Self-publishing by the Gutter

Norman D Gutter

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Reporting January-February sales. 2 each month.

Here's the table. And you can find a larger table at my blog:
http://davidatodd.com/2014/03/05/book-sales-jan-feb-2014/

2014-02-Book-Sales-Table-396x147.png
 

Judy Koot

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Thanks for the update, Norman.
Hope your sales will pick up the upcoming months.
I notice you sold a lot of books in 2012.
Did you do something different that year, marketing wise?
 

Ann Joyce

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Good to hear from you. It doesn't seem like as many do monthly updating as before. I'm still interested in how everyone's doing, so thank you.
 

Norman D Gutter

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Athena: Those sales in 2012 were in the aftermath of a KDP Select 5-day free promotion. Since then Amazon has changed things around and the free promos don't do as well. So I've been told.
 

Norman D Gutter

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The March 2014 report:

The good news: My book sales increased 50%.

The bad news: They went from 2 to 3. That's even with being more aggressive with promoting paperbacks to people I encounter. I got one sale from that. And that's even with being in the midst of a FB ad campaign (thank you, FB, for the $50 coupon). I may have had one sale from that campaign. Here's the graph. And to see a full size version you can go to this post at my blog and click through to the larger image: http://davidatodd.com/2014/04/01/book-sales-in-march-2014/.

2014-03-Book-Sales-Table-455x163.png


In other news in March, I added one title to my published works. I did this as a result of suggestions made on this site by Old Hack in different threads, that to gain experience with the self-publishing process, especially with formatting, to re-publish a public domain book. While I've gained some experience with this through my previous 13 books, including five paperbacks, I figured doing this as suggested couldn't hurt.

For my public domain work I decided to gather the 21 articles that Thomas Carlyle wrote or translated for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia in the early 1820s. Sixteen of these had been gathered and republished in 1897, but the other five, which is actually more than 50 percent of all his contribution, had never been republished, at least not as far as I can tell. So this is previously published material, but never before pulled together and published in this manner. It's only going to be at Amazon (because Smashwords doesn't allow public domain books), and here's the link to the e-book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JCJ9WMW/?tag=absowrit-20

The print version will take a little longer. The interior formatting is finished, but I'm determined to make my own print cover. That means learning new skills. With luck I'll have it done in a week, though it may require two. Thanks, Old Hack, for the suggestion. I learned quite a bit about editing books such as this, and learned some new formatting skills for both e-books and print books.

So, now it's on to finish my next novel and publish it, and to publish a short story that's been rejected. Onward.
 

Ann Joyce

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Thanks for continuing to keep us apprised of your journey. And yes, onward... write on!
 

cwschizzy

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I get why these journey threads are so addicting now. Good luck to you, Norman. You've taught me a few things for when I start self-pubbing.
 

cwbrowning

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Thanks for the update, Norman!

That's pretty cool that you were able to pull together a collection that has never existed before with the works of Thomas Carlyle. While I'm not familiar with him, I find it inspiring that over a hundred years later, something new can come from his contributions. Congratulations on that! :)
 

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The public domain experiment is really interesting. I'd never thought of it as a way of gaining formatting experience. Best of luck with the print cover, too. I haven't yet summoned the guts to try making my own cover. I'm guessing it wouldn't turn out well.
 

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Thanks for the update, Norman.
 

Norman D Gutter

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Thanks for the comments, everyone.

I was able to use G.I.M.P. to create a print book cover for the Carlyle encyclopedia articles book. I uploaded the book and cover to CreateSpace, and they accepted it for printing with no problems. The proof copy arrived yesterday, and I like it. Now that I have the print cover I can see some tweaks that are needed. It's not properly centered, and I need some quotation marks on the two "endorsements" on the back cover. But, for my first effort, for what is primarily an academic book, I'm pleased with it. Here's the cover.

TCEEA-print-cover-01-396x278.jpg


Go to this post on my blog to see it somewhat larger:
http://davidatodd.com/2014/04/17/thomas-carlyles-edinburgh-encyclopedia-articles-print-cover-reveal/
 

mrsmig

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I'm fascinated by this. I had never thought of using public domain material as self-publishing practice, and it's a great idea. Looking forward to reading more about your progress.

(I do have to point out, though, that "encyclopedia" is misspelled on your cover.)


Thanks for the comments, everyone.

