It turns out, the first week after you self-publish a book on Amazon is basically about checking (with ridiculous frequency) to see if you’ve gotten any new comments, then slipping to Amazon’s reporting page to see if you’ve sold any more books.
So I can say that now, after just over a week since the book went up for sale, I’ve sold enough to cover roughly half of the cost of my editor and cover designer. (Both were cheaper than expected; in the case of the designer, he is both up-and-coming and a resident of a region where labor costs tend to be lower and I’m very pleased. Still not sure about the editor; on the one hand she charged less than I expected by an order of magnitude but on the other I found fifteen or twenty small errors in my final read-through after it got past her. I don’t really know how perfect I should have expected her to be, though – after all, she did find stuff I and all my previous readers had missed.)
Before I published, I had defined levels of success in my own mind. If I make enough to cover costs, I’ll be content. Sales have slowed from the initial spike, but I think I still should reach that, over time. If I make enough in addition to cover, say one extra wine club or to replace my Kindle Scribe (which has a slightly cracked screen), I’ll be very happy. Anything beyond that, I’ll be ecstatic.
I am also very pleased that the book now has 16 ratings, with an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Amazon. Hopefully this will be enough for it to show up as a recommendation when similar books are purchased. Ted and I discussed it and decided not to buy paid advertising at this time; I will do so once I have a sequel or two published. I have the ability to do promotions where the book price is lowered for a day or so, but I’m not sure there’s a point to that until there are more books in the series.
For comparison, my previous book was traditionally published in 2014, and I received an advance for it. With that plus royalties over the years, I estimate it’s earned about a month’s pay at my day job, total. I don’t know if this book will ever even match that, and that’s OK. At the least I’d hope it will pay for itself, and eventually lead to a little extra fun money.
I hadn’t expected how much I’d enjoy the writing process, though! So it’s been an utter success in that respect. 🙂