2017 Book Sales and Analysis (Patreon)

Wow, I'm really behind on these. On the bright side... now you can see all the numbers at once? >.>

Anyway. Up there you've got the numbers for what I can call a solid upper-midlist career. Those numbers represent (pre-taxes, but post-expenses) a salary that I needed 5 years to achieve in telecom. I have gone from being sheepish about my gross revenue to grimly satisfied to kind of astonished. My 'hit six figures' goal has gone from 'sometime in the next ten years' to 'possibly next year.' We'll see.

But analysis! As Kyle used to say on South Park, "You know, I've learned something today...." In this case, it's "I've learned something this year." Here's my overall takeaway:

Once you've got product, what makes careers is exposure to the right audience. And when you want exposure, what you need is the right marketing fluff.

I still feel like the first step to success is product. It's got to be the right kind of product. Ideally, it shouldn't be so niche you can't describe it by relating it to something else. And it should lead people naturally to other books you've written (i.e. sorry people who don't write series fiction, but. You are swimming upstream.) It should all be of relatively uniform quality. And it should have, as much as possible, multiple editions to accommodate how people prefer to read.

Without a lot of something to sell, you're reduced to trying for volume sales on single products, and that's much harder. 

Once you've set that up, though, success looks like a matter of pointing the right groups of people at things, and for that, your marketing fluff has to not only be attractive, but predictable. Your book covers should look like other book covers in the same subgenre. Your blurb should sound like other blurbs. Also, your book covers should look like other book covers in the same subgenre. And they should be gorgeous. This is the year I learned you don't get anywhere without gorgeous covers, which means I am in the middle of a probably 2-year plan to redo the covers on about 50% of my books so I can position them better.

Some other things I learned this year:

• Box sets don't just sell to different readers (people who are price-sensitive/bargain-shopping). They create a different reading experience. A lot of the things people ding me for with Earthrise become a positive feature for the box set edition; because readers binge-read something they perceive as a single story, the annoying bits felt like they led more naturally to the expected resolutions. This is such a huge revelation that I'm still grappling with it. But I am now planning to box-set everything that can be box-setted. Y'all. BOX SET ALL THE THINGS.
• Audiobooks are far more expensive to produce than print editions, but when you have promotions, they also sell in far greater numbers than print editions. Like, enormously more so. Whenever possible, I am now privileging the promotion of e-books that have audio editions over those without them, because the simultaneous sales of both digital editions is candy. That extra money is not only handy, it's noticeable. 
• There are no unsuccessful books. There are books that haven't been placed properly yet. You may never figure out how to place them so they reach their intended audience, but that's not the story's fault. It's a business problem, not an artistic one.

Some things that remain true, from my observation:

• You have to publish frequently. It may be possible to consistently make a living by releasing only one new book a year, but I haven't met anyone doing it. You might make it work for one year, but year after year...? Unlikely.
• You are rarely steered wrong by listening to fans. But you have to listen to what they do, not what they say. If you have lots of anecdata from fans reporting they'd really like More of That Series, but in practice you look at the numbers and see almost no one is buying That Series, then what you've got is some really awesome, dedicated people who love That Series. But your fans, in general, probably want more of that Thing That's Selling Well.
• Series are good. In particular, people love seeing minor characters from other series get developed in new ones. Pay attention to your supporting cast, because your next series is probably in there somewhere.

I feel like I'm in a good position going into 2018. I'm just about ready to sew up my final unfinished series ("Dreamhealers," with Dreamstorm, in March or April). I've got a lot of good product that has unmined marketing potential (look at all the box sets I haven't made yet!), and unsuccessful books that I think might have a better chance if I re-do their marketing fluff. I have a lot of "value-adds" to put together: a lot of my books are missing print and audio editions, which means they have more earning potential on the table. And I think I've finally grasped, internally, just how different "this book is a good story" is from "this book is successful."

I think I might even be having fun, finally. *grins*

Anyway, that's 2017. Please, toss me your questions or observations. I'm here to help. :)