The Kingfisher Has Landed

lauralam

Moonshade
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 22, 2011
Messages
896
Reaction score
84
Location
Alba
That's my goal as well--basic bills through self-publishing which would arrive each month, and money from trade pubbed books for extras/travel/overpaying the mortgage/retirement.
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
With launching the new book, I have neglected to calculate sales on the old one for a few months! So for Nine Goblins, the sales went as follows...

July:
Kindle: 45
Smashwords: 10


August:
Kindle: 104
Smashwords: 35

(You can see the size of the bump from releasing the new books there, as Toad Words hit in early August!)

I'm a little surprised at the sheer strength of the Smashwords bump, honestly--I had sort of written them off as a platform, now that Draft2Digital has proved so responsive, but they're moving books. Go figure!
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
A great day for round numbers yesterday! We hit 1000 copies of Toad Words sold and 2500 of Nine Goblins!

(Which means...not that much, but I like round numbers, damnit!)

Small bump for Toad Words for an article I did for the online Bull Spec, a local SF magazine. And I finally got off my ass and did a web page just for the T. Kingfisher stuff, which involved a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
Update time, as we're at the end of the month!

September:
Toad Words
Kindle: 167
Draft2Digital: 17
Smashwords: 14
Total: 198

Nine Goblins
Kindle: 63
Smashwords: 12
Total: 75

Total Sales to Date
Toad Words: 1064
Nine Goblins: 2519

Toad Words is definitely dropping off faster than Nine Goblins--I sold about a hundred more copies the second full month of NG than I have of TW. Phase of the moon? Anthologies not as popular? I dunno.

My guess would be the latter--I think people are more likely to take a chance on a novella by an unknown author than an anthology--but in fairness, it cost half as much to put together, so I'm in no position to complain. Or possibly I was just tweeting about it less because everything landed SO FAST via D2D, and I wasn't doing a weekly update with "Now on Kobo! Now finally on iTunes!" etc.

We'll see how the novel I'm scheduling for November does--if it's more like NG, then hey, maybe it's an anthology thing, if it's more like TW, then I'll chalk it up to other factors...

(By the way, thank you all for bearing with me--this thread has been very useful for me keeping track of my own stuff, which otherwise would be lost in spreadsheets unknown.)
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
October Sales!

Toad Words
Kindle: 116
D2D: 19
Smashwords: 7
PDF Direct Sales: 1
Total: 143

Nine Goblins
Kindle: 42
Smashwords: 11
Total: 53

Total Sales to Date
Toad Words: 1207
Nine Goblins: 2572

I did absolutely no promo or even paid attention this month, because I was on book tour for my trade pubbed stuff (and then curled in fetal position recovering from book tour!) So this is all news to me, too!

Toad Words didn't do too badly for its third month--not as well as Nine Goblins, but not too far off, and I'm going with "anthologies are hard." I did have a pretty well received short story in the Women Destroy Fantasy anthology come out under my pen name, so that may have given it a bit of legs, but I don't know how much click through there was.

Nine Goblins dropped back to where it was before the second book came out, but got a significant two month bump. (I'm defining "significant" as "a month worth of groceries and the expensive hypoallergenic pet food." I have very simple standards.)

Either next week or the week after, I'll be releasing "Seventh Bride," a full-length novel of the same fairy-tale retelling style as "Toad Words." We'll see whether novels move better than anthologies, and how much of a bump it gives the other two!
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
Editor just handed back the copy-edited manuscript for the novel. Now I wrangle it into ebook shape and send to my final posse of typo-slayers.

TODAY, WE FORMAT! *screams, charges the barricades*
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
Launch Day!

I assume there's some point when I have done this often enough that hitting the "Save and Publish" button doesn't fill me with queasy dread, but I am not there yet. (And Amazon caught two typos that three seriously eagle-eyed proofreaders didn't. Typoooooooo! *shakes fist*)

I hadn't planned to do this quite so soon--I'm traveling this weekend, which is always death--but Draft2Digital very kindly sent out a letter saying that iBooks was worried about Black Friday's massive hit on the system and so if we didn't get stuff in by this Friday, it wouldn't go live on Apple's servers until after the 1st of December. Props to D2D for mentioning that, that's a courtesy e-mail I've never gotten from anyone else.

Still getting people buying PDF's directly--five so far today--and if I keep this up, I should probably just set up a direct-download storefront on the website rather than doing it all by hand. (I certainly don't MIND doing it, but in my experience, people hate to bother you and it's much easier if they can just click a button.)

