Okay. So, we're close enough to month-end that I figured I'd post an update. December has been MUCH better than any other month. I'm at about four times the revenue as last month and about five times the sales/borrows.
A lot of that is due to one short story that'll earn me about $250 this month. Wrote and published it in a day, so one month out it looks like that story will pay me $40+/hour. I wish they all did that. This one just happened to hit a lot of the hot buttons and has had sales or borrows every single day since release. Which has also helped this be my first month ever with sales/borrows every single day. (I'm up to 13 today, so pretty sure tomorrow will generate something somewhere.) I also had my first week of double-digit sales each day and a freebie that resulted in over 600 downloads (a huge increase over any other giveaway I've done thanks in large part to a $5 bknights ad) this month.
I've seen a few folks on here talking about writing in different genres. It's definitely helped me. I've been experimenting across erotica, erotic romance, and romance since October and I think my sweet spot may turn out to be erotic romance. (The erotic portion gives me a goal to work towards...)
Ironically, I expect my writing is actually going to move in the direction of less sexy rather than more sexy in the new year. (I say this because I think a lot of people who try erotica gravitate towards as extreme and kinky as they can find. At least I've certainly seen that advice given elsewhere. From what I've seen from other's reported numbers it can definitely result in the biggest boost in sales, so there's a reason it happens. But the story ideas I keep hitting on want to be more about the relationship than the sex, so I'm going to go with it and see where it takes me.)
For those who are thinking of changing it up: My advice is to write something you want to write within whatever genre you choose. If you succeed you'll be writing it for a LONG time, so best to start off with something you like.
You may not see immediate success if you go that route. One of my series, the first five weeks the first story was out I had two borrows on it. Two. But I kept writing the series, did a free promo on one title and some advertised countdown deals on the others and as readers discovered later stories they read the whole series. Now I average 1 or 2 borrows or sales of that story each week and, when I do, it also results in borrows or sales of the entire series which is up to eight stories at the moment.
I suspect those numbers are going to increase rather than decrease, too, as people read through freebies or stories they bought while on sale.
To each his own, but I already had the well-paying career that didn't satisfy me, so now I want to find something that I'm excited to do every single day so I can do it for the next forty years.
I've also been reminded this month how easy it is to get dissatisfied even when you're seeing far more success than you ever were before. (The reason, at least for me, that it can't just be about money.) If you'd told me in October that I'd have as many sales as I do this month, I would've said, "Wow, that's amazing." Now? I'm wondering why I don't have even more and what I can do to fix that.
Which is why comparing yourself to others is dangerous. I'm pleased with my progress, but then I read someone say how they made $10,000 on the launch of three books under a new pen name in two months and wonder why I suck so bad. Or I see someone say they're making thousands a month their first month of writing erotica and think how my little increasing sales look paltry next to that.
I'm lucky in the sense that I'm trying to hit some numbers that someone posted about their own self-publishing journey and as long as I keep hitting those I'll know I'm on track with where I'm aiming. But it's not easy to keep positive even when you start seeing some movement, because there's always someone out there doing better and doing it faster and claiming that it took them absolutely no effort.
So there you have it. My goal for next year is to release at least thirty titles and write another spec fic novel to pitch to agents. In some respects, that's a pretty modest goal, but it could also be very ambitious depending on the choices I end up making about whether to continue writing full-time.
Money, it's hard to say no to even when it might keep you from reaching your dreams.
Oh, and total new titles put out in December was 13 to bring me to an even 30 for the year. 25 of those were pubbed in the last two months. (I had plans for another four, but the holidays kicked my butt...Note to self: Don't volunteer to host Christmas next year.)
Good luck to all in 2015!