I’m not sure if this is what indie authors are supposed to do – talk about how many sales they have made. However, since I’ve been at this for almost 11 years, I thought it would be interesting to reflect. This is the first time I have looked at my all-time book sales (Is it strange it’s taken me this long to check?!)

So, what is the # of sales I have made since I became an indie author in 2012?

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*Drum roll*

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393 books from 2012-2022! (In print and e-book) That’s about 35 book sales per year, or 3 sales per month. For an indie author who doesn’t pay for any ads and doesn’t have a huge following, I think that’s a solid amount. It means people were willing to pay for my work almost 400 times since I started! When you put into perspective how hard it is to actually make a book sale online, I have to say that I am happy with my results.

A Further Sales Analysis

I find it interesting looking at the big picture graph. There was a steady increase in sales from 2016-2020 after a little slump in 2014-2016 (When I wasn’t publishing my books as frequently). 2022 is pretty consistent with 2012, which is also interesting. I feel like this was a great year overall for book sales and wouldn’t have known it was lower than 2020 had I not checked. I suppose with everyone being at home and having more time to read, it makes sense that 2020 was my best year so far for book sales. I also bought many e-books that year.

Out of those 393 sales, 252 of them were Kindle and 141 were print. I noticed this year I’ve made more print book sales than in previous years, which is so cool. Many of those newer readers came from WordPress! I really appreciate your amazing support – thank you so much for giving me a chance as an author!

What About the Free E-books I’ve Sold?

If I were to include how many books I’ve sold that are both paid and free, the number is 4,760! While some of those books probably haven’t been read (Free book deals sometimes attract people who download any free book they see), it’s cool to know that there are thousands of copies of my stories in people’s Kindles.

What are my top 5 best selling books?

The Suicides – 48

By The Sword – 47

The Broken & The Foolish – 40

The Pup & The Pianist – 34

Eve & Adam – 30

Conclusion

Thank you to everyone who has read my books at any point. While I’m clearly not writing for money, it’s a pleasure knowing your books are being read. If I can do it, you can too! Promoting gets you a few sales per month (at least). Had I not invested time in marketing on Twitter, Bookstagram, and WordPress the numbers would have been much lower. You’d be lucky to sell one book per year without some form of marketing.

I also hope this sheds some light into my real status as an author. Through the years, a few troll-ish type of people insinuated I was successful or writing just for money. I hope seeing concrete evidence that I am just an obscure author in a vast sea of books can put to rest any wrong assumptions about my motives. I’m certainly not worth the hassle of envying.

Thanks so much for reading me today! ❤