As I posted on my Facebook writer’s page, 2011, my first year in the world of self-publishing, did not set any records. I sold a total of 35 books, and made a whopping $34.23 in royalties. Here are two charts that break it down into monthly figures.

I figure that sales will always fluxuate, some months being better (or much better) than others. The key is to always see sales rising. But with fluxuating months I wasn’t sure how to measure that. I can have MS Excel add a trend line, but those are not always the smartest things Excel does.

I decided to use what I call a Cumulative Monthly Average Sales. This is the total of all sales divided by the number of months I’ve had titles up for sale. This should normally be increasing as I add titles and markets. And for the most part it is, as seen in the line in the second graph. It will be interesting to follow this through the months ahead, as I add titles and continue to promote the old. Right now this number stands at 3.18. So any month I sell four or more books this number will go up, until it tops 4.0.

The spike in revenues in November and December reflect personal sales of the paperback version of Documenting America. I make $3.93 per copy. I don’t need to make that much per copy, but the price is set by the minimum I have to charge on Amazon so as not to lose money on those sales. I suppose I could discount self-sales, but I’m not ready to do that just yet.

December was my highest month for sales, with 9. No coincidentally, I did more promotion in December than any other month, and I had the most markets available in November and December. I haven’t actually received any revenue from on-line sales yet, since I haven’t accumulated enough sales for the market to pay me. Since I am a cash-basis taxpayer for writing, these accumulated royalties won’t count as real income until they are paid to me.

So, while these numbers are small, and almost every writer can wish for more sales, these are not bad numbers for a partial year, limited copies, and very little promotion. The good news is I already have my first sale for 2012, of “Mom’s Letter” on Kindle.