I’ve been playing around with my Access database today. It’s where I track all of my book sales across different platforms and I needed to update my reports to link the multiple paperback versions of the Excel guides so they wouldn’t appear on separate lines in my consolidated reports.
Anyway. Long story short, I created a “Net Profit and Loss by Series” report out of all of it that incorporates my advertising spend as well as what I’ve spent on covers.
Good news is out of 25 “series”, all but two are net profitable.
Bad news is that one of the series that’s still a net loss is my fantasy trilogy.
Why? Primarily because of the cost of the absolutely gorgeous covers.
Seeing that negative number on the report almost two years after book 1 launched makes my gut clench.
I feel this compelling need to second-guess all my decisions and hard work and where I’ve focused my efforts.
My top series in terms of net profits? That damned sort of kind of written-to-market billionaire romance series. My number two? My two romance novels that are standalone but related. Conclusion? Write more romance. But…
It’s not that simple.
Because I’m trying to play the long game here.
And part of my strategy meant not pushing too hard on promoting the series until it was done. I launched book 1 of the fantasy series at a price of $4.99.
Sure, I threw some advertising at it, but if my focus had been on getting as many sales as possible as soon as possible, I would’ve priced at 99 cents.
But that would’ve been penny-wise and pound foolish in my opinion. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I think I’m a good enough author people will read through my entire series if they enjoy book 1, but not so good that they’ll wait me out like they do Patrick Rothfuss and George RR Martin.
If my books aren’t there to buy they won’t be bought. And I don’t write these novels in a few weeks or even a few months.
I knew book 1 was going to be hanging out there by itself for a while and that most of the readers I attracted to book 1 wouldn’t hang around for book 3 whenever it was out. So every reader that bought book 1 before the series was done was probably a long-term loss.
I’m weak, though. I’ve run AMS ads on the books for over a year now, because I just couldn’t stand to see them not selling at all.
And I weakened further in January when I applied for a Bookbub. I got it. (International-only in a small category, thankfully.)
AMS and applying for that Bookbub didn’t fit my long-term strategy of waiting for the series to be complete, but I just needed to know the series could sell.
Because it’s hard to delay that gratification that long. To see other authors talking about the thousands of copies they’re selling and see their great book ranks.
So after succumbing to the temptation of a Bookbub in January I reminded myself repeatedly that I had a long-term plan.
When I launched book 3 in June and was less than impressed with the results of the promo, there was a huge temptation to drop the price on all of the books and scramble for more sales. To do something that would make me feel like I was good at this writing thing.
But I had a plan.
And doing that would’ve ruined it.
So I kept the price high, waited for my KU period to end, and applied for another Bookbub. A bigger one.
And I got it.
International-only still. But in a bigger category with the hope of a U.S. deal in the future.
(Thanks I’m sure in large part to those expensive covers.)
It’s killing me to watch my book ranks right now. To know that I’m not getting page reads through KU anymore.
But I have a plan.
I have to remind myself, it’s not about my Amazon U.S. ranking today. It’s about that Bookbub next month. And it’s about the series I’m going to write after this. And the one after that.
Twelve books. Four trilogies. That’s the goal. That’s when I’ll know.
I have to remember that I have a strategy. One that requires white-knuckling it through the between times and having an oversized ego to believe for that long.
I know I’ll stumble along the way. The high of a sales spike is too tempting to resist forever. But I have a plan. A goal. A strategy. One that involves higher prices and slow but steady releases.
One book at a time, like bricks in a wall, I’m going to get there. Building up my catalog until together those books make something strong and powerful and lasting.
Or at least that’s the theory…
M.L. Humphrey 