It’s been a busy month around here. Lots of writing and book cover design happening. But before we get into that, let’s talk numbers.
In August, I had the highest sales of any month so far where I didn’t release a new book or do any advertising whatsoever. I had an 8% read-through rate on what I’m now calling my ‘flagship’ series, Driftmetal. Book 3 in that series came out on July 2nd. A week or two later, I put Book 4 on pre-order for an upcoming release on October 2nd. With around a month left to go, I have more pre-orders for Book 4 than any of the previous books in the series (I had three times as many pre-orders of Book 3 as I had of Book 2, and so far Book 4 pre-orders are ahead of Book 3 by 125%).
As I mentioned, I did no promotion or advertising this month. The first (free) book in the Driftmetal series is still hanging out on a few of Amazon’s bestseller lists, so that has definitely helped the series continue to get attention. I’m still noticing a higher read-through rate from Book 1 to Book 2 when people discover the series organically (as opposed to via an eBook email list or some other promotional site). This leads me to believe that the kinds of people who sign up for lists on sites like BookBub and eReader News Today tend to hoard free books. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just enjoy knowing my conversion rates; seeing how many people enjoy the first book enough to continue reading. Results this month varied widely by country. The following numbers are the totals for all my books for the month of August from each of Amazon’s websites:
Amazon.com – 551 free, 78 paid
Amazon.co.uk – 143 free, 17 paid
Amazon.de – 125 free, 0 paid
Amazon.ca – 120 free, 0 paid
Amazon.au – 0 free, 2 paid
The only thing I can glean from this data is that people in Germany and Canada like free books, but they don’t seem to like mine very much – at least, not enough to pay for them. And someone in Australia took a chance on me without getting a free book and still enjoyed the series.
My earnings on print books from Createspace were also at their highest. Just 6 print books sold in total, but although the royalty percentage on each book is lower, I actually make more per book in print (in most cases). The exception to that rule seems to be The Infernal Lands, which is such a huge book that the cost to print and ship it leaves a very small margin for royalties. Last month or the month before, for example, someone in the UK bought a print copy of The Infernal Lands and I literally earned seven cents (yes, that’s 0.07ยข). That’s okay, though. It’s someone who liked my book enough to buy a hard copy. By the way, thank you to that person, whoever you are!
Overall, I’m happy with the way things are progressing. I was ecstatic a few months ago when I was selling a book every few days. Now that I’m selling close to 100 books a month, I’m elated. That’s more than enough to pay our cell phone bill, and almost enough to make a car payment on. I’ve worked so incredibly hard on these books, trying to put out a product that’s entertaining, well-written, and meticulously edited, and it’s really nice to see those efforts beginning to pay off.
Now, on to a quick update on my writing progress. For the past several months, I have been working on the second volume in The Aionach Saga, which is entitled Children of the Wastes. I’m about 2/3 of the way done with that one. But as I began to brainstorm ideas for my new fantasy series, I suddenly became inspired to flesh out my outline for the book. That led to being inspired to actually write the book, so I decided to take a break from Children of the Wastes and spent most of August writing the first 60,000-or-so words of Warcaster. I also commissioned some artwork and used that to design the cover, which you can check out here. It’s been some of the fastest writing I’ve ever done. Averaging 2,000 words a day, day in and day out, might not be a lot for some authors, but it’s a good clip for me. By my estimation, I’ve averaged 1,100 words a day for all of 2015. That’s a little over 400,000 words a year, which is nothing to scoff at.
My goal for the end of the year is to finish Warcaster, Children of the Wastes, and Cloudscape (Book 5 in the Driftmetal series). That gives me 122 days to write 150,000 words in three different books. It’s not going to be easy, especially since I still have a final round of edits to do on Driftmetal 4. But I think I have a decent shot of finishing at least two out of the three. If you haven’t signed up for my mailing list, I highly recommend you do so now, as I’ll be giving out free advance copies of Warcaster to anyone who’s interested. Be on the lookout for that soon. Thanks for reading!