What's the truth about Self-Publishing sales? What makes you a 'success'?

where did you read that? the only number i've ever heard was something along the lines of "most self publishers don't sell more than 200 books... ever"... so i'd say you're doing alright. you're certainly kicking my ass, and i'm feeling pretty on-top-of-the-world right about now.

Success is what you say it is. If you're satisfied, then your a success. If you not, then your not.

I'd say that 600 sales is well above average. Also you seem to be selling at a high price so that's the profit equivalent of many thousands of lower priced books.

With all those 5 star reviews, I'd also think that it had a great chance to take off at some point and sell a great many more.

HoldinHolden said:

I should have specified, sorry! I am looking actually to get my self-published book agented and shopped to publishers.

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Sorry to break it to you, but you won't.

Seriously, if you want an agent, send it to an agent before publishing. No agent really wants to see a book that's already been published. If your goal is an agented book through a trade publisher, do not self publish.

Jeff

You've got me beat, hands down. I'm only a week into it, but I feel I have a really slow start. But I'm a single book, no series and I'm on the Select program. I think you're above average sales wise. Time is on your side in this venture.

Continued luck with your sales and may they increase!

tri

HoldinHolden said:

I should have specified, sorry! I am looking actually to get my self-published book agented and shopped to publishers.

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Did you shop before selfpublishing? Generally selfpublishing isn't something that should be done as a gateway to mainstream but rather as an end in itself.

HoldinHolden said:

^^ This is exactly my thought, thought being the key word. When it comes to self publishing going the way of the mainstream publishing world is where I was told thousands upon thousands or I was someone no agent would ever even consider.
I think when it comes down to it, is that I had much different expectations- reach for the stars kind of dreams. It's not impossible, of course, but when you think things will happen one way, or you'll have this many sales in that amount of time and it doesn't quite work out that way- you (or maybe just I) tend to get confused about what reality actually is.

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I think reality hits pretty much everyone who self-publishes after a while and it's usually with much less success than you have.

What I think you should do is to try and market/promote that book heavily and forget about trade publishing for now. Have you gone through Kindle Select for example? I just think that those reviews are more useful for sales rather than a trade contract.

Hello, Holden, and welcome to AW. I hope you continue to sell lots of books and I have to agree with others here that if you want to trade publish you should query widely, and probably not self publish. But I do think that many agents and publishers are relaxing their views on considering books which have already been self published, and it's not the dealbreaker it used to be. Obviously, the more sales you've made the more attractive your book will seem to many of them: but if you're book's stunningly good then a poor sales record isn't going to put them off now in the same way it might have done a couple of years back.

(While I have your attention I'd be grateful if you'd reduce the size of the image in your signature: we ask for a maximum image size of 400 x 400 pixels and while I've not checked yours, it looks bigger than that to me. Thanks.)

With 600 sales and so many five * reviews I say write another book! It will only get better.

Welcome to AW! Only you can determine which way you want to go with your titles (self or trade publish). It is possible to unpublish a book, if that is what you really want to do while you query agents and publishers, but your book has lost its first publication rights. Doesn't mean you won't be picked up if the book is good and your sales and reviews are good. I wish you luck in your endeavors!

HoldinHolden said:

I joined the world of Self-published authors in November, and before I began looking around at sales figures of others, I thought I was doing really well.

Since November (mid), I have sold approx 600 books (paperback and Kindle) and received 92 5-star reviews, and 3 1-star reviews (funny how people either love me or REALLY hate me). I was proud of this until I read that without "thousands" of sales (some claimed 'per month'), I am technically a failure.

What are your thoughts on stats and sales?

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600 sales is good compared to the average number a self published books will sell. But compared to a trade book it's pretty low.

Also, 95 5*s are brilliant - so long as they are real. I'm not saying they aren't, but if they are your friends and family etc then that's not a true reflection. I'm only saying this because I see a LOT of new self-publishers with a horde of 5* that are from their friends. If yours are all genuine, then cool, well done.

HoldinHolden said:

I should have specified, sorry! I am looking actually to get my self-published book agented and shopped to publishers.

