Hey loyal readers!
It’s time for a book sales update, with some of the major lessons I’ve learned from the past month. First off, let me give you some straight sales numbers:
– Last month (September), I sold just over 500 books. Amazon has a delay in releasing the exact numbers, so I have to use my own tracking (which has a couple weaknesses I will get to in a moment).
– Amazon Prime members borrowed 12 books, which means they get to read it for free through my participation in the program (more on this in a moment, as well).
– 6 people returned the book (this number was already factored into my total sold above). Why on earth would any return such an awesome book, you ask? All I know is, there are a lot of strange people out there, my friends.
Now onto the juicier details, including some of the day-to-day sales volumes from the past month and a half.
Every morning when I woke up, I took a quick snapshot of my sales, returns, and borrows from the previous 24 hours:
*Tuesday and Sunday include first of month data; **Thursday includes an extra day of sales
First, you’ll notice that Friday and Wednesday appear to be my best days (which is a bit different than what it seemed the first month). Friday was actually my best sales day be a large margin. But sales do tend to drop rapidly over the weekend, which confirms a trend I saw when I first released The Phoenix Fallacy.
Second, I’ve starred a couple of important points to consider on the graph. As I mentioned before, the Amazon data lags by a couple of months, so I’m just now getting some total sales numbers for August. I keep up-to-date information myself, but there is a flaw in my system. Unless I remember to stay awake until midnight, I don’t get the final sales tally – only what I recorded earlier in the day.
As a result, both Tuesday and Sunday are slightly lower than they likely should be. Each one had the previous evenings sales wiped out. That said, Sunday looks like it would still be a dog of a day for book sales. That jives somewhat with expected results. I doubt many people pick up books just before the start of the week.
The other point to consider is that in my data set, Thursday has an extra day of sales wrapped up in it, which means it is actually the second worst performing day of the week, next to Sunday. I would be interested to know if this means Thursday and Sunday are bad days to do author signings, etc. I suppose it could go either way: since my sales are all online, it might mean that Thursday is a day when people traditionally go out to do things, which might imply Thursday is a great day to meet readers, but a bad day for online books sales.
Per Day Averages
Earlier, I stated that I had twelve “borrows” through the Amazon Prime Kindle Lending Library. As first glance, this looks like a pretty terrible deal for me, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t get paid for them (or nearly as much). I also wasn’t sure if these borrows were wrapped up in my sales for the month, and actually meant I had a lower total sold.
After examining some of my August numbers, it appears as if the borrows are actually a great deal for me – I actually make over $2 per borrowed book! For a book with a $0.99 price tag, that’s a pretty good deal.
I’ll put in a word of caution for this, though, as I’ve only seen one month of data. I don’t know if the value drops, if it’s static, or what. The $2 value might be a standard rate, so future books with higher prices might be stuck with that same pricing. I really don’t know at this point, but it’s something to keep an eye on – if those numbers hold true, it might mean that borrows are completely separate stream of revenue with a different demographic and different pricing. These are the types of important details I imagine many authors would love to know, but don’t have access to through Amazon’s limited information release.
I’ll also touch on a couple of other points that I’ve discovered through research and the rumor mill, and mentioned in passing here before, but haven’t confirmed yet. First, the start of school is a bad time for book sales, because everyone gets so busy. I suspect, however, that with Christmas fast approaching, sales should pick-up. That said, my research has also told me I need to get my second book out ASAP. Each book available tends to have a marked increase in the total sales for all other books. More books means more clicks. More clicks means more opportunities for exposure. All it takes is one person liking one book, and the other books receive a boost.
All this adds up to the fact that I need to get Book 2 of The Phoenix Fallacy out the door in the next month to both beat the Christmas rush and spur sales. It’s going to be an interesting month…
That wraps up this month’s sales update – next week I’ll give you the scoop on some of the exciting events that happened the past few days, and hopefully have an update on Book 2’s readiness for release. Stay tuned!
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