Well, Stuart Ayris has bravely made his sales for Tollesbury Time Forever available on his blog at http://tollesburytimeforever.blogspot.co.uk, so I’d thought I’d do the same for my debut novel…
My first ideas for The Serpent in the Glass began right back in 1997. Around 2003-2006 I received a number of rejection slips (including one for the agency that had signed up J.K. Rowling) from publishers/agencies. Then, in 2010, a friend showed me an ereader, but I didn’t think much of self-publishing back then, though it did stick in the back of my mind. Then, fed up with postage and rejection slips, I reworked my children’s novel for the Kindle and published it at the end of 2011. I only made about 10 sales per month (and a few of those were to people I personally knew) in November and December, but it was thrilling to see it on Amazon.
Since then I’ve released a second and a (final) third edition of the book, as well as a paperback version. Below I chart how my book fared in 2012 on the Kindle. The Serpent in the Glass isn’t currently available on other digital platforms because it is enrolled in the Amazon KDP Select program. Although I have made some paperback sales, they are small and thus not included here (and, to be honest, I’m not quite sure how to get at all that data anyway!).
Kindle ebook sales (and borrows) of The Serpent in the Glass during 2012
- Jan: 70 (11)
- Feb: 65 (33)
- Mar: 1217 (288)
- Apr: 219 (48)
- May: 56 (22)
- Jun: 42 (12)
- Jul: 47 (16)
- Aug: 39 (9)
- Sep: 30 (5)
- Oct: 21 (10)
- Nov: 20 (8)
- Dec: 169 (380)
Total: 1995 sales (842 borrows) with a breakdown split of US 1584 (833) & UK 411 (9)
(sales through other sites, chiefly Germany, have been negligible and perhaps add 10 or so to the total, so I got a little over 2000 Kindle sales in 2012)
As for ratings:
| RATINGS | 5-Star | 4-Star | 3-Star | 2-Star | 1-Star |
| Amazon US | 21 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| Amazon UK | 11 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| GoodReads | 29 | 24 | 17 | 2 | 3 |
| Totals | 61 | 38 | 20 | 7 | 4 |
| Percentages | 47% | 29% | 15% | 6% | 3% |
You can read the actual reviews here:
A big “thank you” to all who’ve supported me in my first year! I hope to have 2-3 new releases out in the first quarter of 2013 — and I may yet start that sequel to The Serpent in the Glass!!!
7 Responses to “The Serpent in the Glass in 2012…”
Those are fantastic sales – how did you do it? Seriously, my book (The Saved Saint) has been out since October and we’ve barely shifted 300 so far. Any tips?
Well, I’ve heard from a lot of writers and they are flummoxed as to why one book does well and another doesn’t. From what I’ve gleaned:
1. Write good books that people enjoy
2. Write more than one book – in fact, as many as you can, as they are not just your product, they are also your salesmen!
3. Spend most of your focus on writing, not marketing. I hear 1-2 hours on marketing max per day.
4. Focus on real relationships with fans, rather than all the impersonal spammy stuff
Wonderful stuff mate! Well done! Amazing amount of borrows! I think I’ve borrowed more cups of sugar from next door than people have borrowed my book!
Keep up the great work!
Stu
Thanks, Stuart. I’ve no idea why I got so many borrows…
p.s. Try asking for cubes instead
Those are great numbers and wonderful advice. Thanks for posting!
Thanks for sharing your 2012 stats. I always appreciate seeing this kind of data.
I’m curious if you can put your finger on why March and December seems to be your best months? Did you run special promos those months?
Yes, I ran a KDP Select promo in early March – this was when they still packed a punch. In fact, the campaign was quite amateurish (I didn’t even know about notifying sites beforehand). I ran another promo with the same book a month or two ago, with a whole lot more preparation, and with a lot more reviews by that time of course, and the sales bump was very small or possibly negligible; not too easy to say because then the December sales kicked in. December seems to have been a matter of the market rather than any marketing. I was surprised about the borrows-to-sales ratio.
The first half of January has me on about 60 borrows for this book, and about 50 sales. So this month will be better than most in 2012. My other two books are languishing in obscurity though
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