.
 

BenPanced

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They equate pretty closely to income, and we have a fairly strong social taboo--in the US at least--about talking about how much money we make, so it really doesn't surprise me.

Plus if we're doing well, it's bragging, if we're not doing well, we're embarrassed, so...y'know.
Amongst the US's nouveau riche, one talks about having money but it is incredibly gauche to talk about how much money one has.
 

Katharine Tree

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I put my first title up in April 2014. I now have three novels and a novella up.

At this point, I move a copy (via KU, KLL, or an outright sale) almost every day. Some days I move 2, 3, or 4. Each KDP Select giveaway day adds 30-200 copies to the circulation pool.

There were weeks when I didn't sell anything, at the beginning, but never a month when nothing sold.

My writing pays my gin bill, so I am content. The two habits feed off each other.
 
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The author of this very informative thread A very quick, short, and dirty guide to slowly building sales (Read 75663 times)
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,124433.0.html

shared her numbers and advice/strategy with the self-publishing community.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,171330.0.html

ABOUT MY NICHE
I primarily write urban fantasy mystery novels. This genre was super popular about, oh, ten years ago now. Think early Anita Blake (before it turned into erotica) or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Though many readers still enjoy these kinds of books, it's considered by industry professionals to be a dead genre. Publishers and agents almost universally no longer acquire it. Most bloggers and tour companies don't handle non-romance UF for adults, either.

UF is dead. Long live UF.

Or something like that.

ABOUT MY SALES
2011 sales (April - December): 3,000 sales, $3,000 royalties
2012 sales: 50,000 sales, $60,000 royalties
2013 sales: 240,000 sales, $360,000 royalties

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,171330.msg2889690.html#msg2889690

However, 2014 did much, much better than 2013 on the whole.

I sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 books (which doesn't include all the group boxed sets I did because I'm awful at keeping track of those) and earned about $700,000.