Self-Publishing: Earning Back Expenses

Stormy Montana Sky went live on Amazon and Barnes & Noble on January 14th. As of yesterday, January 27th, the book paid for itself. From here on out, it's all profit, except for any money I'll spend on promotion. (So far in self-publishing I've spent almost nothing on promo.)

Here's a breakdown of my expenses:

Editor: $1500.00

Many will look at this and consider this a high amount, and it is. However, my editor, Louella Nelson, has been my writing teacher and was present while the Montana Sky Series was created. Therefore, she knows my books and my writing style (and flaws) inside and out. She does both a content edit AND a copy edit.

Formatter: $50.00

I had a new formatter this time around because my former one isn't doing it anymore. We did go back and forth a few times to get the formatting right. Although there is this one little place where we can't get the extra indents out...

Cover Artist: $75.00

My cover artist for the Montana Sky Series is Delle Jacobs. She's able to take what I tell her I want and create covers that I love. I also receive great feedback about them.

Copyright: $35.00

Although a copyright isn't necessary for self-publishing, I think it's a wise thing to do.

Total: $1660.00

As of last night, I'd sold 649 copies at $3.99, and I'm very grateful for everyone's who's bought my books.

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!

Self-Publishing--Showing the Money ll

I've had many people tell me they appreciated my prior blog (July 17) about my self-published sales of my two sweet historical Westerns, Wild Montana Sky (.99) and Starry Montana Sky (2.99). They also asked that I'd keep posting information about sales and money.

To recap, I published the two books on the evening of April 28th on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords. I'm going to continue to only discuss Kindle because my sales on Nook and Smashwords are under $100.

Today, I received my sales report for July from Amazon.

Wild Montana Sky :

5026 US sales $1759.53

8 UK sales 2.08

1 Germany .30

Total $1761.91

Starry Montana Sky:

1777 US sales $3613.89

4 UK 5.08

1 Germany 1.40

47 (outside) 49.35

Total $3669.72

Total $ 5431.63

On July 31, I published the first in my fantasy romance series, Sower of Dreams.

3 US sales $1.05

This brings my Kindle income (three months and a couple of days) to date:

$7955.66

So far my sales for August on Amazon are:

Wild Montana Sky: 2227

Starry Montana Sky: 993

Sower of Dreams: 35

Reaper of Dreams: 20

I'm SO very glad I decided to self-publish. As you can see, my results have been (in my opinion) amazing! I'm so grateful to everyone who's supported me in this process, especially my readers!