Tag: out of time

Novel sales stats for 2012

First off, Happy New Year 2013 to everyone and a big thank you to all those out there who bought/downloaded a copy of one of my novels. I thought I’d blog again this year about how many sales/free downloads my novels had this year. My marketing/promoting consisted mostly of using Twitter, Facebook groups/pages, joining up with a couple Christian author groups to Tweet, and going to message boards. I did some giveaways for ebooks, like on Librarything, and sent some personal acquaintances/relatives paperback copies of Times of Trouble (which actually did help some with visibility), along with a little more than a handful of review copies to a couple of book bloggers, two of which actually gave me a review. I also tried blog interviews early in the year, along with the occasional paid post about my books, but overall, I’d say 99% of my sales would probably be from word-of-mouth. My sales on Barnes and Noble increased by a lot this year, up to 40-50 ebooks sold a month compared to 2 or 3 a month in 2011.  My number one seller is the United States, followed by the UK, Canada, Australia, and then everyone else, mostly Western/Northern Europe, but I did manage to get an Amazon Kindle sale from Japan, which was a borrow for Beyond the New Frontier, and 2 sales on Diesel from South Africa. This is without the updated numbers from Smashwords concerning Apple, Sony, or Diesel from December.

Here’s the numbers for each book in order of publication:

Out of Time
Kindle(ASIN B006GDO3BC): 1107
Barnes & Noble Nook: 37
Kobo, which includes WH Smith, Angus & Robertson, and Chapters Indigo: 42
Apple: 51
Sony: 4
Smashwords: 2 paid, 64 free
Paperback (ISBN:1453896961) : 8

Don’t Mess With Earth
Kindle(ASIN B005OOKZJI): 52
Nook: 39
Kobo: 2
Apple: 5
Diesel: 1
Smashwords: 2 paid, 47 free
Paperback(ISBN 978-1602643413): 2

The Usurper
Kindle(ASIN B007K9WDA4): 92 paid, 518 Select downloads (January – March)
Nook: 47
Kobo: 4
Apple: 14
Smashwords: 1 paid, 18 free
Paperback (ISBN 1453702725): 12

Shattered Earth
Kindle(ASIN B006M2U3O8) – 8 sales, unpublished it, but will bring it back this year
Nook: 48
Kobo: 20
Apple: 52
Smashwords: 1 sale, 61 free
Paperback (probably only available on Amazon, since I retired it on Createspace): 3

Dust Storm (western short story) – plagued by Smashwords’ meatgrinder, so it wasn’t published to Apple or Sony until later in the year. Sold on Kobo once I uploaded there myself.
Kindle(ASIN B006KH7H4E): 9
Nook: 7
Kobo: 1
Apple: 1
Sony: 1
Smashwords: 2 paid, 12 free

Voyager and the Aliens (sci-fi short story)
Kindle(ASIN B005NK19MU): 14
Nook: 2
Kobo: 5
Apple: 9
Diesel: 1
Smashwords: 1 paid, 27 free

New Frontier
Kindle(ASIN B006ONBPVU): 99
Nook: 58
Kobo: 2
Apple: 7
Sony: 1
Smashwords: 5 paid, 62 free
Baker & Taylor Blio: 1
Paperback (ISBN 1468119540): 18

Times of Trouble
Kindle(ASIN B0075CNFFI): 309
Nook: 343
Kobo: 1
Apple: 0
Sony: 0
Smashwords: 128 free
Paperback (ISBN-10: 1469964791) 43

Times of Trial
Kindle(ASIN B00824G5UA): 99
Nook: 120
Kobo: 3
Apple: 0
Sony (for some reason, not available on Sony): 0
Smashwords: 31 free
Paperback(ISBN-10 147745327X): 5

Final Frontier – published in October
Kindle(ASIN B009ORP5U0): 26
Nook: 22
Kobo: 0
Apple: 0
Sony: 0
Smashwords: 0
Paperback (ISBN-10: 1481192191): 0

Beyond the New Frontier – combo of New & Final Frontier, available on Amazon to borrow for free or buy for $3.99
Kindle paid(ASIN B009NVH76M): 28, KDP Select: 724, Borrows: 2
Paperback (ISBN-10: 1480185590): 1

The total equals 1694 free and 2858 paid sales. My goal for 2013 is to double the paid sales without having to rely on free giveaways as much. I’m also working on a prequel to Times of Trouble, most likely called “Times of Turmoil.” I also re-designed a whole new author website on weebly. I was using webs.com, but it was way too clunky, but Weebly seems to be pretty user-friendly. Please check it out http://cliffball-indieauthor.weebly.com when you have time (waiting for domain name transfer, so it night re-direct back to webs.com). Now, I just have to figure out how to transfer my domain name over to it.

