It's that time again! I have my monthly numbers! And the grand total is:
3,346
I actually thought I was going to post a serious loss this month, but thanks to an increase in Cross My Heart UK sales (and an extra day in the month of July), I'm only 77 sales off from last month's total.
Let's break it down, shall we?
The Guardian sold 134 Amazon US, 11 Amazon UK, and 16 Barnes and Noble copies for a total of 161 sales, or 5.1 sales per day. This is a loss of 1.3 sales a day from June.
Cross My Heart sold 2,936 Amazon US, 103 Amazon UK, 4 Amazon DE, and 142 Barnes and Noble copies for a total of 3,185 sales, or 102.7 sales per day. This is a loss of 4.9 sales a day from June.
Still, these are Amazing numbers.
The big news of July revolved around Amazon's "The Big Deal" Sale, where the prices for more than 900 traditionally published titles were dropped from $.99-$3.99. This is the third or fourth month in a row Amazon has had a sale like this, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is going to be a pattern from now on, and that we can expect a sale like this every month or so.
It's a scary time, though, for those (like me) who micromanage sales. Before the sale hit, I was averaging 108 Amazon sales a day. Once the sale hit, I lost momentum and had trouble catching back up to where I was pre-sale. From that point on, I averaged 96 sales a day, and this included two price drops for Cross My Heart. The first was $3.77, and the second to $2.99.
(I didn't see a *huge* increase in sales when I dropped the prices, by the way. The lower price kept me relevant, and probably helped since so many titles were on sale, but I didn't see a surge or anything).
My sales numbers for the last week of July picked up slightly from the previous week, but it's obvious that both the summer and the sale are having an effect on Indies across the board. Not only are people still vacationing and engaging in other familial, outdoor activities, but because of the sale, they're probably Kindle'd out right now (enough new titles to keep them busy for the present, and, as a result, not purchasing anything new).
I hit another milestone this month, though: over 10k ebooks sold since December. In fact, after some additional number crunching I realized that, over the weekend, I hit the 10k mark for Cross My Heart alone.
Over 10,000 copies of Cross My Heart have sold for Kindle and Nook since March.
That's incredible, you guys, and so much more than I ever expected, so THANK YOU!!
Coming up: our last official month of summer. We’ll see if the doldrums continue, or if the "back to school" craze has any effect on sales. As much as I adore Amazon, I'm hoping they forego a sale this month, as Indies really need some time to build momentum.
I'm also playing with a Facebook ad campaign right now. I'll let you know how that goes, too. From what I've read, Facebook, Goodreads, and Google ads are fairly worthless (a lot of impressions, fewer clicks, even fewer sales). In fact, YA writer Arthur Slade did an experiment earlier in the year with Facebook Ads, so check out his post if this is something you're considering. So far I'm expecting to have similar results. I'm willing to try anything once, though.
I'm officially on Facebook now! It should be linked to my Twitter account, too. If you don't follow me on Twitter yet, I'm @katiekleinbooks. My Facebook link can be found in the blog sidebar.
In other news, I'm putting the finishing touches on Vendetta. The first week of August was my self-imposed deadline, so keep your eyes peeled.
And thanks again for purchasing, rating, reviewing, (enjoying!!) my books, and stopping by the blog. For someone who thrives on control, this is kind of a scary journey, but it helps to know others are out there benefitting from what I post here.
Have an awesome week, you guys!
KK
