Real Numbers from an Indie Publisher

If you are an indie writer, you might be like me and feel that all indie writers are bringing in at least 50K a year. Part of the problem is the only people posting numbers are the super successful. But I’m going to keep it real. If you are not even close to a four figure yearly income from your books, much more a five figure income, this blog is for you.

I’m at three figures! Of course, it’s gross and not net, but hey, I’ll take it. Since June, I’ve wanted to sit down and look over the sales figures, but I also didn’t want to do it because June was so bad. But July was good once again, so I took a peek.

My seven month publishing numbers:

Published 9 works and 86,500 words.

Republished one work with a new cover and added fractals.

Designed and created 4 covers.

Sold 223 books which is a book a day average.

Made almost $250 in royalties.

The disappointments:

Though sales and downloads for my billionaire serial started strong, they fizzled for the last two episodes. The blog readership for the pen name was steady, so I have to wonder if readers quit buying and started reading for free on the blog. I also sunk a lot of time and money into a picture book for the series, and it didn’t bring new readers as hoped for.

The surprises:

My holiday series has had steady interest despite the only holidays in the series right now are fall holidays. An even bigger surprise is the first episode of my slipstream romance is my third best seller.

Overall

I’m going to keep at it. I was pretty upset at the end of June, but after taking a few steps back I see that I’m having some successes. I’m hopeful that the next holiday books will have good releases.

How is your writing year going? I’d love to hear your ups and downs!

 

Word Count Marathon Day 4

So I did pretty much everything but write. I’m working on visual continuity with the covers for my serial and made the cover for the compilation of Episodes 1-4. On a previous day, I edited all of the episdoes for continuity issues that happen writing something off the cuff. Today I uploaded the compilation of 1-4 with the updated text and cover to three of my vendors.

Tonight was a great family night with concerts and banquets. But after, I took my test for my introduction to digital marketing and passed with distinction. That means I got an 85%. Hooray! After taking that course, I need to take a deep breath and start applying things slowly. It’s a little overwhelming to see how much behind the blog stuff there is to do.

In the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about the voice for my Nail Art book. I need to scratch it and start over again. I’m hoping by tomorrow morning to have a better idea.

How did you guys do? I hope the words flew onto the page!

Here’s a pic for inspiration:

coffee on the beach