Sales for the year so far

Now that it’s June, here are my sales numbers for the year so far, from regular sales to when one of my novels was in KDP Select to free giveaways. These are all from mostly just promoting online on Twitter, Facebook, and a bunch of message boards. The novels are listed in order of publication, from 2008 to 2012.

Amazon US Kindle
Out of Time – 34
Don’t Mess With Earth – 13
The Usurper  – (regular sales) – 67
KDP Select numbers for The Usurper – 329
Shattered Earth (which I unpublished on Amazon) – 8
Voyager & The Aliens – 3
Dust Storm – 4
New Frontier – 50
Times of Trouble – 89
Times of Trial – 9

Amazon UK Kindle
Out of Time – 8
Don’t Mess With Earth – 4
The Usurper – 8
KDP Select for The Usurper – 176
Voyager & The Aliens – 1
Dust Storm – 0
Times of Trouble – 4
Times of Trial – 1

Amazon Germany
Out of Time – 1
The Usurper (KDP Select) – 4
New Frontier – 1

Amazon France
The Usurper (KDP Select) – 2

Amazon Italy
The Usurper (KDP Select) – 2

Amazon Spain
The Usurper (KDP Select) – 6

Barnes & Noble Nook, which is partially through PubIt, B&N’s publishing platform and through Smashwords
Out of Time – 17
Don’t Mess With Earth – 17
The Usurper – 15
Shattered Earth – 19
Voyager & The Aliens – 1
Dust Storm – 3
New Frontier – 12
Times of Trouble – 109
Times of Trial – 7

Apple iTunes
Out of Time – 29
Don’t Mess With Earth – 4
The Usurper – 5
Shattered Earth -25
Voyager & The Aliens – 4
New Frontier – 3
Times of Trouble (only available since May)
Times of Trial (not yet available)

Kobo
Out of Time – 10
Don’t Mess With Earth – 1
The Usurper (Kobo has yet to list it)
Shattered Earth – 8
Voyager & The Aliens – 0
New Frontier – 0
Times of Trouble (only available since May)
Times of Trial (not yet available)

Sony Reader
Out of Time – 1
Everything else – 0

Smashwords paid/giveaways
Out of Time – 1/39
Don’t Mess With Earth – 1/26
The Usurper – 0/9
Shattered Earth – 0/37
Voyager & The Aliens -0/14
Dust Storm (I unpublished it because I couldn’t get the formatting right) – 2/12
New Frontier – 5/41
Times of Trouble – 0/87
Times of Trial – 0/1

Createspace Paperbacks, all of which were sales from mostly Amazon
Out of Time – 2
The Usurper – 7
Shattered Earth – 3
New Frontier – 12
Times of Trouble – 30
Times of Trial – 0

Total between January & end of May: 1423

Overall total since 2008: 26381

I’m posting this because some writers get discouraged, but you just have to keep at it. While I don’t have the money or much in the way of resources to push my novels to greater visibility, I think I’m doing pretty well. I took The Usurper out of KDP Select because my sales were actually worse overall, and I had a grand total of 3 borrows, so I didn’t think that program was worth it. Stay tuned for the sequel to New Frontier, plus a short story anthology based on minor characters in the two End Times novels, and a novel about Michael Evans, the man-behind-the-scenes in both End Times novels.

Two new reviews

In the last week, I’ve received two new reviews for two different novels, both of which are 5 stars. The first one is for Out of Time, which is my very first novel that I published in 2008 as a total newbie, where I mistakenly used iUniverse as a publisher and spent way too much for a novel that wasn’t really ready for prime time. Two years later, I went back through it, added scenes, corrected grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and fixed dialogue. I decided to do a fresh re-publish of  it on the Kindle a little over a year ago(along with a new version of the paperback on Createspace), since the old reviews reflected all the mistakes I made in it. Now, I’ve received a new review for it:

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a wonderful time travel novella.

