The mission of Celanda House is to publish the fiction of C. Litka as widely as possible - without having to work at doing so. Celanda House has no mandate to make money - only not to lose money. To accomplish its stated mission within the assigned parameters, Celanda House prices ebooks and audiobooks at its cost, whenever possible. In most instances this price free. So, after nine years in business, how successful has Celanda House been in getting the novels of C. Litka out to the eager public?
Below are the sales numbers for each book for last year, this year, and nine years. Audiobook sales in parentheses, total sales in bold. Numbers are somewhat approximate. You don't want me doing your accounting.
Sales for the year from May 2023 to April 2024
Book Title / Release Date |
Year 8 Sales May 2022-April 2023 |
Year 9 Sales (xx) audio Bold Total |
Total Sales To date ebook & audiobooks total sales |
A Summer in Amber 23 April 2015 |
452 (488) |
524 (400) 924 |
Total 10,103 |
Some Day Days 9 July 2015 |
468 (598) |
578 (320) 898 |
Total 6,575 |
The Bright Black Sea 17 Sept 2015 |
1,360 (895) |
703 (478) 1,181 |
Total 18,231 |
Castaways of the Lost Star 4 Aug 2016 |
Withdrawn |
Withdrawn |
Total 2,176 |
The Lost Star’s Sea 13 July 2017 |
783 (780) 1,563
|
705 (458) 1,163 |
Total 10,642 |
Beneath the Lanterns 13 Sept 2018 |
431 (672) |
500 (273) 773 |
Total 5,422 |
Sailing to Redoubt 15 March 2019 |
625 (543) |
303 (325) 628 |
Total 4,986 |
Prisoner of Cimlye 2 April 2020 |
581 (678) 1,259
|
512 (359) 871 |
Total 3,735 |
Lines in the Lawn 8 June 2020 |
32 |
29 |
Total 174 |
Keiree 18 Sept 2020 |
637 (583) 1,220 |
538 (371) 909 |
Total 3,323 |
The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon 11 Nov 2020 |
782 (634) 1,416
|
548 (363) 911 |
Total 4,483 |
The Secrets of Valsummer House 18 March 2021 |
894 (692) 1,586
|
533 (392) 925 |
Total 3,634 |
Shadows of an Iron Kingdom 15 July 2021 |
894 (692) 1,586
|
583 (465) 1,048 |
Total 4,329 |
A Night on Isvalar 15 July 2021/27 April 2024 wide |
23 |
43 (4) 47 |
Total 93 |
The Aerie of a Pirate Prince 29 Sept 2022 |
737 (291) 1,028
|
613 (427) 1,040 |
Total 2,068 |
The Girl on the Kerb 6 April 2023 _________________ Passage to Jarpara 21 March 2024 -------------------------Omnibus editions
________________
|
2,745 (45) 2,790 ___________ n/a
n/a ____________ 2022-2023 Total Sales 19,524 of which 8,198 were audio |
2,561 (353) 2,914 104 (73) 177 30 (withdrawn) __________ 2023-2024 Total Sales 14,468 of which
|
Total 5,704 Total 177 Total 30 _______________ Grand Total 85,855 Grand total as of this date in; 2023: 71,396 2022: 60,879 2021: 47,550 |
Revenue: 2023-2024 Amazon: $174.74 Expenses: $74.74 (estimate.) net approx. $100
A Table of Yearly Sales Results
6,537 Year One, 2015/16 (3 novels released)
6,137 Year Two, 2016/17 (1 novel released)
6,385 Year Three, 2017/18 (1 novel released)
8,225* Year Four, 2018/19: (2 novels released) * includes a strange 1950 books sold in one day on Amazon that they say is correct. It would be 6,275 without that strange day's sales.