I've heard good things about Payhip, but I'm a little reluctant because once I'm the provider, I can't go "Oo, sounds like Amazon's problem, e-mail them?" and have to cover tech support. A buddy of mine is still shellshocked from the time she had to troubleshoot a book download for a customer who eventually mentioned that oh, hey, they were on Internet Explorer 6 in a secure government facility, could that be part of the problem? (You can't make this stuff up...)
 

slhuang

Inappropriately math-oriented.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
2,906
Reaction score
1,140
Website
www.slhuang.com
Congrats on the new release! :D

I've heard good things about Payhip,

I got Payhip all set up and then saw something about how I'd have to worry about SALES TAX and was like, "..." and decided to wait until I had more brain space. ;) I'd love to see how you handle that if you do it....
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
I got Payhip all set up and then saw something about how I'd have to worry about SALES TAX and was like, "..." and decided to wait until I had more brain space. ;) I'd love to see how you handle that if you do it....

I've generally found sales tax not that troublesome, selling art--I mean, I sell a lot of art, but almost none of it is local/ in the flesh, so the actual wrangling is very minimal. It only comes up as a major nuisance when I sell physical art at a table at conventions, and have to get tax ID numbers for the local sales & use tax. (The Pennsylvania sales tax system is positively Byzantine, BTW.)

One thing I'll give Amazon in the throwing-weight-around department is holding the line on tax for internet commerce.
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
First week of Seventh Bride has gotten just shy of 650 sales, fifty sales more than we managed on the first two books in the first week. That's great, as far as I'm concerned--means initial sales numbers are going up, and by a fairly respectable percentage. (We'll see if that cannibalizes later sales, though--if the people who already know about the books are just buying them sooner, rather than later.)

This is particularly encouraging because Seventh Bride is a buck more than the other two, and is still selling a bit better!

A semi-significant bump for Toad Words--about twenty more copies on Kindle and maybe five or ten more on Smashwords and Draft2Digital. Nine Goblins got half that bump. I'm gonna guess (and I could be wrong) that the similar covers for Toad and Bride contributed to that.

We'll see where we are at the end of the month...

ETA: Should have waited a few hours--we tacked on another 15 sales! So the first week is definitely ahead of previous books, by 10% or so.
 
Last edited:

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
November

It's the end of the month, so sales roundup time!

Seventh Bride
Kindle: 1086
D2D: 105
Smashwords: 102
PDF Direct Sales: 9
Total: 1302

Toad Words
Kindle: 152
D2D: 20
Smashwords: 18
PDF Direct Sales: 4
Total: 194

Nine Goblins
Kindle: 91
Smashwords: 23
Total: 114

Total Sales to Date
Seventh Bride: 1302
Toad Words: 1401
Nine Goblins: 2686

A really strong release for Seventh Bride compared to the last two--did more in the first month than Nine Goblins did in the first two-and-some-change, and got within spitting distance of lifetime sales on Toad Words. I like to think it was a good cover, and that we're getting some word of mouth, but it was still a surprising jump!

My paying-pro-word-rates point for Seventh Bride is right around 1300 copies, and we're nearly there already, which is awesome.

So since I seem to be making SFWA rates on these pretty consistently, what's my next goal? (We are authors! We do not get to enjoy success! We move the goalposts so that we are failing harder! THIS IS HOW WE KEEP OURSELVES HUMBLE AND DERANGED!)

Well, an unagented manuscript of this sort would...well, possibly never be published, my agent AND trade editor gave this one the big 'ol "No, seriously, you think this is a kid's book?" side-eye* but the Author Advance Survey 2.0 thinks that an average for an unagented not-a-debut fantasy novel is $7250.

At the current royalty rate, we're looking at a smidge over 2000 copies sold to hit that. That seems like an entirely doable goal with Seventh Bride.

Onward! Upward! All that stuff!

*In retrospect, they were entirely correct, but I'm slow on the uptake sometimes...
 
Last edited:

Dreity

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
1,031
Reaction score
180
Location
Upstate NY
*continues to throw money at RedWombat*

So happy for all the success you've had, and wishing you so much more. :)
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
Thank you all! (And extra thanks to those throwing money!)

The thread is super helpful for ME--record keeping isn't my strong suit and I would have no idea how sales were if I wasn't tracking with it.
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
Cyber Monday?

...huh.

I will be honest, I did not think Cyber Monday applied to e-books. This was probably naive of me, but you gotta figure that people are looking for bargains, and books are...I dunno, different. I never go out and buy a book based on the fact that it's Cyber Monday--particularly if the book isn't on sale!

Nevertheless, on Kindle at least, there was a startling bump running from Sunday night into Tuesday that I can only really attribute to Cyber Monday. (I have to go adjust last month's numbers because stuff really started moving Sunday night!)

