My Tenth Year in Publishing - The Numbers

 

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 - It just can't lose money. To accomplish its stated mission within the assigned parameters, Celanda House, whenever possible, prices ebooks and audiobooks at cost. In most instances this is free. 

After ten years in business, how successful has Celanda House been in its mission of getting the works of C. Litka into the hands of the eager reading public? Below are the numbers.

This year I have simplified the chart, combining all sales per book into one number. I have broken out the ebook to audiobook ratio per store.

Book Title/ Release Date	Year 10 Sales	Total to Date
SALES PERIOD May 2024 – April 2025	Ebooks, Audiobooks & Paperback combined	Ebooks, Audiobooks & Paperback combined
A Summer in Amber 23 April 2015	926	11,029
Some Day Days 9 July 2015	692	7,267
The Bright Black Sea 17 Sept 2015	1,861	20,092
Castaways of the Lost Star (Initial Release -withdrawn) 4 Aug 2016		2,176(one year)
The Lost Star’s Sea 13 July 2017	1,009	11,651
Beneath the Lanterns 13 Sept 2018	717	6,139
Sailing to Redoubt 15 March 2019	838	5,824
Prisoner of Cimlye 2 April 2020	701	4,436
Lines in the Lawn (short story) 8 June 2020 Widthdrawn		174
Keiree 18 Sept 2020	709	4,032
The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon 11 Nov 2020	1.036	5,519
The Secrets of Valsummer House 18 March 2021	984	4,623
Shadows of an Iron Kingdom 15 July 2021	1.502	5,837
The Aerie of a Pirate Prince 29 Sept 2022	950	3,018
The Girl on the Kerb 6 April 2023	1,296	7,000
A Night on Isvalar 15 July 2021	824	917
Passage to Jarpara 16 March 2024	795	972
Chateau Clare 17 Oct 2024	1,257	1,257
Glencrow Summer Feb 21 2025	704	704
The Lost Star six book Series Aug-Sep 2024	149	149
Omnibus Editions (withdrawn)		30
TOTALS THIS PERIOD	16,950  Year Ten	102,835 Grand Total

Sales by Store ( ebook/audiobook, store sales, and store % of total sales)

Draft2Digital*   2,257 ebooks   1,403 Audio books (38%)   3,660 Total   21.5%

Kobo                   82 ebooks              n/a                                82 Total       .5%

Amazon              780 ebooks   26 Audiobooks  (3%) 21 Paper   827 Total     5%

Google            5,393 ebooks     6,954 Audiobooks (56%)     12,347 Total   73%

* D2D includes sales via Smashwords, B & N, Apple, & a few European stores. Audiobook sales from Apple.

(Note: the totals between the chart and these listings differ by 34, well within my margin of error.)

Revenue: $379.21  

Expenses: Books & Postage for Beta Readers $80 (est.)

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  Audiobooks)

14,468 Year Nine 2023/24 (1 sequel novel, 1 novella release wide in late April)

16,950 Year Ten 2024/2025 (2 novels)

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

Year 9: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2024/05/nine-years-as-authorpublisher-part-2.html

My Thoughts On the Data 

Surprisingly my tenth year proved to be my second best in sales. In last year's yearly report I said that I hoped this year would be like last year, and, as it turned out, my sales exceeded last year by almost 2,500 copies. Revenue up $200 as well. It was a very good year. There is likely no secret reason for this; new releases, like the tide, raise the sale of all books. So with two new novels released this year both of which sold well, likely explains the better than expected sales.

The most important reading of the data above is that across all of my books, my back catalog books continue to sell at roughly the same rate as my newest titles. This would seem to suggest that I am attracting new readers every year, who then go on to read the stories I published before they discovered my books. Also it is interesting how relatively close in numbers most books are, with my space opera continuing to be my best seller, followed by its direct sequel and the four adventure/mysteries set in that same locale. Why the third book in the series, Shadows of an Iron Kingdom outsells all the other titles in that series is a mystery. There is a role playing game by the name of Iron Kingdoms which might explain it. Or readers simply like Gothic themed stories.

As I said in an earlier post, I think these sales are earned by the number of words I've written and number of books I've published. As well as the frequency of releases. More books, more often, more sales. Econ. 101. 

Audiobooks accounted for 49.5% of my sales this year. I suspect that audio books account for close to half of my Apple sales as well, since that 38% includes Smashwords, B & N et. al. Clearly, by adopting audiobooks, even auto-narrated ones, I have doubled my sales. Best publishing decision I made. And it was a no-brainer.

Google continues to dominate my sales. I think the reason is simple; young people use their smart phones as their computer, social media platform, and entertainment center. Offering my entertainment on phones via the Play Store, Apple Books, or on the Kindle App, as both text and voice is a doorway to the younger readers. As is making my work affordable to anyone who has a smart phone, i.e. just about everyone.

Looking Ahead

My next novel, The Darval-Mers Dossier, a 53K word mystery novel set in the same world as Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, is set to be released on 5 June 2025. Ideally I would like to release a second novel early in 2026, even though my stated goal is one novel a year. We'll see.

Earlier this year, I had toyed with the idea of making big changes after reaching the 100,000 sales mark and my 10th year. I considered going all in on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited for a year or two, just to see what I could do to capture the paying market. However, I sobered up and decided not to pursue that avenue. First, the sales of my books on Amazon and Kobe have inspired little confidence that I could sell enough books to justify spending the money I'd have to spend to get them in front of enough readers to have a chance of success. Together with the likelihood of losing most of that money, since my books are out of the mainstream of bestsellers I sighed and thought, no. And perhaps more importantly, I feel good about simply sharing my stories with readers. It just seems to feel right. I lose nothing by doing so and gain a pleasant felling of satisfaction by doing it. Plus, I like looking at my sales figures each month. Why turn fun into work? 

So, going forward, there may be new sales venues opening up this summer. I've seen reports suggesting that bookstore.org will be adding self-published books to their offering, somehow, which, if true would bear looking into. And I believe Kobo is in the early stages of some sort of audiobook move as well. Currently invite only. Otherwise, I'm staying the course. We'll see what the next year brings. Fingers crossed, something good.

Stay tuned for it's other than Amazon release day!