December was a very good month to me, and a very bad one as well.
For the month I wrote 106,343 words and put out two new books. For the year, I managed to write 1,334,191 words, up from the 1,251,573 words I had in 2013. What’s more, I put out 25 books this year, which is the same as the 25 books I put out in 2013…my first year in self-publishing.
All in all, a good year. I made $4,339.01 from Amazon, which is 540.93% higher than the $802.14 I made in 2013. Still, my gross income is down as my expenses are up. For this year I had $1,802.83 in expenses, compared to the $997.79 in 2013. Mainly, that’s those better eBook covers you’re seeing.
For Smashwords I made $891.06 for the year, which is up from the $154.99 I made last year. And for the year, as a full-time writer, I had a net income of $19,501.82…down from the $19,817.26 I had last year.
So let’s get into some specifics as we start off 2015.
For the month I wrote 106,343 words and put out two new books. For the year, I managed to write 1,334,191 words, up from the 1,251,573 words I had in 2013. What’s more, I put out 25 books this year, which is the same as the 25 books I put out in 2013…my first year in self-publishing.
All in all, a good year. I made $4,339.01 from Amazon, which is 540.93% higher than the $802.14 I made in 2013. Still, my gross income is down as my expenses are up. For this year I had $1,802.83 in expenses, compared to the $997.79 in 2013. Mainly, that’s those better eBook covers you’re seeing.
For Smashwords I made $891.06 for the year, which is up from the $154.99 I made last year. And for the year, as a full-time writer, I had a net income of $19,501.82…down from the $19,817.26 I had last year.
So let’s get into some specifics as we start off 2015.
Dulce Base
I was very happy to put out my NaNoWriMo sci-fi novel on December 9, my birthday. I put some eBook marketing behind it and got it up onto the charts. You can read all about it in my post Amazon Sci-Fi and Thriller Categories Explained.
Since then the book has really fallen. It was pushing #300,000 a few days ago, but then I looked recently and saw it at #80,000…so it’s getting some lovin’ again. I really think a lot of that rank change comes down to borrows, since I have it in Amazon KDP, meaning you can only buy it on Amazon.
So far the book has sold 33 copies and has gotten 30 borrows – a lot better than I expected it to do. Honestly, my expectations for most books are that they’ll get 2 sales and then nothing, and I base this on experience. Since my mom doesn’t believe in me anymore, I kind of just expect 1 sale now.
Since then the book has really fallen. It was pushing #300,000 a few days ago, but then I looked recently and saw it at #80,000…so it’s getting some lovin’ again. I really think a lot of that rank change comes down to borrows, since I have it in Amazon KDP, meaning you can only buy it on Amazon.
So far the book has sold 33 copies and has gotten 30 borrows – a lot better than I expected it to do. Honestly, my expectations for most books are that they’ll get 2 sales and then nothing, and I base this on experience. Since my mom doesn’t believe in me anymore, I kind of just expect 1 sale now.
Stand Out
On December 30 I released Stand Out: Your 2015 SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing Guidebook. I had no marketing behind this one, mainly because I had no money. I did do some marketing footwork, which consists of me using a spreadsheet like this to tap into the followers of the people I mention in the book:
Twitter Marketing List
How’d it go? Not too good. I got maybe 1 retweet out of that. Oh well – I still got 6 sales out of it.
Again, I don’t really expect my books to do that well, mainly because none of my books have ever done that well. So I do what I’ve done since Day 1, I move onto the next book, of which there are always many.
Again, I don’t really expect my books to do that well, mainly because none of my books have ever done that well. So I do what I’ve done since Day 1, I move onto the next book, of which there are always many.
Midweek Roundups
I’ll be putting the Midweek Content Roundups on a separate blog starting next Wednesday, and it will be private. If you’d like to get that post still, sign-up for my email list. I’ll send out a link after the post goes up, just like I did to my 80 email subscribers yesterday.
Why do this? I talked a bit about that with my post I’m Toying with a Marketing Idea, and I’m not toying with it anymore, I’m doing it.
Right now I have an engagement rate of about 25% on my email list. That means of those 80 subscribers, about 20 open and maybe 3 to 4 click on the link. I thought about deleting those useless subscribers, but then I figured, why not just inundate them instead until they just unsubscribe?
Or are they not worthless to me? When you give something away to someone and they won’t even open your emails – any emails in come cases – what value do they have? None that I can see, but there are more than 100 people a week that do like my Midweek Content Roundup. I guess now we’ll have to see…how many of them don’t just like it, but feel they need it.
We’ll see next Wednesday.
Why do this? I talked a bit about that with my post I’m Toying with a Marketing Idea, and I’m not toying with it anymore, I’m doing it.
Right now I have an engagement rate of about 25% on my email list. That means of those 80 subscribers, about 20 open and maybe 3 to 4 click on the link. I thought about deleting those useless subscribers, but then I figured, why not just inundate them instead until they just unsubscribe?
Or are they not worthless to me? When you give something away to someone and they won’t even open your emails – any emails in come cases – what value do they have? None that I can see, but there are more than 100 people a week that do like my Midweek Content Roundup. I guess now we’ll have to see…how many of them don’t just like it, but feel they need it.
We’ll see next Wednesday.
Upcoming Projects
Looking ahead at what still needs to be done, I’ve got a new self-publishing 2015 book coming out later this month, which will be just like the book Stand Out, but for publishing. It’ll have tons of tips and tricks from the experts, and I expect it to get a few sales more than usual.
At some point I’ll finish this John Colter novel I’m working on, and perhaps I’ll start on some more Montana novels after that.
My book for politicians wanting to use social media to get elected will come out sometime this spring, perhaps in February.
Flight 370 is an old story I was working on last March and April, and I might brush it off and put it out in a 30,000 word short novel format.
I’d like to start working on my fifth book of Montana history soon, and maybe this month will see me get a 100 pages or so. I’ve got a rough outline started, so that’s the first step. After you’ve done four other books on the subject, though, it’s pretty easy.
That’s about it for this past month and this past year. I’m not going to dwell on it much longer today, and I suggest you don’t either.
At some point I’ll finish this John Colter novel I’m working on, and perhaps I’ll start on some more Montana novels after that.
My book for politicians wanting to use social media to get elected will come out sometime this spring, perhaps in February.
Flight 370 is an old story I was working on last March and April, and I might brush it off and put it out in a 30,000 word short novel format.
I’d like to start working on my fifth book of Montana history soon, and maybe this month will see me get a 100 pages or so. I’ve got a rough outline started, so that’s the first step. After you’ve done four other books on the subject, though, it’s pretty easy.
That’s about it for this past month and this past year. I’m not going to dwell on it much longer today, and I suggest you don’t either.
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