September of 2012 was the first month I ever gained any traction on Amazon, the giveaway of the Deep Dark Well to the tune of 4,035 attracting the attention that started the sales rolling. That month I sold 237 books. In October, 2012 it was 538 books, then 1,558 in November and 4,615 that December. January of 2013 was truly a monster month, with 8,560 eBooks going out. That was my biggest month ever by volume, but I was selling most of my books for $2.99 at that time, so the profit was not as large per unit as it has grown to. Still, I made over $16,000 that month, and decided then and there that my days at the State of Florida were numbered. I left the state in March of 2013 and have never looked back. In June of 2013 sold 6,998 books, in January of 2014 6,190, while May of 2014 saw my first $20,000+ month with 7,002 sales. Not every month has been that good, of course. In February of this year I sold a low of books since that breakout November of 2012, 1,210 units. None of these figures include audiobooks, of which I have sold about 3,200 to date, and paperbacks, which have sold about 1,300.
August of 2015 sales totals were 6,045 eBooks and 51 paperbacks. Again, this does not include audiobooks. Now this is not a record month for unit sales, and in fact has been beat by four other months. But it exceeded May of 2014 in revenue. I will not really know how much until the payments come in at the end of October, but I am confident it will be by a good margin. This month also saw my first sale to Mexico, and well as record sales to Germany and France. Germany is tied with Canada on an alternating basis for my third largest market, after the US and UK. France is my sixth largest market, which really isn’t saying much, though I really appreciate that small cadre of diehard fans in that country. Australia is number five, and they were a little better than their average this month, while I had no sales at Amazon Japan or Netherlands.
I also had 338,110 page views for my books that are on Kindle Select, meaning people can borrow them through the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited. My books average about 360 Kindle pages, including matter at the back, and run between 100-130K words. That came out to the equivalent of 939 books, and under this new scheme I am making more per book in this program than I was when they were paying the same for a twenty page short read as they were for a novel. Not as good for those short story writers who could attract readers, but much better for us novelists.
So, is the point of this post to brag about how well I’m doing. Maybe a little. I am human, I made the dream work, and I feel like crowing it from the rooftops. More importantly though, I am living the dream, have made a successful career without the aid of a publisher, and am an example to others of how it can be done. I am by no means the most successful indie published science fiction or fantasy writer out there. I personally know of three others, Hugh Howie, Chris Nuttall, and Evan Currie. I still need to figure out what they have done to promote themselves. And I am sure there are others out there just as successful that I haven’t heard of, yet.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front was the driving force of the success of last month, selling 4,131 eBooks and probably 20 paperbacks. It also garnered 49 reviews in the US (thirty-nine 5*, eight 4* and a single 3*) and 12 in the UK (eleven 5* and one 3*, and the three star’s complaint was that the series was too long. So I guess he will continue to be disappointed in the future, because it’s going to get longer. Currently I am working on Exodus: Machine Wars: Book 2: Bolthole, and have 71,000 words down so far. DragonCon is coming up, and I am planning on doing a little bit of work on something or other while I am there. Of course that may not happen, because, well, DragonCon.
I want to finish by thanking all of the people who enjoy my books and especially those who leave reviews. I realize I am not the best writer in the world, and I am grateful that you enjoy my sometimes overly complicated plot lines and long battle scenes. Thanks for making my dream possible.
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Doug .. Do not sell yourself short re not best writer. There appear to be quite a number of us who find your style captivating enough to come back for more. I personally put you in the same league as Evan Currie and Chris Nuttall. I have not read anything by the third author yet. The cost of recent purchases of new material has gone up on Amazon.ca. I would like to think it was because of the sinking Canadian dollar coupled with a rise in the value of your share not all to Amazon. E books are still the best value. I do not re-read a book so to buy I a paperback and then give it away is expensive. I must retract a part of the last comment, I did re-read Heinlin’s Stranger in a Strange Land with about 35 years between readings. A novel that has never achieved the mainstream success it deserved. As long as you can churn them out we will read them.
Thank you. And no, I have not raised prices in Canada. I set a price on Amazon in US dollars and it automatically sets the price in other countries.
Mr. Dandridge , I first found you when I was searching for more space operas to read back in 2013. I found your first Exodus book. Since then I have read all your Exodus books including the spin-offs and love them. I just re-read the whole series in order, all 11 books, in about a month. I personally enjoy the Exodus universe more than any other. I hope it becomes a bigger universe than the Honor Harrington one. I am looking forward to your second machine war book and cannot wait to see where this universe goes.
I no longer browse the kindle store to find a new book or series to read. I browse the store looking for a new book to keep my occupied while I wait for another of yours to come out. If I was any good at writing you would have inspiried me to write my own book. But alas I am but a Marine and can only break things.
Thank you for writing these amazing stories. If my friends read books I’d have them all over this. And thats not for lack of trying.
Thank you and bless you. I don’t think there’s any such thing as only a Marine. I was an Army ground pounder myself, but was in JROTC in High School with a Marine Colonel, First Sergeant and Gunny, and went on several trips to Quantico. I have all the respect in the world for you Marines and the job you do. And thanks for the compliment. I will try to keep them coming.
Having listened to all 3 of the Exodus audio books, are you planning on continuing to publish in that format too? If so, when? Eagerly waiting for the next one.
I was wondering if you could share a little bit about that process. Like how many audio book sales do you need to get to cover the cost of production (I’m assuming voice actors don’t come cheap).