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That's going to be a lot harder for you now than it would have been before.

I'm not saying that it CAN'T happen, but I'm saying that since you've already self published the book you'll find it much harder.

That said, impressive sales figures, and I'm talking 5-10k in a couple of months, are likely to impress and attract attention of publishers etc - that's certainly been the case in many of the instances where self published books attracted publishers attention (Amanda Hocking for instance)

HoldinHolden said:

I have interest from an amazing agent right now and I have only queried 4- so I know the rumors are not 100% accurate that it "can't" happen. I think it's untrue if your platform is large enough, and the story good enough.

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Stupid question, but does that agent know the book has been self published? Because if they don't then you need to tell them.

I never attempted to query beforehand. Self publishing always seemed natural for me because of my following online. Now I see the greater potential in it than what I have done. Unfortunately, what self publishing has done has been to close a lot of doors to me (as in, signings, media etc without those ridiculous figures you see as success).

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I think 'success' is what you make it. Some people only consider a million copies and a Pultizer to be 'success' while others consider selling 100 copies as 'success'

Either way, good luck and welcome to AW.




**EDITED TO ADD***

(original edit removed)

Apologies - I was reading reviews on my phone and the Amazon site doesn't tend to display very well. I have to read them one by one and in doing so the name of the book had columated alongside the reviews so it looked like the reviewer was called 'Holdin Holden'.

I only realised this late last night when I was reading other reviews of a different book and it was doing the same thing.

I apologise unreservedly to all.

You may want to rethink responding to negative reviews (actually, any reviews). I've seen several authors do this and none have ended well.

Wow, great reviews! You might notice your sales would increase quite a bit if you were to lower your asking price. Conventional wisdom says $7.99 for an ebook might be a bit on the pricey side.

*sigh*

Look. I just spent a few minutes combing through some of your "92 5-star reviews" and a couple of things jumped out me. Every single review I clicked on was by someone who had only reviewed your book, or just reviewed your book and one other item. Usually a baby toy. They also have strikingly similar names and have similar one-paragraph reviews.

You need to do better than this. I'm not talking about covering your tracks with better sock-puppeting, I'm talking about integrity.


Edited to add:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/AVDGG09MPP/?tag=absowrit-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/A5118D7A6Q/?tag=absowrit-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/A3H7G8BSX3/?tag=absowrit-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/A1BAPJWG8H/?tag=absowrit-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/A2ZXUIGQAH/?tag=absowrit-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/A3AMK3J9W7/?tag=absowrit-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/AT8R20SPXZ/?tag=absowrit-20

HoldinHolden said:

If you're implying the reviewers lied, you would be wrong. If you're implying I did it myself, you'd also be wrong. The reviewers are my "fans" (and I hate that word)- my Facebook Fan Page has over 17k followers. I encourage readers to leave reviews.

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I'm not implying it. I'd lay money on it.

If your fans were coming over from facebook, a lot of them would have Amazon history of other reviews. They would have verified purchases of your book, sometimes verified names. They all wouldn't write down nearly the same review in one-paragraph format. They all wouldn't have similar simple names as their user name: Lindsey, Beth, MB, ect.

There would also be... more of a bell curve when it comes to your reviews. Even the most loyal fanbase has some people who would put down 4 stars.

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HoldinHolden said:

Hate to tell you, none of those are me. I am actually legitimately offended. As if I would waste the time to create FAKE amazon accounts to review my own book? Seriously?
You don't know me, but FFS, that is incredibly offensive to even imply.

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I am sorry that you're offended. There are people a lot more savy and smarter than myself on this board, and if I'm in the wrong I will no doubt be told so. If you are correct and these are legit reviews, feel free to ignore me. From what I can see, however, these are your basic sock-puppeting reviews. I've seen it before.

The reason I'm bringing this up is not to call you out or embarrass you (though I'm sure it must be embarrassing, and I do apologize), but because you're trying to launch a career and gain professional representation. Pulling this kind of move does not look good, and it's easy to spot from a mile away. Let your book stand on its own merits.