The Importance of the Backlist (Patreon)

I talk about backlist a lot. About how important it is to have a lot of work.

Since figures are worth a thousand words, here you go:

December 2020 Sales Pie Chart

January 2020 Sales Pie Chart

Not technically backlist since some of those are newer books (e.g. Leveled Up Love released in December) but I figure it's good enough for you to see the difference multiple books can make.

Roughly 6 (or 7) books make up about 50% of my income for the month.

Another 6 make up another 25% or so of my income.

On Market Places

Since these sales are for all my books, you can see how the marketplaces breakup. But which books bring more in each marketplace actually differs, with the pie chart of sales revenue shifting. 

For example, Adventures on Brad actually makes only 72% of its (Amazon) sales in the US. This number drops more if you include my wide sales (which are often outside of the US!).

Whereas Leveled Up Love does incredibly well (nearly 95%!) in the US but struggles outside of it. 

Different series will hit differently in different markets. Having a wider series of backlist in a lot of different markets can help you gain followings in places you might not expect and stabilise your income.

Last Note

This is via Bookereport so only shows my Amazon sales. 

Also, according to Bookfunnel, this is roughly 54 different individual SKUs. So 80/20 rule comes into play here (i.e. approximatley 75% of my income comes from 22% of my books). 

Again, writing more helps since you never know which will fall into the 20%.