Self-Publishing Income Report: Month 3

Hi there and welcome to the Jenny Bravo Books blog! As a first-time author, I’ve decided to track the first three months of my earnings online for you. Enjoy!

self-publishing income report

It's reporting time! The August Numbers are in. The polls are closed. {Insert another phrase that deals with money.} Another month of being a published author has come and gone, so here I am, in my sweats, writing a fun post for you.

What's new this month? Well, I've been balancing two projects at once, and it's been. . . interesting. The prequel, Those Were the Days, is fixed and pretty, almost ready to hit the virtual shelves. The TATM mini-book from Simon's perspective is heading to editing next week. So basically, I'm telling you that I wrote stuff and you can read it soon. The end. 

Onward to the numbers!

What I did this month

Started live-streaming

There's a fancy new app called Periscope that allows you to chat on the go with your audience. If haven't joined yet, hop on the bandwagon, my friends. Authors and creative entrepreneurs are sharing amazing content there. For my part, I'm sharing writing tips and novel secrets. Download the app here and follow @blotsandplots.

Chained myself to the keyboard

Again, I found myself in the #TATM tent, writing and editing away. In August, I made a big life change by moving back home to Louisiana, so I've found that I now have extra free time to work, which is awesome! Anyway, books, books, books.

Ran my first book promotion

Technically, this happened in September, but you can read this post about how I sold 43 books in a single day. Go #TeamTATM go!

KDP Book Royalties

Total Book Sales: 7 ebooks

Total KENP Read: 2383 pages

Total Book Royalties: $28.81

This month, a good majority of my book sales came from the KDP Select program: $12.25. Here's a chart of my sales below:

Screen Shot 2015-09-27 at 1.23.13 PM

And here's one of the KENP read:

self-publishing income report

Createspace Royalties

Total Book Sales: 3 print books

Total Book Royalties: $8.31

Dear owners of the above three books, thank you for making print books happen. I secretly root for you, my friends.

Total Amount Earned: $37.12

Thoughts on this month

Let's keep the ball going, gems and gents! Now, it's time to focus on promotion. Making new friends. Supporting my self-published besties like Rachel Del and Kristen Kieffer {get her workbook here.} 

Discussion Time: Where are you spending the most time in your writing process? Promoting? Creating new content? 

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Self-Publishing Income Report: Month 2

Hi there and welcome to the Jenny Bravo Books blog! As a first-time author, I’ve decided to track the first three months of my earnings online for you. Enjoy!

Good morning, friends! As promised, I will be providing a self-publishing income report for my novel, These Are the Moments. July marked my second full month of being a published author, and I still have to remind myself that it's really happening. I wrote a book? People are buying it? What? 

Today, I'm excited to share my numbers with you. There's definitely been a decline since launch, as expected, but I'm excited for the plans I have to boost more sales.

Time to report!

WHAT I DID THIS MONTH

This month has been a month of research. From attending The Self-Publishing Summit to studying Nick Stephenson's blog, I've been educating myself on everything I need to know about self-publishing.

Spent time writing

I've never wanted to be a one-hit-wonder writer. I recently announced plans for a sequel to my novel, and I've also cleaned up my prequel for re-release. It makes sense that with more titles, you have a better chance at creating more profit. Gross, profit is an ugly word. You get my point.

Targeted my keywords on Amazon

Amazon basically operates as one big search engine. When you type a word into the search bar, it provides you with suggestions, just as Google does. When you upload your book, Amazon allows you to select keywords. The more targeted your keywords, the greater chance your book has of showing up on the right lists. For instance, I included mine under "New Adult Clean Romance."

Free book for promotion

According to Nick Stephenson, the key to gaining more readers and traffic involves offering your readers something of value. If you can, offer a free book to capture readers who enjoy your writing. My prequel will be available for free, and I'm also working on another smaller project for free. Give, give, give. That's the key. 

KDP ROYALTIES

Total Book Sales: 16 ebooks

Total KENP Read: 1389 pages

Total Book Royalties: $42.77

This month I decided to enroll These Are the Moments in KDP Select. I've read several articles about the pros and cons of the program, but I decided to try it out for myself. I've yet to run a promotion, but I'm planning to when the prequel is ready for publication.

