So wrote up my year of reading here. This post is about my business as a novelist. You can read about my conferences here.
Every year, since I began tracking number, I set a revenue goal for my writing business. Since I have only really been ‘business-ing’ this for 3 years the goal had always been a bit randomly generated. A number I’d like to see based on the last year and where I felt I needed to be.
The TL;DR; for this year is that I hit that number 3 weeks ago. I set a small stretch goal just to update my tracking data and even though I’m writing this the week of Christmas, I’m certain I’ll make that number as well. (Future me: I reached it the week of Christmas)
Ok, so. Charts and numbers ahoy!!
My 2019 numbers are mostly filled in post year. I didn’t really start tracking until mid-2019 and only really dialed in my GoogleSheet fu in 2020. Plus in 2019 I didn’t track my expenses as well, so in reality, my actual profit was closer to $13,000. One of my goals this year beyond hitting my goal of $36,000 was to get there with less spend. Below 50% was my goal. NAILED IT.
The big thing that this year reinforced was the power of making the first book in a series free. Yes, you give away a shit ton of books, a high percentage of which will never get read or will be read years later. 2019 you can see I tried that strategy (In a less organized fashion) while 2020 I moved to trying to run ads against full price first in series. 2021 I went back to permafree. The results certainly seem to speak for themselves.
I do find it interesting and heartening that while my free units have fluctuated, my sold units haven’t that much. Later books in the Space Rogues series are $4 vs. $3 which I think helps. Also I’ve sold a lot more omnibus’ which are $8 and $10.
Widely Wide
I put a significant amount of effort into strengthening my wide position.
Amazon is still my biggest store, coming in roughly 60% of my sales any given month. I don’t run AMS ads and don’t do any paid newsletters that are amazon only. They really are just huge. My goal is still to get Amazon consistently under 50%.
Amazon will always be a factor (unless we’re lucky and something changes) so while I want less eggs in that basket, I’m ok with that market growing so long as the others do too. I read exclusively on a Kobo reader (and you should too). Next to the paid newsletters I’ve put as much energy and money as I can into both Kobo and Barnes and Noble internal promotions. Apple too when I can, but they’re…. Apple, so ¯\_(?)_/¯.
New Markets
This year I finally made the effort to upload my books to Smashwords. They’re a distributor like Draft2Digital but also have their own store. I didn’t expect much, but my motto right now is to put my books into any marketplace I can. You can’t even see their portion of the bar charts above, Smashwords made enough for a nice meal or two, so that’s something. Smashwords is now part of my upload process, so we’ll see if their piece of the pie increases in size.
Paper or Pixel?
This matches my experience to be sure. I don’t buy paper books anymore unless there’s a specific reason. The first release of a fellow self-publisher, a signed copy of something, etc. Otherwise, I am 100% bullish on ebooks.
Having moved several times in my life, I just don’t want 15 boxes of books, weighing hundreds of pounds each. Or having to secret 5 books in every box to distribute the weight. I’ve done both.
Living in a 100+-year-old home that doesn’t have a whole lot of closest/shelf space, as much as I love the look of a bookshelf, having one isn’t practical. My home office is barely big enough for me, LOL.
Plus of course, since I read mostly genre fiction, and when I read on paper is was almost always mass-market paperbacks which are decidedly less visually appealing on a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf (IMO).
This chart doesn’t include Ingram Spark because I don’t track sales there. Their system is so antiquated it’s a monthly email with a PDF and spreadsheet. Plus with their shitty unlimited return policy, I just don’t bother. If I did track them the paperback pie slice might… might creep up to 2%.
Actual Writing
So, in the realm of actual writing, what did 2021 look like? Well, I released the first three books of the Grand Human Empire series. I also released two Space Rogues stories. I finished the first draft of Space Rogues 10: Rogue Enterprises. That’ll come out early spring ’22. I’ve also begun writing the first book in the next part of the Space Rogues universe. Rogue Enterprises book 1.
