My first novel – historical military fiction – made it to the top 10 of 9 of Amazon's bestseller lists. Via my blog I share what I have learned while writing two more.
Sales of my novel have ceratinly slowed — only 307 copies this year — but that still allows me to donate $100, which my employeer (Dell Technologies) again generously matched. So the total is $200 for the year, which brings the total to $2,500.
If your’re curious, the other half of the money I collect goes to marketing, advertising to be precise. I have a very modest spend of about about $6 or $7 a month for pay per click advertising with Amazon.
Not a huge donation, but more than I thought my little book would ever do, and happy to help.
As I promised almost 4 years ago when I first published my little novel about the 173rd Airborne Brigade during the Tet Offensive in part to thank the soldiers — mostly Vietnam Veterans — who contributed so much to my development as a young Army officer, I am continuing to donate half of my earnings from Youth In Asia.
With a generous matching contribution from my employer, this brings the total to about $2,300. And I am again donating to the VFW National Home for Children and Families. There are a lot of good charities staffed by hardworking, caring individuals. This is the one I picked to donate to. I value the focus on helping familes get back on their feet, and taking care of children.
From one perspective, $2,300 is not much money. From another — that of an aspiring novelist — that my first work of published fiction has done so well is gratifying.
Sales have certainly slowed, and last month (November of 2018) was the first month out of 45 months that I sold less than 1 copy a day. December has been a better month of sales, and I’m going to be back above 1 sale a day. The trend though is clear: sales are continuing to slow.
Of course, it is never too late to buy a copy to help me generate more money to donate, and leave a 5-star review to help drive more sales. 🙂
I can’t complain about how it has done so far. Almost 4,000 copies sold, 4.4-star rating from 67 reviews on Amazon US, more reviews WW (4.3-star rating from 16 reviews in the UK, 5.0-star rating from three reviews in Canada, etc.), and 105 reviews on GoodReads with a 4.1-star rating. All and all, it has been well received and I have gotten some good feedback on how to write a better story next time.
My goal when I published it was to sell 365 copies and get no less than a 4-star review average. My more important goal was to learn as much as I could about self-publishing, and I certainly have.
So in all ways this has a been a huge success for me and modest help to a few charities. With that, I’ll call it a good year.
And a big thank you to everyone who has bought a copy and left a review which helps me reach more people.
This morning, after rolling out of bed on this 4th of July, I saw that my first novel had gotten its 100th review on Goodreads and its 66th review on Amazon. From the same person, and only 4 stars, nonetheless it was exciting to hit 100 on Goodreads. That is just one of many metrics that can describe my book’s success in the market.
Though sales of my novel have continued to slow as it is coming up on 3 years since I published it, I’m keeping my promise to donate half of my earnings. Since I made my last donation early in the year, I’ve earned another $400, so I’m donating $200. Because my employer matches my donations, that means another $400. I have again decided to donate to the VFW National Home for Children.
I really like this organization’s focus on families. They seem to understand that it takes a family working together to get back on its feet while you also have to help the children.
This focus on protecting children is also a key theme in Lonely Hunter and the subsequent novels in the series. More on that in a future post.
So in total, with a partial match, I’ve now been able to donate over $2,000 to organizations that help our veterans and their families. That makes me feel good and it is pretty exciting that my first novel has sold so well.
Speaking of book sales… Given that I’m kind of a data geek, I have long been tracking my monthly sales. You can see below in blue the average sales per day on a monthly basis, and the red line is the running average.
You can clearly see in blue how sales fell almost immediately (very typical for a newbie), and then climbed as I figured out to pick keywords that would actually get traffic. Sales peaked at over 7 books per day, and then fell dramatically in September of last year. Amazon clearly made a change that impacted my sales. When I spoke to them, they said they did not know what they could have done, but obviously, something happened. The change before and since has exceeded two standard deviations, which strongly implies something material changed.
In all events, I’m not unhappy. It has been a great run, and with the strong reviews and continuing sales, I’m very proud of how it did and the people who have helped me — my wife, one of my daughters who made the map, and my editor.
It has been a good year. 🙂
Best wishes to you and your family and for all your writing projects for the New Year!
I am happy to share that since I last made a donation in March, my sales of Youth In Asia about the 173rd Airborne Brigade during the Vietnam War have generated more than $600 of income for me. Not bad for a book priced at just $1.49, and of which I only get 30%. Since I’ve promised to donate half of my earnings, that is $300 more to donate.
Additionally, Crawford Roberts, the accomplished producer of the audiobook version of my novel had offered his services at a discounted rate, and then, after working on the projected, offered to complete it for free. I did not feel right keeping the $200 I had promised him, so I have added it to the $300 I will contribute. That makes $500.
Better yet, my employer again agreed to match my total contribution, so (in part due to Crawford’s and my employer’s generosity) I have just made a $1,000 contribution to the VFW’s National Home for Children.
With your help, I have now donated $1,650 to the VFW, Wounded Warrior, and similar organizations from my book sales to help our veterans
I will also donate a portion of my revenue from Lonely Hunter. Two of my children are chronically ill, so I’m happy to give to organizations doing medical research from which my children and all children will someday benefit.
