Sixty-four and Counting! (Newbie Indie Writer Ramblings)
How are things going?
I’m up to 64 ebooks sold of my short story BLACKOUT IN THE GARDEN OF LOVE on Amazon. Yes, I know that doesn’t put me anywhere near Amazon’s top 100, but you know that’s alright. Sixty –four people out there have read my short story, and I can see the real magic in that. I’m a published author, and I’ve sold something I wrote. Sixty-four somethings! It breaks down to an average of about me selling around 2.7 ebooks per day since I published the short on October 7th.
I also uploaded BLACKOUT to Kobo and B&N Pubit. I sold 4 ebooks on Barnes and Nobles Pubit for a total of $2.08 and have absolutely no action at all going on over at Kobo so far. Actually I didn’t see that many IRs on Kobo, and I haven’t quite figured out how folks can even see my story.
Since I’m selling Blackout on Amazon for $1.29, my profit margin is just 35%. On B&N I’m making a profit of 40% for each ebook sold.
I looked into Smashwords –which would distribute it to other major online retailers like Apple, Sony, the Diesel eBook Store and others. I guess I will also upload it there too, at some point.
My October sales:
Blackout in the Garden of Love: $30.88
I have no plans to make Blackout in the Garden of Love a freebie yet. Maybe I’ll consider doing so when I publish TENDING DEACON’S GARDEN, as a way of generating more sales for TENDING DEACON’S GARDEN. I’ll keep y’all posted on that, and continue to report to you how Blackout is selling.
I’m testing the waters here as an indie writer, and if you’re a writer thinking about sticking a toe into the indie publishing pool, come on in and join me. If I can do this, I know you can.
🙂
~venice
~Love Blooms~ 
Congrats on those sales ~ every one counts! It’s nice too know you’ve now done B&N and Kobo too. I definitely think you should go for Smashwords. It seems to be the ‘star’ of Indie pub distribution. YAY, you!!! 🙂
Yep, Mae, I’ve done a pretty decent job getting Blackout on a few publishing platforms. And it was suprisingly painless. Months ago, I would never have imagined that I could do these things on my own. The only hold up with getting it on Smashwords, from what I understand, is that I need to upload a word doc, and then they churn out all the different formats of your book for distribution. I need to have the person who formatted my book slip me the front pages of my short as a word doc. A little bump, and I’ll contact her soon so I can make the move. I had no idea Smashwords was considered to the ‘star’ of Indie pub distribution. I’ll definitely have to get over there! Thanks for the heads up.
P.S. . . . Loving the way your blog looks. The colors are so soothing and warm!
Thanks, Mae! I do love tinkering with the colors. And I am going for soothing and warm! I was thinking the other day– here I am selling that I’m a ‘vibrant’ interracial romance author, and every chance I get, I tone down a vibrant picture. Go figure! But the eye likes what it likes. Wish I could get this eye for color thing right throughout my house! 😉