8,530 Year Five, 2019/20 (1 novel released)
7,484 Year Six, 2020/21 (2 novels released, 1 novella, 1 children's short story)
8,853 Year Seven 2021/22 (1 novel, 1 novella)
19,524 Year Eight 2022/23 (1 short novel, 1 novel)
14,468 Year Nine 2023/24 (1 sequel novel, 1 novella release wide in late April)
The Complete Yearly Reports on this Blog
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 6:https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2021/05/six-years-in-self-publishing.html
Year 7: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2022/05/7-years-in-self-publishing-report.html
Year 8: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2023/05/eight-years-as-authorpublisher-report.html
Sales percentages by Venue
Comparing the sales split between Amazon, Google, and Smashwords (including Apple and B & N and of 2024, Draft2Digital ) Most books are not distributed by D2D except for my original Smashwords releases. I combine Smashword with D2D
Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9
Amazon 40% 35% 21.5% 24% 23%
Draft2 Digital 40% 39% 18% 9% 11%
Google 20% 26% 60.5% 67% 66%
Year Nine Results
As you can see from the table above, my the previous year in publishing was a record breaking year with sales of 19,524 books, blowing past my seventh year total of 8,853 copies. That jump in sales was fueled by the introduction of audiobook sales, and the breakout success of The Girl on the Kerb, with 2,790 copies sold in the last than six weeks of that fiscal year. This year continued those sales trends, but without a breakout release and at a more moderate pace across the board. In the previous post, I mentioned that I hadn't expected my year nine sales to be as good year eight, and this proved to be the case. Just about every book sold less copies this year than last year, as both ebooks and audiobooks and as a result, my sales were down significantly - by about 25%, with audiobooks declining more like 40%. This year audiobooks comprised 35% of my sales vs 42% last year. Declines for sure, but coming off a record year, these declines still allowed for a very good year, with sales averaging more than a thousand books a month.
Looking ahead, I don't see much changing drastically. Sales of my existing titles will likely continue to decline slightly as they usually do. Amazon now offered only two of my books for free which will contribute slightly to that decline as well. It is impossible to say how much, if any, the nearly 6,000 sales of The Girl on the Kerb led to new readers. This year's release, Passage to Japara, as the third book in a modestly successful series will not move the sales needle very much. We'll have to wait to see how a theoretical 2025 novel does. I do not expect any significant sales from audiobooks on Amazon/Audible.
On a more positive note, I'm hoping that my sales on Draft2Digital will ramp up with the addition of audiobooks on Apple. However, with the release of only 7 of the 12 books I uploaded to Apple Audio, and those released at random, it is hard to estimate what sort of sales range they're going to settle into. However, since sales are still increasing, I have hopes. I was selling a lot more ebooks on Google when I released the audiobooks on Google, so I don't expect Apple audiobooks to do as well as my Google Audiobooks, but it would be nice if they could do as well in proportion to their Apple ebook sales.
I don't see any other audiobook markets for auto-narrated books that would move the needle, and probably wouldn't bother if any other audiobook market would take them.
I hope to write and publish another novel - a mundane fantasy - within the next 12 months. Another novella, likely a sequel, might also be possible. But nothing promised.
I'll enter Sailing to Redoubt in the next SPFBO X contest, but the odds are against it even being selected - selection is by lottery this year -with the odds likely 3 to 1. And even if it makes it, experience has taught me not to expect any bump in sales. I just do it to hear what reviewers have to say about my books, a book they likely would've never found otherwise.
As for plans for my tenth year as an author/publisher, well, they boil down to staying the course.
In the end, I feel that the ebook market has matured to a point where it is fairly easy to say what will sell, what it takes to sell it, and where to sell. If you do that, all you then need is folding money to spend and luck. I'm not writing what sells, I'm not doing what is needed to sell my books for more than free, I'm not spending money to try to sell them, plus, I'm not offering my books where they generate the most money - Kindle Unlimited. What I am doing is serving a relatively small market - a market made up of readers, like myself, who read library books, free ebooks, and sometimes will even buy second hand books, if they're cheap enough. With 15 books in my catalog now, I'm hoping that every new reader who happens upon one of my books will eventually read all of them - one sale leading to 14 more.
My prediction for my tenth year as an author/publisher? Well, I'm going to be optimistic this year, and say that I'm hoping that it will be pretty much like this year.
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