Last month I analyzed my total eBook sales for 2014 in a post called I’ve Sold More than 3,000 Books!
Sadly, I haven’t sold 3,000 books…I’ve sold closer to 2,500. The reason is because I counted a lot of free books in with my Smashwords sales. You might remember me discussing Smashwords when I wrote a post called Comparing Amazon Kindle Unlimited with Smashwords.
Both of those are great posts to look at if you’re interested in eBook sales, self-publishing, and how to get your author platform going. In this post today we’ll continue that trend, and we’ll do so by taking a detailed look at my Smashwords sales for 2014.
Sadly, I haven’t sold 3,000 books…I’ve sold closer to 2,500. The reason is because I counted a lot of free books in with my Smashwords sales. You might remember me discussing Smashwords when I wrote a post called Comparing Amazon Kindle Unlimited with Smashwords.
Both of those are great posts to look at if you’re interested in eBook sales, self-publishing, and how to get your author platform going. In this post today we’ll continue that trend, and we’ll do so by taking a detailed look at my Smashwords sales for 2014.
Why do this?
I think it’s important to analyze what sold last year so you can figure out where to put your efforts this year. What’s more, you can see areas that need shoring up or areas that should just be abandoned entirely. I’d like to mention that I use ChartGo for these graphs, which is a free site anyone can figure out.
I think it’s important to analyze what sold last year so you can figure out where to put your efforts this year. What’s more, you can see areas that need shoring up or areas that should just be abandoned entirely. I’d like to mention that I use ChartGo for these graphs, which is a free site anyone can figure out.
Smashwords Quarterly Sales
First I want to show you the graphs for my quarterly sales. I got these by downloading the quarterly sales report then moving everything around and counting. I was surprised by how much some of the pie slices changed…sometimes for the worst.
66 Total Sales for Q1 (should read 2014 Smashwords Sales)
96 Total Sales for Q2
111 Total Sales for Q3
65 Total Sales for Q4
My sales increased each quarter but the last, and we’ll get to that later. One thing is that The Jongurian Mission really dropped off in sales after the first quarter. This may have been some delayed reporting from when that book wasn’t yet perma-free.
Something else that you notice is how much the ESL books take off, specifically Teaching English: 10 Proven Ways to Make Shy Students Talk Now. I actually took that book off perma-free halfway through the year, which may account for the sales boost – people thought it was free, saw it wasn’t, and said what the hell, I’ll pay $0.99. At least that’s what I think happened.
Something else that you notice is how much the ESL books take off, specifically Teaching English: 10 Proven Ways to Make Shy Students Talk Now. I actually took that book off perma-free halfway through the year, which may account for the sales boost – people thought it was free, saw it wasn’t, and said what the hell, I’ll pay $0.99. At least that’s what I think happened.
Smashwords Sales Totals
This is what my total sales looked like for the year, 338 books:
I thought that ESL (English as a Second Language) was really taking up a lot of sales, so I made the following graph:
So ESL sales are accounting for 45.8% of my total 2014 Smashwords sales. Obviously you know why I was putting one of those books out each month – they sell.
But what else can we learn? We’ve still got 54% of my Smashwords sales coming from other sources, as you can see from the below graph:
That doesn’t tell us a whole lot, but this breakdown right here does:
Smashwords detailed sales by genre/series
This is how the percentages of those sales break down:
Wow, that really puts things into perspective, at least for how Smashwords is (or isn’t) working for me. Here are some takeaways:
I’d like to show one final graph, and this illustrates how much the subscription services have eaten into my sales…I think:
- ESL: 45.8%
- Jonguria: 17.7%
- SEO/Social: 14.2%
- Montana: 10.9%
- Tarot: 9.7%
- China: 0.8%
- Fiction: 0.5%
Wow, that really puts things into perspective, at least for how Smashwords is (or isn’t) working for me. Here are some takeaways:
- It’s a bit distressing to see that 17.7% of your sales came from a book that you now give away for free.
- What’s more, it’s clear that my fiction means absolutely nothing to anyone but readers on Amazon – people at Barnes and Noble, iTunes and everywhere else only want non-fiction from me.
- My SEO books don’t sell that well on Amazon, but do get most of their sales from Smashwords, particularly iTunes.
- My book Ten Minute Tarot never gets sales on Amazon, but does well form the Smashwords distributors.
- Montana history books sell a lot better on Amazon.
- Having a single volume of Chinese history is about worthless…but two to three might do something.
I’d like to show one final graph, and this illustrates how much the subscription services have eaten into my sales…I think:
Yearly gains lost by 4th quarter
It’s not very heartening to see your sales gains of the year wiped out in the 4th quarter, but that’s what happened. I blame this on Sribd or Oyster or whatever the hell it is. It’s probably the same curve I’d see if I tabulated my Amazon sales, however, what with Kindle Unlimited.
Conclusion
Looking at these results really makes me think of my strategy. Clearly fiction books would do better for me on Amazon, and perhaps in KDP Select. What’s more, now I can figure out the best books to put on Draft 2 Digital, as I’ve already mentioned I want to be paid monthly…something Smashwords is unable or unwilling to do.
But that’s a post for another day. Thanks for reading!
Conclusion
Looking at these results really makes me think of my strategy. Clearly fiction books would do better for me on Amazon, and perhaps in KDP Select. What’s more, now I can figure out the best books to put on Draft 2 Digital, as I’ve already mentioned I want to be paid monthly…something Smashwords is unable or unwilling to do.
But that’s a post for another day. Thanks for reading!
RSS Feed