Well, let me start right off with the 2015 sales table, then I’ll break it down. You might have to click on the table and view it full size to read it.
So in 2015 I sold 83 books. That’s one more than I sold in 2014. A few outlets I sell at via Smashwords haven’t reported all of 2015, so it’s theoretically possible I’ll have a couple of more sales. However, I never sell any books at those outlets, so I feel okay posting results now. Here’s some breakdown
- Titles published in 2015: 51 sales
- Previously published titles: 32 sales
- Print books: 63
- E-books: 20
- Personal sales: 24
- Sales through retailers: 59
- Items with at least one sale: 13
- Items with no sales: 8
So, I had a better year with print books than with e-books, a complete turnaround from prior years. But that’s not an accurate picture. Two of my news books, Daddy Daughter Day and Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West , I published only as print books. Since they were my two best sellers, naturally that would skew my results toward print books.
The Seth Cheney book was my best seller, at 29 copies. This was a book for members of my wife’s family, prepared prior to a family reunion in Dodge City in the summer. It had about 100 pages of narrative with photos and maps, and 200 pages of genealogical data, also with photos and maps. I completed it a month ahead, had time to market it to the family, and they bought it. I have only one unaccounted for sale that may have been from a non-family member. Sales of this will not be repeated in 2016.
So, was it a good year, or a dismal year? I suppose any time your sales increase, even if the increase was less than 2 percent, you should consider it a good year. On the other hand, selling only 4.17 copies per book published is rather dismal.
Oh, well, onward into 2016. Next post will be goals for the year.
And, I’ll link a smaller image of the table for linking at Absolute Write.
