Month: December 2015

These are December’s numbers; I just spent an hour and a half or so getting my 2016 spreadsheet set up.  December was down from the last couple of months, but that’s not a surprise, and I sold three times as many books in December 2015 as I did in 2014 so I’m calling it a win.  As always, click to make that legible.

I had a goal for 2015: I wanted other human beings to give me one thousand dollars of American money in return for things I wrote.  And I have good news!  By certain measurements, I beat that number by over fifty percent.

Unfortunately, by other measurements, I spent a lot more money playing author than I earned, mostly because of my insistence on attending a couple of conventions this year and paying early for one of the ones that I’m going to next year.  Conventions have yet to be a profit center, is what I’m saying.  Not even close.  But I think they’re useful, and I’m doing at least two of them in 2016 and may be doing as many as four or five.  If they bankrupt me, I’ll try something else for 2017.  This needs to turn some sort of profit soon, even if it’s just a tiny one.

My books were downloaded or purchased 2350 times in 2015, up from 524 in 2014, an increase that is frankly outstanding even if a lot of those were giveaways.  During that time I released two new books, The Sanctum of the Sphere and Searching for Malumba.  I plan on two more new releases in 2016, a sequel to Skylights in (hopefully, although the window to get this done is closing) March and a second fiction book late in the year that I haven’t definitely decided on.  Other goals for 2016 include being published at least once by someone who isn’t me.  I’ve been lucky enough to have stories published in both extant volumes of the World Unknown Review, but I think 2016 needs to be the year where I break into traditional publishing somehow.  Note that I’ll count it as good if the contract is signed next year; the story itself doesn’t actually have to come out, but I want a traditional publishing sale next year.  I would also like to see at least 4000 more books in the hands of readers.  That’s a pretty ambitious increase over this year; we’ll see if I make it.

And I kinda want to write a screenplay and a comic book, just for the hell of it.  I have no plans to try and sell either of them, and this isn’t the first year I’ve said “write a screenplay,” but they’d be fun to try and do.

(Oh, and audiobooks.  Audiobooks, dammit!  At least of BA 1!)

I am sticking with Kindle Select for the foreseeable future, as well.  My ebooks will remain exclusive to Amazon, as I have better sales when exclusive to Amazon than I do when I make my books available everywhere.  Sooner or later Amazon will piss me off again and I’ll diversify again, but for now, Amazon’s where you’re going to have to go to get one of my ebooks.

Or, y’know, email me, and we’ll work something out for your other device.  You can always do that.

But yeah.  In April of 2014, I had no books available at all.  As of now, I have this:

I dunno about you, but I feel pretty damn good about that.

Thank you, genuinely, so, so, so much to everyone who has helped me on this; I hope the stories have been worth it.

Now go review them!