A year of self publishing (Sept '11 - Aug '12)

Thank you so much for this thread- it has been incredibly helpful to me in helping me decide how I might eventually try to sell my manuscript (which is still, alas, in progress!). Thanks especially for the info on your editor, when my manuscript is finished I think I will send it to him.
 
I know you said on your blog/website I think, that you'd had a couple of comments on our English spelling used in your book. Was there not a way of having an English version on Amazon.co.uk and an American version of the book on Amazon.com?

Regards Gary
 
I believe it is possible, since you can choose in which territories the book is available for sale. So technically you could have a British English version available everywhere but the US, and then an American English that is only available in the US.

Keep in mind that the differences between American English and British English is far more than a case of just "colour" vs "color". There are terms such as pavement and sidewalk that need to be handled, cultural references and slang. It's basically like translating something into a foreign language in a way. It could term out to be a great deal of work, which is why you sometimes don't see books that were published in England make it to the States, simply because American readers would respond well to it.
 
The gruaniad has an article on How to become an e-book superstar today. I haven't read through the whole of this thread so I don't know how relevent or basic the advice in the article is relative to everyone posting here, but it may prove interesting nonetheless.
 
Morning, all!

I sold 1,211 ebooks in June, bringing the total up to 12,883. I've also sold 10 copies directly from my own website (DRM-free ePubs).

http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com/purchase/

It was quite easy to put together and just using Paypal and Google Wallet for the payment system. I was actually quite curious to know if I would sell any copies directly at all, but it seems that there are some readers who prefer to pay the authors directly, rather than an online retailer. Each to their own, I guess.
 
It's a bit different, but a violinist whose Youtube videos I like (Taylor Davis/ViolinTay) has an album out, and when I buy some of her tracks I'll be going directly through her website.

Congrats on the continuing success, Scarfy :)
 
Coragem said:
I'm just utterly baffled. How on earth did buyers even find your book if all you did was list it for Kindle (and other e-book selling formats) and create a website?

I wrote a book on exercise and nutrition, somewhat specialist in nature but desirable for various reasons. I spent about £1500 on a website, hoping to sell the book using that. No luck at all, and all my efforts to advertise the website (posting on forums, google+, facebook) were useless. I listed the book on kindle, and if I'm lucky it earns me £10-15 per week.

Everyone who reads my book rates it very, very highly, but the fact remains that the internet is vast, the Amazon Kindle store is vast, so hardly anyone finds it. So again, I'm baffled, how on earth did over 10,000 people find your novel, never mind find it and buy it? How on earth does anyone find your website?

Note: however baffled I am, I'm also impressed! You must write very well.

Coragem.
Click to expand...

People are not interested in nutrition, they want to read about starfighter pilots. Now, if you combine nutrition and starfighters together in the same novel - you just might get alot more readers. :D
 
Well, disagreeing slightly - people are interested in diets, nutrition (done properly) means you don't need to diet because you get it right.
 
I got on a set of speaking scales today. It said, "Your height is eight foot four." :)

Bum bum!
 
Afternoon, all.

July's sales were up compared to previous months - 1,391, for a total of 14,277.

I believe I know why this is - Amazon has tweaked their sales rank system, meaning that all $0.99 novels now need to sell more copies to be on par with more expensive books. In essense, it has seen many $0.99 novels being evicted from the charts, leaving the spaces to be filled by other books.

I'm not sure if Amazon has done the same thing for .com and .uk.
 
Thanks for that bit of useful info, as well as the monthly sales (of which I am jealous).
 
Good to see that your sales are more than holding up, Scarfy. :)
 
Can I ask the question that, maybe the others may be thinking. I would fully understand if you said no.

What is the revenue on those 14,000 sales? By my calculation, averaging say £3 a book, you may have received more than you would've got from a traditional route.

Thanks for the thread. It's been fascinating and I always look forward to your sales figures.:)
 
I'm sort of reluctant to post actual revenue, but all you need to keep in mind is that you retain 70% of the list price. You then need to subtract VAT and tax from that number and you get your actual earnings.

(I'm one of those people who only counts what you actually earn as the amount after tax..!)
 
No worries. I thought selling books was VAT free?

I got a quote from a printers for a 1000 books and it is zero rated. Is it not for selling them also?
 
There's VAT on eBooks but not print books.
 
On VAT: what precisely is the situation? It sounds like at least some retailers (I know Amazon does this) deducts VAT at the point of sale and pass it directly to HMRC. Do they all do this?

The threshold for registering for VAT is £77,000 (unsurprisingly I'm nowhere near that, yet) so I don't imagine most authors would need to register.
 
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