Second Month Complete - October Sales Results

Another month down and I’ve decided to share my results at least one more time.

Off the top, I should explain that my September results had to be adjusted (for now) while KDP support continues to research my support ticket. On October 9th, I was updating my spreadsheet, which includes pulling my total KENP page read count for the lifetime of the book. I noticed that the number had gone down, dramatically. When I dug a little deeper, I found that my KENP page reads for September had been adjusted down from 225,693 to 109,459. A dramatic adjustment! I immediately opened KENP support, and have been going round and round with them for the last 3 weeks. They’ve “escalated” my case for further research, but at this point, I’m proceeding as though my September results will never be fixed.

So, my adjusted September numbers are…

• 109,459 Kindle Edition Normalized Page (KENP)* reads = $425.94 (an adjustment of 116,234 pages deducted from the original total)

• Total Estimated Royalties for September 2020 = $893.75 (loss of $460.66 due to the mysterious adjustment)

It’s a pretty disheartening adjustment to make, and I hope it gets correct, but I’m not counting on it. To be very clear, I did not game the KENP system, and KDP Support hasn’t even suggested that I have. I also feel like if they thought I’d gamed the system that hard, they would have at the very least issued me a warning, if not have kicked me off the platform all together. They wouldn’t have been going round and round with me in this stupid email dance of non-explanations for 3 weeks. I won’t go into the bull shit explanations that they originally tried to offer, they didn’t make any logical sense and they immediately changed their tune when I pushed back and pointed out the inconsistencies in their statements.

So, let’s get into October’s results.

• 215 e-books sold = $322.29

• 1 paperbacks sold = $5.09

• 296,839 Kindle Edition Normalized Page (KENP)* reads = $1,310.04

• Total Estimated Royalties for October 2020 = $1,637.41

Since my case regarding September’s results is still ongoing, and KDP support hasn’t been able to assure me it won’t happen again, I might be revising the KENP and total numbers in a future post. For the moment, let’s assume they won’t get substantially adjusted.

E-book sales dropped off slightly in both volume and royalty per unit. I ran my first Kindle Countdown Deal in October and it moved quite a few units, but at a dramatically reduced price. Most units moved at the $0.99 price point, standard price is $2.99. The number of units sold during the promotion did not offset the total decrease in royalties, so I wouldn’t exactly consider the promotion a success. But it was a worthwhile experiment. I’ll probably try to run one again in conjuncture with the audiobook’s release, once that’s figured out. I’ll also plan on running it again ahead of Book 2’s release, if only to build buzz around Book 2.

There was no dramatic changes to my expenses this month. At my wife’s suggestion, I did order some business cards from VistaPrint so that I have something tangible to hand people in the future when talking about the book. That was just $41.43 spent. So, at the moment, all in I have $2,380.58 in expenses. Obviously, I’m not “paying” myself a salary, counting up living expenses, or anything else at this stage. I spent 3 years off and on working on Book 1, but during that time it’s always been something I’m doing on the side. My primary job was either as a hotel manager or as a full time stay at home dad.

However, with September’s results added to October’s I have total estimated revenue of $2,531.17 at the moment. So after deducting my current expenses, I’m currently in the black with a profit of $150.59. It’s not much, but it’s a start. That’s also without worrying about taxes at all. I could also be back in the red very quickly if KDP adjusts my October totals like they did for September. If September gets fixed, then I’ll also be a lot further in the black then I am now.

Advertising

I didn’t do anything dramatic this month. I pimped the Kindle Countdown Deal on social media when it was happening, but I didn’t run any ads for it. I tried to do at least a post a day on Instagram and/or Twitter, but even that wasn’t consistent. I did find a couple of Facebook groups where I posted promotionally, which I didn’t do in September. Other than that, I just tried to be “active” on Reddit and other socials under my author specific accounts. On Reddit I have my profile pic set as my cover art, which I figure might garner some attention, even when I’m not specifically posting about the book.

I did pretty well on Amazon and GoodReads reviews keeping about a 4.2 to 4.3 average score on both platforms, while increasing my total count of reviews. Again, not really doing anything to encourage that. I did make a change to the very last page of my e-book. I have my Twitter and Insta handles there, but I also added a message encouraging people to leave a review. I’d generally figure anyone that got that far enjoyed themselves more than not. Obviously, there’s some exceptions to that rule, but oh well. Everyone gets shit reviews occasionally, and I figure having a few 1-star reviews just adds credibility to my 5 and 4 star reviews.

I did announce and run a Free Book Giveaway on my socials. Anyone who wanted to enter just had to sign up for my Newsletter. Simple right? Well I got like 3 new signups from the effort. I’m picking the winner later today. I might do it again, but probably not until I have substantially more social followers.

I have reached out to several book bloggers and a podcast offering up Book 1 for review, but none have taken me up on the offer.

Other News

No big announcements regarding the audiobook yet. I sent Podium some additional documentation (pronunciation guide and my initial casting notes on narrators), however, I’m still somewhere in their pipeline. I’m trying to keep my head down and focus on Book 2 while they focus on the audiobook, because that’s what they do best.

A friend from back home self published her first book, Aerials (Rifts Book 1). It’s a fantasy monster romance book. I’ve picked up a copy, but haven’t dug in yet. I’m super excited for her, and to have someone that I actually know to talk self publishing stuff with (not that you all over at r/selfpublish don’t keep me entertained).

If you ended up here and haven’t gotten a copy of my debut book yet, Zee Locked-In, I’d welcome your support.

If you’re curious, my WIP for Book 2 is being posted in raw first draft form over on Royal Road a chapter each week.

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*KENP = is the total of pages read by Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The royalties for this vary from month to month based on how much is in the KDP Global Fund and what percentage of total activity your page reads represented.