Monday, October 17, 2011

Showing the Money: September





It's that time of the month again to share my Amazon statement for the purpose of providing information to all authors who are interested in self-publishing.

My sales have been heading downward, partly due to the September slump, and partly because I made a big mistake. When I had Sower of Dreams and Reaper of Dreams formatted, I also had Wild Montana Sky and Starry Montana Sky reformatted. However, I didn't put them into prc files, and when I uploaded them, the formatting was off and the quotation marks messed up. I didn't catch this because the first few pages (the acknowledgments section) looked fine in the preview. I was focused on the other two books, and didn't pay the attention I should have. Two months went by and one reader gave me a 2 star, commenting on the formatting. Of course, I changed the books, but the damage was done.
so they didn't buy the book. Even though I changed the books, and Amazon has agreed to let buyers know there is a new version, that 2 star with the negative comments is there to stay.
So during September, I had people reading the sample and not liking the formatting,

However, the sales are still good and I'm grateful for every one of them.

THE WILD MONTANA SKY SERIES

US
Wild Montana Sky: 4211 sales at 35% $1473.98
Starry Montana Sky: 637 sales at 70% $3355.66
(outside countries) 62 sales at 35% $65.10
Total $4894.74

UK
Wild Montana Sky: 11 sales at 35% $2.86
Starry Montana Sky: 4 sales at 70% $5.08
Total: $7.94

GERMANY
Wild Montana Sky 3 sales at 35% $.90
Starry Montana Sky 2 sales at 70% $3.58
Total: $4.48

Total for this series: $4907.16

THE GODS' DREAM TRILOGY

US
Sower of Dreams: 96 sales at 35% $33.60
Reaper of Dreams 37 sales at 70% $75.48
(outside countries) 3 sales at 35% $3.15
Total: $112.23

UK
Sower of Dreams: 3 sales at 35% $.78
Reaper of Dreams: 1 sales at 70% $1.24
Total: $2.02

Total for the Trilogy $114.25

Total for all four books: $5021.41

Thanks to all the authors, reviews, and readers who've supported my books!




11 comments:

  1. Fantastic. Your reader base just keeps on growing and growing! Many you enjoy many, many more months like this!

    Lisa Mondello
    http://www.lisamondello.blogspot.com

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  2. Debra, congrats on your continued success! You're an inspiration to us all.

    Re: your file: did you use Mobipocket Creator to take your filtered .html file and convert it to a .prc? Then preview it in Kindle Previewer.

    Best,
    Jina Katie O’Reilly Titanic blog

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  3. Thanks, Lisa and Jina.

    As for the converter... Ah, I don't know since I don't do my own formatting. I'll ask the woman who did it for me to chime in here.

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  4. Thank you for sharing, Debra. It's a generous and important thing you're doing. Your fellow indies appreciate it!

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  5. Thanks for checking, Debra. I'm curious--I'm about to upload a self-pubbed Christmas novella using Mobipocket Creator as the converter.

    Jina


    Katie O’Reilly Titanic blog

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  6. Norah,

    I appreciate it when you and some of the other indie authors we know share their sales and money. It's what helped me decide to self-publish. THANK GOODNESS!

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  7. Congratulations, Debra. Can't wait to see your numbers after Christmas. Hope they go sky high. Thanks for sharing. You're A1

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  8. Jina, that's exactly what I did. I've done all my books that way and they turn out great.

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  9. And Debra, Pixel of Ink just posted Wild Montana Sky on Facebook! I predict sales will shoot through the roof. Congrats!

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  10. Tori, that's good to hear re: Mobipocket. I'm in the process of getting ready to upload my novella to Amazon Kindle by tomorrow.

    Debra, reading your posts encouraged me to self-publish this holiday story. We'll see how it goes! Thank you.

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  11. Tori,

    That explains it!!! So far I've had 235 sales today of Wild Montana Sky, which is my record. Lately my sales for WMS have been 80-90. Yesterday was 96.

    Jina, Tori was the one who did my new formatting. She's been wonderful. Best of luck with your holiday story. Let me know when it's out!

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