601 Sales - How Will A Kindle Nation Daily Ad Affect My Sales?

I saw 500 sales as a big milestone and should have written this post then. But now I'm at 601, so I thought I'd report how the sales have been going.

I have an advert with Kindle Nation Daily due out at the end of this week (27th September). I've opted for the Kindle Daily Deal at $99. My sales are pretty poor in the US so I'm hoping this advert will give a boost to them. To break even at my current sale price, I need about 250 sales.

Visibility

It seems to me that visibility is the most important thing with Amazon. I talk about Amazon because I've had three sales on Kobo and none anywhere else.

From release, Crash has been in the top 50 for post apocalyptic Kindle books. This seemed to help the book tick along nicely and was generating sales of one or two copies a day. Halfway through August I dropped my price to $0.99 and £0.99. You can see the impact below on my sales figures and visibility. I've been in the top 10 post apocalyptic kindle charts and the top 50 for horror overall for about a month now. This extra visibility has coincided with a huge leap in figures. Although I have to sell lots more copies to make the same money, that's currently happening. So my book is being seen by more people and I'm making more money. I don't plan on keeping my price this low forever, but while the sales are good, I'll leave it as it is.

This screenshot was taken this morning (this is relatively low for my average):

My highest rank for each category has been 6 for post apocalyptic, 23 for kindle horror and 30 for horror overall. This is on the UK site. 

I also wanted to report a detailed breakdown of my sales figures because I've not done that yet - August was when I dropped my price. I decided to drop my price while I already had some chart visibility. I could see Crash slipping out of the charts and I hoped it would give sales a boost.

June

I released my book towards the end of June.

UK site - 16 copies sold.

US site - 13 copies sold.

July

UK site - 35 copies sold.

US site - 28 copies sold. 

August 

UK site - 154 copies sold.

US site - 24 copies sold. 

September (so far)

UK site - 314 copies sold

US site - 14 copies sold

Reviews

I've never had the chart visibility in the US and my average reviews aren't enough to get me much attention. I assume this is why my sales on Amazon.com aren't great. 

Next Blog Post

In my next blog post I want to show the figures after a Kindle Nation Daily ad to see if it was worth the $99. 

My First Month as a Self-Published Author (Sales Figures Included).

I published my debut novella CRASH on the 20^th June 2013. I have high hopes for a career in self-publishing based on what I’ve seen to be a successful publishing model. It seems that the main advice for being successful is to - 1) Write good books. 2) Keep writing. 3) Don’t spend too much time promoting your first book because you don’t have any more work to sell. 

I’ll be honest, I’m still at the point where I check my sales figures obsessively. I’ve opted to put my first book on all platforms because I’m yet to have anything to lead readers onto. I see giving my book away at the moment as a waste of time, but I do wonder if I’m missing out on the Kindle lending library downloads. (Does anyone have any experience of this?) Once I have the second book in the series, I will put my book on hold with everyone but Amazon and register it in KDP select. I will then start using one book to generate sales for the other. 

First Month Sales Figures

So here are my sales figures as of today - Amazon = 76 copies. Smashwords = A few sample downloads and one addition to a library. Kobo = 1 copy (which was today).

It would seem that not only was Amazon the easiest place to upload my book to (I still haven’t got in the Smashword’s premium catalogue - Grr!), but they are responsible for all but one of my sales. Today is the first day - so far - that I haven’t sold a copy on Amazon (although I do keep checking). 

I’m happy with the figures. It’s more than I expected with just one book uploaded. It’s paid for the cover and some of the edit and I realise that sales will be something that will come down the road when I have more books to sell. My second novella is with an editor at present and the third one isn’t far behind. 

Reviews

I’ve had generally positive reviews and I’m trying to get more by giving a few copies away to review sites and readers who are willing to review. 

My first negative review hit me quite hard, but now the book has been out there for over a month, I already feel much more thick-skinned about it. If a negative review is helpful then I will take everything I can from it. If it isn’t, then it’s personal taste and there’s nothing I can do about that. I’ve had plenty of positive reviews and feel happy with how my book has been received. 

Overall Experience of Self-Publishing

I’ve already had highs and lows in my first month but I’ve stayed focused on the plan - Get a series out in the world and then make people aware of it. I feel much braver about the whole process now I’ve made the first move and I’ve earned more money this month than in my entire writing career. 

Onwards and upwards.