You get to go back to some famous events in American and world history: The Wounded Knee Massacre, Sinking of the Titanic, JFK’s assassination, and more with some highly original and unique alternative timelines.

This is well written and compelling, page-turning stuff. Ball poses some interesting thoughts about how government could mess up the world if it ever got its hands on such a time device. It’s fun to read about it, but let’s just hope it never happens.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, just disappointed it ended too soon.

James A. Anderson, Author
London, Ontario Canada”

———————————

Now, here’s a new review for my latest novel, my 7th, Times of Trial. This is from a regular reader of mine who first found out about me by reading The Usurper. Since then, she’s given me very good reviews for The Usurper(which is the paperback version, the Kindle version is no longer linked to the paperback) and Times of Trouble.

“Another winner! May 18, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book can be read on it’s own or with Times of Trouble. The scariest part of this book is that I can see it happening with the upcoming election. The author draws you into the story and never lets go. You can feel the pain of the characters and can picture yourself in the story.
We can only hope that the story doesn’t play out in real life.”

I appreciate all of the readers who have taken a chance on me and have read my novels. Thanks!

 

Sales for 2011

Now that I’m pretty sure I have all the sales numbers in for all platforms, I’d like to share how many novels I sold or had downloaded last year as an independent author, to give encouragement to those that aren’t sure they can do it. I’ve been doing this for about 4 years, 1 1/2 of which I’ve actually put any effort at trying to promote my novels, since I’ve written three in that time span. Last year, I sold or had D/L’s of 24,151, in 2010 – 520, 2009 – 68, and in 2008 – 37.  Here are the numbers for 2011 for each book and where, from first book or short story published in order to latest:

Amazon (which combines US & UK sales, link to US though)
Out of Time – 2238 (free and paid)
Don’t Mess With Earth – 692
The Usurper – 13,310 (free and paid) (currently free to borrow in Lending Library)
Shattered Earth – 6637 (free and paid)
Voyager & The Aliens – 9
Dust Storm – 0
New Frontier (published December 20, 2011) – 4

Apple
Out of Time – 77
Don’t Mess With Earth – 10
The Usurper – 3
Shattered Earth – 55
Voyager & The Aliens – 2

Barnes & Noble
Out of Time – 51
Don’t Mess With Earth – 175
The Usurper – 180 (currently exclusive to amazon ’til March 7)
Shattered Earth – 81
Voyager & The Aliens –
Dust Storm –
New Frontier – 1

Createspace paperback (which were sold on Amazon or other bookstore sites)
Out of Time – 9
The Usurper – 48
Shattered Earth – 21
New Frontier –

iUniverse (original publisher of Out of Time paperback)
Out of Time – 5

Kobo
Out of Time – 30
Don’t Mess With Earth – 1
The Usurper – 4
Shattered Earth – 7
Voyager & The Aliens
New Frontier

Smashwords (free and paid)
Out of Time – 25
Don’t Mess With Earth – 27
The Usurper – 176
Shattered Earth – 239
Voyager & The Aliens – 151
Dust Storm – 2
New Frontier – 1

Sony
Out of Time – 8
Don’t Mess With Earth – 1
The Usurper – 5
Shattered Earth – 16
Voyager & The Aliens – 18

Virtualbookworm.com (original publisher of Don’t Mess With Earth paperback)
Don’t Mess With Earth – 7

So, with a lot of hard work and determination, this is what I sold. I know, not the #’s of some of the bigger names in indie publishing, but I feel like I’m accomplishing something.

My sales for year so far

When I started self-publishing in 2008, I didn’t really have any kind of goals on how big of a number I wanted to reach. When I hit 100 sold by the end of 2009 without any promoting except for Facebook, I thought that was cool. When I managed to get a little over 500 sold last year, I thought that was awesome. Well, as of September 2011, I have now reached 2000 sold for the year so far, and I’m only 200 away from reaching 3000 sales.  Earlier in the year, around March, for some inexplicable reason to me, my sales took off on both Amazon and B&N at 400 combined a month mostly for one title, but, just as inexplicably, two months later, I went back to selling maybe 30 a month. I can’t explain that, but, boy, do I wish I knew how I manage to attract that many readers.  Well, anyway, here’s the totals as of right now, from 2008 until now, on each platform for each book. My paperback sales are listed under the publisher I used. Links to each novel are located at each novel’s page at the top of this blog or at http://cliffball.webs.com.

