Kindle Sales January

Normally I wait to see the sales results after the month is over, but I don’t see these numbers changing much in the final week of January. Sales have dropped off a bit from the bump I got in December.

1 A Night At Downers – 2
2* Null_Pointer – 1
3 Ocherva – 1
4 Silicants Only – 1
5* Starstrikers – 14
6* Tales From Ocherva, Volume 1 –  2

Stared items are books that retail for $2.99, all others are short stories that retail for $.99. My earnings equate to $35.36 for novel sales and $1.40 on short stories, for a total of $36.76.

My best selling book is still Starstrikers. This continues to amaze me because it is my first novel and not by any stretch my best effort. My second novel is not even in the SF genre, but is instead a Mystery novel – Null_Pointer. My best writing effort to date, is the new SF novel – Tyrmia. A stand-alone story set in the same universe as Starstrikers. That novel is not enjoying any sales at all this month. Despite being my best work and despite having a fantastic cover, it sits on the Kindle shelves untouched. Why is that?

Two possible reasons come to mind for me. The first is that I’ve done little to no advertising and virtually no social networking for it. Sure, I’ve blogged about it, but not many people read this blog. Sure I’ve mentioned it on Twitter, but most of my followers on Twitter are firmly in the traditional press mindset and don’t really respect what I’m doing with this whole “self-publishing” shenanigans.

Secondly, it has no reviews on Amazon. Even the friends of mine who have read Tyrmia and loved it, have not blogged about it or left reviews. I can’t blame them for that, it’s not their job to see that my book sells. I also have not badgered anyone to put up reviews. We won’t even mention the fiasco of my Buy Tyrmia Day in December that netted me two sales.

It’s not likely that I will stop writing and do continuous promoting for Tyrmia. That’s just not going to happen. I’m too busy writing the prequel to Starstrikers. So I must start begging readers to post reviews and write about the book on their blogs. That can only help. I have also begun to cross promote Tyrmia on the Starstrikers Amazon page and the page for my SF anthology, Tales From Ocherva. I think when someone reads Starstrikers and decides to look for more, it doesn’t hurt to make it easier to find my other books.

We’ll see if sales increase any in February. Stay tuned.