Celebrating My Second Anniversary as a Writer!

 Welcome everyone!

It was back in March 2019 that I first released The Huntsman and the She-Wolf. With all that's gone on, it seems like so much more time has passed than just two years. But here we are: The Second Anniversary.

To celebrate, I want to share with you my sales data up to this point. I always share my data so that anyone else who's thinking about self-publishing a book has an understanding of what my experience has been like. Publishing is hard, and each person needs to set a goal that measures success for themselves, not compared to others. I had a goal to reach 500 copies sold across all formats by the end of my second (fiscal) year of being an author. Let's see if I got there:

(special note: I abbreviated the Book 1 as THatSW and Book 2 as THatV)

E-Book

THatSW: 81

THatV: 12

Paperbacks Online

THatSW: 103

THatV: 22

Hardback Online

THatSW: 65

THatV: 9

Audio Books

THatSW: 24

Paperbacks In-Person

THatSW: 104

THatV: 25

Hardbacks In-Person

THatSW: 18

THatV: 22

Kindle Unlimited Pages Read

THatSW: 10190

THatV: 1347

Grand Total Copies Sold

485

Grand Total Pages Read

11,537

Alright, time for reflection! Let's get the obvious out of the way. I didn't make 500 copies as I had hoped. Without a doubt, the COVID pandemic greatly impacted my ability to sell books in-person. I had a couple appearances and book signings lined up for this past year, and everything was canceled. I have no doubt in my mind that, in a normal year, I easily could have sold another 15 copies.

However, all is not lost. If you take the Kindle Unlimited pages read and divide by 209 (the length of both of my first two books), you would get an additional 55 copies. I do get paid per page read, so most authors do consider KU pages to be a "sale" of sorts. That would put me at 540, so if I wanted, I could think of it that way. But I'm not going to fudge things and say I got to 500. Nope. Failing to meet a goal isn't 100% a bad thing. It just helps illuminate the path forward. I think, in the next year, I should put both books on discount on Amazon. That will help bring in new readers and probably help me reach my 3rd year goal of 600 copies sold.

There are a lot of other very important takeaways. 1) The Huntsman and the She-Wolf hit 10,000 pages read on Kindle Unlimited. WOW! That's an amazing number. I never anticipated so many people would choose to read my book that way. 2) The audio book of Book 1 is up 24 copies sold. That puts it ahead of The Huntsman and the Vampire online paperback sales. Maybe I need to reconsider not doing an audio book for Book 2! 3) I crossed 100 paperbacks online AND in-person for THatSW! To me, that's a big deal. I'm ecstatic about those numbers. They're terrific. 4) I easily made enough profit on Book 1 and 2 this past year to fund all my needs for Book 3. 5) The launch party for The Huntsman and the Vampire was critical to getting sales off to a good start. I hope health regulations allow for me to do one again when Book 3 is ready.

So what does this mean going forward? Well, I think I should anticipate Book 3 struggling to put up numbers anywhere close to Book 1. I've always known that the first book in a series sells best. I just didn't know it would be by such a staggering amount. That's fine with me, but now I have to consider my costs more carefully. I also need to invest more in Book 1. I'm going to fire up my advertising again and do some price promotions in the next 12 months. I'll be interested to see how those turn out.

All in all, it was a very successful year during most difficult circumstances. I'm proud of what I was able to do even if one of my best avenues of sales was cut off. I'm sick of the COVID crisis. I'm sure you are too. Let's all hope it passes into history this year so we can get back to enjoying the things we love. Look for more updates soon about Book 3. Take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy