Six Years in Self-Publishing

 

This has a couple of books published in the future.

Well, well, here we are, six years after I self-published my first novel, A Summer in Amber. So where in the blazes are we? We're not in Kansas anymore. And it ain’t 2015 anymore either. Looking around, self-publishing is very different industry from the one I started out in 2015. 

In 2015,  self-publishing was in the final stages of its gold rush era. I released three very different books for free, and without any effort or money spent promoting them, I gave away more than 6,000 of them between Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. Customers of those stores were still happening upon one's books back then. 

Fast forward to 2021. Those days are long gone. Big entrepreneur/writer/publishers, some who even employ ghost writers to write the actual stories, now dominate Amazon. Today they need to spend thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars on ads and crank out books every couple of months just to maintain their readership. Beyond Amazon, Smashwords has changed their format to one that seems to favor best sellers. B & N's ebook store has faded, as have my sales on Apple. Kobo -- who knows? They don't report free sales. The bright spot these last two years is that readers are finding my books on Google Play Books -- somehow I sold more  books on Google than I did on Smashwords/Apple by a long shot, this past month. 

Long story short, I'm quite certain that if I did today, what I did six years ago, I'd count myself lucky if I did 10% of the business I did back in 2015.

Luckily, over the past six years I've managed to built a modest readership, one that I'm quite happy and thankful for. To be honest, I don’t think I’d enjoy being wildly successful – what with all the demands on your time that comes with the territory. I have just the sort of readership that I’m comfortable with. A good readership. I like’em.

Year Six Results 

So how did I do in my sixth year as a self-published author? The numbers are below, so you can judge for yourself. 

Year five was my best year ever, though I didn't expect it to continue, given the way the ebook market was evolving. This year my four to six year old books did half the business they did last year, though my space opera, The Bright Black Sea remained my bestseller.. However, I released two novels and a novella this year, and while none were breakout hits, they shored up my sales, so that year six turned out to be better than I had anticipated.

The three new books this year  were my Mars novella, Keiree, and two Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventures, The Secret of the Tzarista Moon, and the Secrets of Valsummer House, plus one children's short story, that I had laying about for a decade: Lines in the Lawn, (on Smashwords only). I’m writing shorter stories these days, as I find them much easier to dream up and write down.

I also revamped my covers this year. I never see any difference, but it keeps me amused.

And, as usual, my odd, mostly foreign Amazon store sales pretty much cover my expenses (paper books for my beta readers) so that if I'm in the red, it's pocket change. Being a self-published author is an inexpensive hobby for me.

Year Seven Expectations

Next year? I’m going to go out on a limb and say, it will be pretty much like this year -- and almost every other of the last six years. It will depend on how many stories I can write and release. I'm currently within a day or two of finishing the first draft of my next and last Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventure book for this set of books. I should release it in early July 2021, at the latest. 

My next project will be to try writing a 30-35K word novella in 60 short episodes for a new venture by Amazon called Vella. Vella will be an iOS only Amazon app designed specifically for serial stories in the 600-5,000 word per episode range to be read primarily on iPhones. My idea is to use this format as a vehicle for reaching readers who never bother searching beyond their Kindle Unlimited selection, which my books are not enrolled in. It remains to be seen if I like writing in this format and whether or not I pursue it beyond experimenting with it. Other than that, I've not settled on any definite next story. After producing four books in twelve months, I think that I can take the summer off to come up with some new story ideas. We'll see.

Six Year Numbers.

As usual, "sales" are mostly free downloads. Numbers are approximate, likely due to quantum fluctuations. i.e. I'm 11 books off from last year's total.

Book Title / Release Date	Year Six Sales (#) Year five Sales	Total Sale To date
A Summer in Amber 23 April 2015	598 (818)	7.816
Some Day Days 9 July 2015	358 (726)	4,211
The Bright Black Sea 17 Sept 2015	1,320 (2,656)	13,816
Castaways of the Lost Star	--	2,176
The Lost Star’s Sea 13 July 2017	986 (1,962)	6,969
Beneath the Lanterns 13 Sept 2018	551 (1,087)	2,792
Sailing to Redoubt 15 March 2019	728 (1,043)	2,332
The Prisoner of Cimlye 2 April 2020	632 (244)	877
Lines in the Lawn 1 July 2020	83	83
Keiree 17 Sept 2020	853	853
Secret of the Tzarista Moon 19 November 2020	1,110	1,110
Secrets of Valsummer House 18 March 2021	265	265
Total 6th Year Sales	7,484	43,300

Yearly Sales History:

Year One, 2015/16: 6,537 (3 novels released)

Year Two, 2016/17: 6,137 (1 novel released)

Year Three, 2017/18: 6,385 (1 novel released)

Year Four, 2018/19: 8,225* (2 novels released) * includes a strange 1950 book one day sale on Amazon that they say is correct. (6,275 w/o)

Year Five, 2019/20: 8,530 (1 novel released)

Year Six, 2020/21: 7,484 (2 novels released, 1 novella, 1 children's short story)

Past Yearly reports can be found here:

Year 1: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-window-to-self-publishing.html

Year 2: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2017/05/two-years-of-free-books.html

Year 3: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2018/05/3-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 4: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/four-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 5: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2020/05/five-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year Six Sales by Outlets 

Over the last year my sales by digital storefronts were: 40% from Amazon, 40% from Smashwords (+ Apple & B&N) and 20% from Google. 

Note: Kobo does not report free sales to Smashwords. Barnes & Noble's numbers no longer appear on my daily sales record. However elsewhere I find that I sold 128 books in 2020, and 40 in 2021 to date on B & N. 

The trend here is that  both Smashwords and Amazon are fading, while Google is stepping up to fill in. Amazon is up and down. I've had a good couple of months in 2021 on Amazon. In March, not only did I have a new release, but The Bright Black Sea received a nice writeup on the blog of Nathan Lowell, a popular SF author, which together produced a near record month for free books, and a record month for actual money sales of some 120 copies. That trend faded a bit in April, but it was still a solid month. The other bright spot in 2021 are my sales on the Google Play Store. They have been rising all year. In March they essentially matched my Smaswords sales, and in April 2021  they almost doubled my Smashwords sales. This increase in Google sales has helped keep my yearly sales in my usual range.

Summing Up Six Years of Self-publishing

I've done exactly what I wanted to do. Write. I've gotten to know some of my readers, some of whom have kindly volunteered to be my beta readers. And they have made a appreciable difference in the quality of my books. I have made an effort to write better in little ways, and I'd like to think that I've had some success. Covers have become a pain to paint, but other than that, I've got the whole process of self-publishing down pat. And I'm still having fun doing it all. I'm looking forward to my seventh year report.