Last year David Gaughran used to list how much he was making from the sales of his books, what he was doing in terms of promotion, where he was selling his books, and so on, but he hasn't done it in awhile and I missed it.
Perhaps it's voyeuristic, but when David had a great month I felt inspired and when he had a slow month it made me feel better about the slow months I've had, so for me it was a win-win.
In any case, I was very happy to see David is once again reporting his numbers. In his latest post he concentrates on paperback sales of his book, Let's Get Digital (love that title!). He writes:
I was really slow to see the potential in print, and it was probably the biggest mistake I made over the last year. ...Let's think about that. In one month David's paperback sales from just one of his books earned him 25% of his current monthly income from writing. That's what I call significant!
I had felt that the market for Let’s Get Digital would be largely, um, digital, and that whatever was left would be cannibalized by the PDF version being available as a free download from my blog.
I was wrong.
Paperback Growth
Here are my paperback sales for the last five months:
February: 6
March: 24
April: 20
May: 49
June: 67
Note: A Storm Hits Valparaiso was released in Feb, Let’s Get Digital in May
I’m pretty happy with that growth – especially because I’m averaging $5 in royalties per copy sold. Last month, paperbacks brought in $330 (profit) – which is about 25% of my current income, helping me break new ground. I cleared $1000 in May and easily topped that in June – largely on the back of stronger print numbers.
Most of those paperback sales came from Amazon US, and, following that, direct sales to indie bookstores (mostly in the UK).
- Making Money From Paperbacks
CreateSpace
This is the second time in the last few days I've come across an author singing the praises of Amazon's CreateSpace. (What Jen Talty of Cool Gus Publishing thinks of Amazon's CreateSpace.)
David makes another excellent point and one I hadn't considered. Let's say you're selling your ebook for $2.99 on Amazon and are offering a print version through CreateSpace for $13.99. When a reader views the ebook version they'll see the $13.99 price crossed out, the Kindle Price of $2.99 highlighted, and the customer will be informed that, in buying your ebook, they will save $11.
Now that's good advertising!
I've just concentrated on a couple of the things David talks about in his article; it's well worth the read: Making Money From Paperbacks
Related reading:
- Jen Talty: Amazon's CreateSpace Vs LIghtning Source
- Kobo's Self-Publishing Portal: Report From A Beta Tester
- Mystery Writer Elizabeth S. Craig's Reasons For Self Publishing
Photo credit: The Guardian
