7,400 June Sales, Penelope Turns 23 & Other Stuff I Should Have Blogged About Before Now

What have I been up to? Well:

• I redesigned my website PenelopeFletcher.com.
• Visited Nicole MacDonald's Damsel In A Dirty Dress blog for an interview
• Partook in a webinar with the Indie Book Collective (at 2am, yeah) on Twitter Marketing
• Put the finishing touches on Die, My Love (so much more work than the sentence suggests, lol)
• I got completely absorbed into tweaking Demon Dark. I was In The Zone. You know how in the Matrix Neo saw green numbers? Well, I saw purple words, lol. Adam (boyfriend/fiance/man-friend) peeled me away when he caught me snoring over my keyboard and drooling everywhere.
• I had my 23rd birthday and survived *moonwalk*
• Updated all my eBook covers to sexify them some more (it’s important to keep growing and improving what you offer) Those changes will show across all the eStores soon.
• Created/Revised the Print Editions of Lunar Light, Demon Day and Demon Girl (all three with revised text).
• Got absorbed in writing more of Smolder (Dragon Souls Book One).

Look at the examples of my new print covers. Aren’t they lovely? I was randomly browsing books in store and saw one with the faded background square for the blurb, loved it, and of course had to have it for my own. Demon Day and Die, My Love have been formatted the same, and CreateSpace is playing ball so far ... just need to get my proofs.

So I have been M.I.A, but working my bootie off, not relaxing, or anything. Okay ... maybe I took it easy for a few days ;)

I did a little sales analysis to get some perspective, as July Kindle sales really have me bummed. Yes, it’s summer, yes, Amazon had The Big One sale going on, yes, my life sucks. Lol. Anyway, after a magnificent 7,400 sales across all eBook channels in June *eek* I kind of thought the world was a magical place filled with bright gold pixies, te he! Of course, June was the promoted release month for Demon Day, so I had all my readers buying the book, this lead to a boost for Demon Girl and Lunar Light, so an uber sales surge in this month was to be expected. I just didn't expect such a boost, s'all.

Then Amazon started The Big Deal sale on traditionally published eBooks in UK and everything went to shit. My US sales are okay but the UK ones are choking. I’m glad everything didn’t grind to a complete halt, but still, it was a brutal come down ... kind of like riding Oblivion at Alton Towers.

I even did a little graph. I excluded July to make myself feel better  and I don't have half the July data from Smashwords just yet).

Sales are for eBooks priced between and £0.70 and £2.20

My graph does show that releasing new eBooks is what drives sustainable sales. In March I released Lunar Light and look how it jumped up. In May and June, Demon Day arrived.

I am hoping the release of Die, My Love will have the same effect in August as Lunar Light did in March. Then it’ll be time for the release of Demon Dark in September (eek!). In theory, book three of the Rae Wilder series should prove as popular as book two, and I am hoping for a similar success in numbers. We shall see.  

What I am most happy about is though Kindle is often more than half of my sales percentage (for July, it'll be less, I predict), is that I'm making more headway with the other retailers (iBooks, Nook & Sony), across territories (UK, US, AU, DE, CA). I do have a readership for my kooky work, I just need to find them (coooeee!)

I did have a whole heap of free downloads too, but I am honestly too tired to add up the numbers.

All the above said and done I am still so behind. I need, like, another two hours in each day at the moment to get it all done. I think another few weeks of extreme focus will get me back up to speed, thank goodness.

I have a fun guest post scheduled for tomorrow, so check back then.

:)