My goal for next year is the same as this one. Get 3 or more books out. 5 might be a stretch but we’ll see. I really want to get most of Rogue Enterprises 1 done before the end of the year. so we’ll see. There’s a notion that 20 books at a reasonable price that each sell a unit a day, brings in around $50k in revenue. Based on my data I don’t think I’ll have to wait until I have 20 out, but either way that won’t be long.
I’ve too long neglected Expedition Inc. so getting the second book in that series out, is a priority.
One thing this year really opened my eyes to is the value of multiple series and (I hope) entries into series. Space Rogues to date, has more or less needed you to start at the beginning. You could jump in anywhere and just not know the characters as well. Space Rogues 10 sort of ‘ends’ that first story line of the team. Rogue Enterprises 1 opens a new door for people to enter the universe. They won’t need all the back story to enjoy it, but if they like it, I hope they’ll go back and read the first 10 books.
The other plus of multiples series is I can leverage paid newsletters better by spreading the exposure across series. There was a pretty noticeable drop off from efforts in January compared to those in November. More series allows me to let one rest while I promote another.
Seeing Other (or Any) People
So, coming out of 2020, I was able to get some in-person events back on the calendar. This year was light, I had a table and did two panels at MileHiCon, I participated in the CAL Christmas CO-Op. I backed out of the 20books vegas author day because, well schlepping all my booth stuff plus books didn’t sound fun. For a while, they were pushing that everyone who came in got 2 months of Kindle Unlimited which I don’t approve of. Lastly, I just didn’t want to spend a day barking at other authors while they barked at me, LOL.
Going into 2021 I’ve got a few things already set up. I’ll be at COSine ’22 in Colorado Springs in January. I THINK I have a table at StarFest Denver, guess I’ll find out eventually. I got into LTUE but had to decline as we’ll be busy that weekend. I’ll do the CAL Co-Op again because it’s pretty fun. This year was a bust income-wise, but the previous year went well. I had a spot in Denver ComicCon 2020 and of course, womp womp. When the company that took over ramped up efforts for this year, I must have missed the email because I never got notice to apply for their smaller event in 2021. While I was bummed and frankly annoyed, I was also at peace with it. We had plans I’d have had to miss, and well I just wasn’t sure it would be worth it to me.
Speaking of worth. Moving forward, I think I’ll likely reduce my in-person stuff. I initially thought I wanted to increase it, but the reality is that while it’s fun to sell books in person, it’s not the best use of time. There are two aspects to in-person stuff. Hand-selling at a booth and speaking on panels.
Hand-Selling. I’m likely to focus on this when I do in-person stuff. For one thing, I want to get better at it, but for another, I think it’s the best use of my time. The potential to sell to someone who might become a super-fan is there, but so is just the opportunity to sell to a genre fan. A sale’s a sale.
Speaking. More and more I realize this isn’t that valuable. So far at least it’s been at genre events where the bulk of the attendees aren’t writers, and so a panel on writing doesn’t fill the room or serve much purpose. We’ll see how COSine ’22 goes. I’m on four panels that are less business and more craft, so that might change my mind. We’ll see. The downside is if I have a table, I have to leave it with a sign that says ‘come back later’.
At the end of the day, I don’t want my writer persona to be “Speaks at events”. I want to be “Writes awesome books” Some authors like the latter or at least let the latter be more of their identity than actually producing work. That’s not me.
So….
So that’s it. 2021 was a very solid year for my writing. The income is mostly stable and I’m looking at 2022 with an eye towards higher revenue and income and allowing writing to contribute more to the household. 360|Conferences struggles, it’s a high cost, low margin thing (when you’re not O’Reilly or an Event Apart) so writing can help make that a bit less stressful for Nicole and I.
I’m excited for 2022, despite the Pandemic looking like it’ll be with us a good part of the year (Thanks conservatives and ‘free thinkers’ you just keep shitting in the pool and smiling).
