Amber Fang: Self Publishing A Book Part 2 (The amazing results!)

Here they are. The latest results from the launch of Amber Fang. If you want to read why I self published this novel, including a look at which editors I employed, who did the cover, and other self publishing methods used, then please click here. If you want to read a really short version about why I self published the book then here it is:

I wanted to make a million dollars.

Or at least break even. 

When was the book released?

The official launch for Amber Fang was Tuesday, October 25th, 2016. There was a pre-sale on several channels for two weeks before that. The numbers I'll discuss will be from pre-sale on Oct. 4th to Nov. 16th, 2016. The ebook was available on all channels. The paperback was available only through Createspace (Amazon's Print on Demand service).

C'mon, show us a chart!

Okay! Okay! Here's the most important chart. These are the launch week sales on Amazon.

A really exciting Kindle chart

So that's it. Report over. Oh, wait, I'll dig a bit deeper. So worldwide amazon sales on launch day (the spike in that chart) were 126 books (priced at 99c). The highest rank Amber Fang hit was #2005 overall in the Kindle store. That meant it made several bestseller lists: 

This is helpful because it gets more eyeballs. Err, on it. I don't mean you literally get eyeballs. And hitting #1 in a category also means you get the cute "bestseller" tag:

So obviously that's helpful. The book reached similar positions in Amazon Canada (but not so high in the UK store). The US centric results are mostly due to the advertising I'd purchased in newsletters being mostly targeted at US book readers. After the initial launch it settled in to sell about 10-20 copies a day.

But how many copies did you actually sell? Fess up!

This calls for another chart: 

So there were go. A month of sales has tallied up to 839 copies. 

Are you happy with that?

No comment! By that I mean I'll answer your question later. Here's another chart to distract you.

So as you can see Amazon was where the majority of my sales were. Kobo was #2 and Apple #3. The Createspace paperbacks are also included in the chart. I had decided to go "wide" (that is, not exclusive with Amazon) because I didn't want to disappoint any of my fans (and I  like the idea of a wide open market). Those 40 copies on Kobo propelled the book to #1 or #2 on several of their charts. The curious thing is that all of those copies were purchased in Canada. I didn't sell a single Kobo copy to other countries. But Canada is Kobo's largest market, so I guess that explains the result.

C'mon. Where's the money? Tell us about that.

This may surprise you, but I have another chart:

And there it is. The breakdown of income and expenses. As you can see Amazon (and Createspace and affiliate money) amounted to most of my income. I put the expenses chart there, too. So there is money left to earn before this vampire book breaks even. On a cheeky note, I was going to title this blog post: HOW I MADE 78,000 CENTS IN ONE MONTH!

So are you happy with the results?

Mostly. Like any project you want it to be an outstanding, mind-blowing success so you can pay off your mortgage and buy a moonbase. But--it turns out selfpublishing is work. These numbers are something I can build on. Right now the book is selling about 10-20 copies a day on Kindle (which nets me about $20 to $40). My understanding of the Amazon algorithm is you have about 90 days before the book drops off. So if it continues at this pace, then I'll earn my money back in about 60 days. Sales have trickled to very little on the other vendors. Each day my newsletter is growing (3200 right now) so by the time I launch my next Amber Fang book (in about 4 months), I'll have a larger launch platform. Generally the reviews for the book have been quite positive, so that is also encouraging (especially the good reviews from readers who don't normally read vampire novels). 

Plus, I've committed to at least do three books in the series. I don't like to leave things undone.

Any last words?

Yes. If this info has been helpful to you, I dare you to click the pic below (or this link) and give Amber Fang a try. 839 readers can't be wrong! Oh, and comments are welcome. I obviously still have so much to learn.

A Decade of Dust

I apologize for the maudlin post but Dust has been out for ten years now. I launched the book on September 21st, 2001 in Saskatoon's Western Development Museum: 1910 Boomtown. It was the first time I'd launched in such a big and perfectly-themed venue (I wish I could find the pics but they are in storage somewhere). Here's a pic of the museum interior.

I honestly had no idea how successful the book would become and am still surprised by its reception. It went on to win several awards including:

*The 2001 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature *The 2001 Saskatchewan Book Award for Children's Literature *The 2002 Mr. Christie's Book Award (this came with $ and cookies. Mmm) *Nominated for a 2004 Edgar Award.

Here I am with Adrienne Clarkson, once the Governor General of Canada. She's presenting me with a leather-bound copy of DUST.

There are a few things you may not know about the novel. Here's the first draft of the Canadian cover:

And here's the original American cover:

The American version is about 5 pages longer. Because it came out in 2003 I was able to have one more crack at the book and I fine tuned it a bit more and added a few smaller scenes, including one at the end that helped explain the townspeople's reaction to their "forgetfulness" about their children disappearing. It's a particularly poignant scene.

There have now been 13 movie companies that have shown interest in the rights, including 4 major Hollywood studios. So far no one has come up with the money to make the movie (or pay off my mortgage).

Work on a graphic novel was started with Christopher Steininger but, as of yet, it has not been picked up by a publisher.

The book continues to be popular in Canada and I've received hundreds of emails and letters about it. It eventually went out of print in the U.S. and was never sold to any other countries.

With the advent of ebooks I was able to re-release the book in the US as an ebook (and in the U.K., too).

So it is good to have the book come back to life. It was briefly the #12 bestselling horror novel on Amazon U.S. and the #2 bestselling horror novel on Amazon UK. If only it would stay in those positions I could finance my own movie! : ) It has been rather fun for me to see the book gain a new readership.

So there you have it. A decade of Dust. Happy birthday! Here's to another ten years....

Art

Dust Breaks into the Amazon Kids top 100!

I don't usually update my blog twice a day, but something extremely interesting happened today on the ebook front. Just after I finished my last blog I noticed that my ebook had sold three copies. I thought great! Social networking actually works! Then at lunch time it had sold 10 copies on Amazon. Considering it had only sold 14 copies all last month, I thought this was a perfect start to the month. Then it jumped to 20 copies, then 30 copies, and 40 copies...

I was shocked. I couldn't figure out why there this sudden climb. So I went to kindleboards (it's a great place for writers with ebooks to chat) and Monique Martin was kind enough to point out that Dust had appeared on Pixel of Ink, a site that features free and bargain books.

So the result, at the time of this posting (5:25 PM April 1st, 2011), is that Dust has sold 56 copies and climbed from #62,700 on the Amazon rankings to #1117 (I can't help it, I really want it to break the #1000 barrier). It is the 80th bestseller in Children's Literature eBooks (near Cassandra Clare and PC Cast) and is #6 in Spine Chilling Horror (below Amanda Hocking and Stephanie Meyer). So, obviously, I have to say thanks for being my fairy godmother Pixel of Ink!

And, it's not an April fool's joke. That's the best part.

Although, I may have worn out my refresh button.

Best, Art