I literally moved 275 books in those three days, well above the numbers I moved on any day this month except for the release of a new book. It was even better than Day 2 of release, when I can generally count on some really solid sales.
(Given how fast sales drop off, the chart looks like a mountain range with Everest at one end and then K2 over at the other...)

This bump was not mirrored by Smashwords or Draft2D--Kindle only!

So I dunno if people were attracted to Amazon's various sales and a rising tide lifts all boats, etc, or what, but it was really unexpected. Not that I'm complaining!
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
Aha!

So my initial suspicions may actually have been correct--I don't think Black Friday DOES do that much for books.

However, according to a friend who actually has a Kindle, Seventh Bride was a Kindle daily deal. It appears to have been one for a couple of days, actually--I have no idea how the "daily" part works, but it's been up as a daily deal for multiple days for her now.

I'm wondering if the sudden spike a week ago was actually a result of it being a daily deal. That would explain why it only appeared on Amazon, not through any other outlets.

If this is the case, then numbers would seem to indicate that a daily deal for someone in my genre is worth around five hundred sales in a week.

Which is super awesome, and I am NOT complaining--that's way over what it was doing, and I hope some of those readers stick around!

But...interesting. Not something one can control for, obviously. It's starting to taper off again now--still a bit higher than before, presumably because it went up the ranks a bit, but sliding down.

Huh. Neat!
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
December Wrap

Well, here we are, the last day of the year. Time to tally the December sales numbers!

Seventh Bride
Kindle: 1469
D2D: 34
Smashwords: 14
PDF Direct Sales: 0
Total: 1517

Toad Words
Kindle: 254
D2D: 10
Smashwords: 9
PDF Direct Sales: 0
Total: 273

Nine Goblins
Kindle: 189
Smashwords: 15
Total: 204

Total Sales to Date
Seventh Bride: 2819
Toad Words: 1674
Nine Goblins: 2890

So last month was pretty much the best month I've ever done for self-pub sales, and I didn't even have a new book out.

I assume being a Kindle Daily Deal was the primary reason, but I actually moved more copies of Seventh Bride the second month than I did in the first, and it gave a big bump to the other two along the way. Very little advertising, all word of mouth and friends on Twitter mentioning it...and of course, the Kindle Daily Deal thing.

It's trending down now, of course, but that was a nice jump.

Other overall trends of note--I am confirmed that my initial rush of readers buys on all platforms, including Smashwords, but once that first flush passes, everybody else is finding it on Kindle.

Finally, Seventh Bride is selling much faster than Nine Goblins did. I don't know if that's something specific to this book or what, but I guess I'll find out next May when I release my next fairy-tale retelling.

(My personal guess? Bird skull on the cover. Bird skulls sell. If we put Cloak Guy on the cover holding a bird skull, perhaps against a snowy background with a dark figure walking away, I would sell ALL THE BOOKS FOREVER.)
 
Last edited:

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
January Totals

Seventh Bride
Kindle: 1051
D2D: 35
Smashwords: 11
PDF Direct Sales: 0
Total: 1097

Toad Words
Kindle: 217
D2D: 7
Smashwords: 6
PDF Direct Sales: 0
Total: 230

Nine Goblins
Kindle: 295
Smashwords: 10
Total: 305

Total Sales to Date
Seventh Bride: 3916
Toad Words: 1904
Nine Goblins: 3195

January did not suck.

Seventh Bride is starting to slide a little--to be expected!--but Nine Goblins actually had a really good month for a book that's a year and a half old, and Toad Words rallied and brought home rent money, so I cannot complain in the slightest.
 

jnfr

Always learning
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 24, 2008
Messages
141
Reaction score
15
Location
Colorado
Website
jnfr.com
Very happy to see that your projects are doing great! It's well-deserved, you know, since your work is awesome.
 

RedWombat

Runs With Scissors
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,197
Reaction score
327
Location
North Carolina
Website
www.ursulavernon.com
The Unexpected Thing

So...the thing that never happens kinda happened.

Amazon's 47North imprint contacted me and made me an offer for Seventh Bride. My agent (thank god I have an agent!) took over from there and did agent-y things and we just accepted the revised offer.

I didn't expect this. I certainly never thought of this as a stepping stone to trade publishing--I mean, I've GOT trade publishing deals, this was my self-pub pen-name for a reason--but here we are. Amazon can market the hell outta the pen name a lot more effectively than I can, and I hope to have another SP out between now and the Amazon release, so that there's a second book for people to jump on. (My agent specifically carved out the non-compete agreement to not-apply to this SP book. She is a very good agent.)

So I guess my attempt to go hybrid has doubled back on itself. I am both relieved that I can sell a book twice (I always felt like the trade deals were mad flukes) and surprised and...well, yeah!

Life, man. Life is bizarre.