Here's a chart of this month's sales:

As part of the KDP Select program, members can read your book for free. The royalties are based off of KENP read, which stands for Kindle Edition Normalized Pages. This month, I received 1389 KENP read, which equals about $8.03. Here's a chart for you:

Screen Shot 2015-09-27 at 1.04.57 PM

Createspace Royalties

Total Book Sales: 8 Print Books

Total Book Royalties: $16.96

Oh, print books. I love this post by Ksenia Anske, where she refers to them as souvenirs, as a way to hold onto something you love. While the numbers aren't incredibly impressive, I still love print.

TOTAL AMOUNT EARNED: $59.73

Thoughts on this month

I'm really proud of this month. Selling any books at all is an accomplishment, which makes this is a successful second month to me. It's definitely scary to share this with you, but I received some amazing feedback from last month, and knew I needed to continue. Keep writing. Keep striving.

Discussion Time: What's your best book-selling strategy? How do you find your ideal readers?

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Self-Publishing Income Report: Month 1

Hi there and welcome to Jenny Bravo Books! As a first-time author, I've decided to track the first three months of my earnings online for you. Enjoy!

It's Monday, people, and I've got a new series for you! You may have seen blogger income reports out there on Pinterest, like this one from food bloggers Pinch of Yum or The Write Life column about freelance earnings, and today I'm staring one of my own.

Whether you're considering self-publishing or not, this post is for every writer out there. Not only can it show you a realistic expectation for your potential earnings, but it can also show you tips and tricks to encourage more sales. Every month, I will try something extra to boost my sales, whether that be blog-oriented improvements, advertising, whatever!

Thank you in advance for the support. Now let's get crackin'.

What I did this month

For this first month, we're looking at sales from May 26th—my launch date—through the end of June. There were plenty of marketing strategies that I used for selling my book, and you can read more about them here, but I've hand-picked a couple of strategies that I feel had the best impact that you can implement for your own promotional use.

Goodreads Giveaway

I've had a Goodreads account for some time now, and once I set up my author profile, I was able to also set up a giveaway for my book. I offered three signed copies of my book and was amazed to see that 632 people had signed up for the chance to win. This was a great way to reach out to people who wouldn't otherwise know about my book.

Netgalley Subscription

Netgalley is an amazing way to get reviews for your soon-to-be-published book, and thanks to my editor, Tanya Gold, I found an affordable way to gain entry. By signing up for a month's subscription through the Broad Universe co-op, I only paid $45 for the opportunity to gain reviews from book bloggers.

Social Media Promotion

And I don't mean the buy my book, buy my book tweets and emails. My main goal on social media and my blog is to be a real person, so that same philosophy applied to promotional strategy. Every step of the way, I've been using the #TATM and updating readers about my book's progress. When it came to launch month, I organized Twitter chats, started posting videos on YouTube, and gave my book away for people to review.

KDP Royalties

Total book sales: 56 ebooks

Total book royalties: $111.06

I chose to sell the ebook version of These Are the Moments on Kindle first, before reaching out to other platforms. I also decided not to use KDP select, which enrolls your book in KDP Unlimited. Learn more about that program here.

Below is a chart of my Kindle sales. I opened up my ebook for preorders, so that's where you'll see the spike at the beginning of the month:

Here's another chart for you of my KDP royalties, per each Amazon website:

CREATESPACE Royalties

Total book sales: 28 print books

Total book royalties: $77.56

Print books are not for every self-publisher. For me, it wasn't even a question. While they might not be the most lucrative of book selling methods, I clung to the romantic notion of holding my book in my hands, and I'm happy I did. I'm now officially in two bookstores—Sundog Books in Seaside, FL and Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, TX— and I'm working on more.

So how did I do? While I sold the majority of my print books through my book launch party, I did sell almost 30 print books in the past month! Not bad for a first timer. Note: my sales from my book launch party are not included in this report as those were sold primarily to family and friends. 

Thoughts on this month

I'm excited about this month's sales. It's interesting to look at the difference between the ebook vs. print book royalties—about $33—and that I sold double the amount of ebooks that I did print copies. Next month's sales will most likely be lower, but I plan to fix my #TATM prequel and release it for sale through KDP. For me, I believe the key to more sales will be more books, but I don't want to rush the process.

Discussion Time: What do you think about the self-publishing income report? Was this helpful to you?

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