I was able to use G.I.M.P. to create a print book cover for the Carlyle encyclopedia articles book. I uploaded the book and cover to CreateSpace, and they accepted it for printing with no problems. The proof copy arrived yesterday, and I like it. Now that I have the print cover I can see some tweaks that are needed. It's not properly centered, and I need some quotation marks on the two "endorsements" on the back cover. But, for my first effort, for what is primarily an academic book, I'm pleased with it. Here's the cover.

TCEEA-print-cover-01-396x278.jpg


Go to this post on my blog to see it somewhat larger:
http://davidatodd.com/2014/04/17/thomas-carlyles-edinburgh-encyclopedia-articles-print-cover-reveal/
 
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grayworld

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Nice catch on the typo, mrsmig. Otherwise, Norman, I think your cover looks great, especially for someone using GIMP with little experience. It looks like "peripheral reading material" an English professor would've charged me $25 for back in the day :)
 

AgathaChristieFan

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I agree with Grayworld, your public domain experiment sounds interesting. Your book cover looks great. I wish I was skilled in that area. Congrats on your book sales!
 

Norman D Gutter

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Thanks everyone for the responses and encouragement. The print version of my Thomas Carlyle book is live at CreateSpace and Amazon (after the cover was fixed). No sales yet, but I don't really expect any. At some point I'll start contacting some university libraries about it, if those bolder moments really do come to me.

Work on my novel-in-progress continues, more slowly than I'd like. I'm down to 15,000 to 20,000 words left, with it fairly well planned out, so the writing should go quickly, once the time to write comes back. We are preparing for a couple of family gatherings in May, so I haven't found much writing time. It will come back, however, and I should finish it in May and publish it in late June, after simmering and editing. Also hopefully before the end of May I'll make a cover for my completed short story and publish that.

Now, on to sales in April. They were definitely better than the first three months of the year. In fact, that's the most in any month since last July. One was a self-sale of a paperback, two were paperbacks at CreateSpace, and five were e-books, all at Amazon. So far this year I have no sales at Smashwords or at any of the places Smashwords distributes to. All of these sales were of full length books; no short stories. So my revenue per sale looks pretty good for the month.

I'm glad for the uptick in sales, but am still well below the goals I set for the year. My ability to justify carrying on with this crazy rollercoaster ride depends upon a certain sale level for the year. Hopefully release of my next novel, a couple of short stories, and my poetry book will produce the larger spurt I need.

Here's the sales table. If you want to see a larger version, click here to my blog post and click through to the full-size graph: http://davidatodd.com/2014/05/02/april-2014-book-sales/

2014-04-Book-Sales-Table-545x242.png
 

Ann Joyce

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Thanks for the update, Norman. Glad you had a better April. Write on!
 

Norman D Gutter

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Thanks for the comments, cw and Ann.

Time to report May sales. But first an update on April. A late report by Apple shows I sold one book there in April, the first of the year at anywhere other than Amazon and self-sales. So that changes April from 8 to 9.

As to May, it started out as a lackluster month, until Saturday of Memorial Day week. You know the dream where someone discovers you and buys one of everything you have for sale? It didn't quite happen that way, but when I checked sales Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend I found that I'd sold six books over night, five on Saturday and one on Sunday. Five of those were one each of my short stories. The pushed me to 10 sales for the month. Still not stellar by any means, but after bumping along for months at 2, 2, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2 or thereabouts, I'll take it. Back to back months of 9 and 10 give me hope for the rest of the year.

Last weekend I finished my latest novel. It's now sitting a while before I tackle editing it. Last night I formatted my novella for print. Tonight I'll (hopefully) get the cover done and submit it all to CreateSpace. I'm also working on a cover for my next short story, and hope to have the e-book of that published in a week. Then to choose between five projects that are all occupying brain capacity.

Here's my table through May. Here's a link to my blog post where you can access a full size table: http://davidatodd.com/updates/. My Wordpress theme died an untimely death and I have to pick a new one. That's a task for a few days from now.

2014-05-Book-Sales-Table-535x212.png
 

Ann Joyce

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So glad to hear things are looking up for you, Norman. Sounds like you've got a lot on your plate. Here's hoping your up-tick continues in that direction!
 

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Thanks for sharing! Glad May was a better month for you. :) Good look with your latest projects. You sound busy, busy, busy.