Amazon Kindle, combo of US & UK
Out of Time – 317
Don’t Mess With Earth – 703
The Usurper – 294
Shattered Earth – 260
Voyager and the Aliens short story – 1 (uploaded this week)

Barnes & Noble Nook
Out of Time – 53
Don’t Mess With Earth – 163
The Usurper – 49
Shattered Earth – 33

Kobo
Out of Time – 32
Don’t Mess With Earth – 5
The Usurper – 3
Shattered Earth – 5

Apple
Out of Time – 53
Don’t Mess With Earth – 19
The Usurper – 2
Shattered Earth – 62

Sony Reader
Out of Time – 4
Don’t Mess With Earth – 3
The Usurper – 0
Shattered Earth – 2

Smashwords
Out of Time – 32
Don’t Mess With Earth – 97
The Usurper – 160
Shattered Earth – 173
Voyager and the Aliens – 98

iUniverse, the original publisher of Out of Time
Out of Time paperback or e-book – 55

Virtualbookworm.com, publisher of Don’t Mess With Earth
Don’t Mess With Earth paperback – 62

Createspace
Out of Time – 7
The Usurper – 24
Shattered Earth – 20

and when I used Lulu.com for a couple of months:
Out of Time – 3
The Usurper – 1

To re-cap the grand totals:
Out of Time: 551
Don’t Mess With Earth – 1056
The Usurper – 532
Shattered Earth – 558
Voyager and the Aliens – 99

Where all my novels are located

Dear reader, if you’d like to know where you can buy my novels, here is a comprehensive list:

Out of Time, originally published through iUniverse in 2008 in paperback, now through Createspace, and a 2nd edition uploaded as e-book this year.  With coupon code ZC6JYHVF get this title for 50% off from Createspace.

Paperback:
Createspace
Amazon– 2nd Edition
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Books a Million
Borders
Independent Bookstores

e-Book locations for $.99
Amazon Kindle
UK Kindle
Apple iBooks
Borders
NOOK
Sony Reader
Smashwords

The Usurper, published 2010, through CreateSpace – $5 off with coupon code JKJLG2YW.
Review of The Usurper

Paperback:
Amazon
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Barnes and Noble
Books a Million
Borders
Hastings
Indie bookstores

E-book $2.99
Amazon Kindle
Kindle UK
Apple iBooks
Barnes and Noble Nook
Borders
Diesel E-books
Kobo
Smashwords
Sony Reader

Shattered Earth is $3.99 for e-book (currently $2.99 on Amazon, & Sony, Apple through Smashwords) and $12.99 for paperback

Where to buy, $12.99, $2.99:
Createspace
Amazon
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Barnes & Noble Nook
Smashwords, able to download all e-book formats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Mess With Earth – Published by Virtualbookworm.com for $12.95. E-book going for $.99
Paperback: 216 pages
Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing (March 11, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1602643415
ISBN-13: 978-1602643413

Indiebound.org
Amazon
Kindle
Amazon UK
UK Kindle
B&N paperback
BN Nook
Books a Million
Smashwords

There you go, good luck and thanks for buying!

My interview on Two Ends of the Pen

Here is the interview Deb Martin of Two Ends of the Pen did with me:

Briefly describe your journey in writing your first book.
My very first novel that I actually finished writing was the novella Out of Time, a time travel adventure story. I wrote it off and on for about 10 years, started from a couple pages long to where it’s at now, about 30k words.

Did you query agents or traditional publishers before publishing on Amazon? No. Back in the late 90’s when I was seriously thinking about publishing any of my writing, I decided I’d rather publish my own stuff. I looked into vanity press, but, that was way too expensive at the time, and I didn’t know enough about self-publishing like I do now with Createspace. In 2008, when I had money, I published Out of Time first through iUniverse with the basic package they had. I uploaded it to Kindle myself, mostly just to see what would happen, since at the time, I thought e-books might be a fad. Little did I know!

What factors influenced your decision to self-publish?
I prefer having control over my destiny, as it were. I figured self-publishing was faster, and preferable to receiving rejection letters six months later, with the generic reasons why they wouldn’t publish. I just happen to like doing everything myself, at least I can see tangible results.

Will you try to garner a traditional publishing contract for any future books? Probably not. Besides, I think traditional media is going the way of the dinosaurs.

Did you design your cover art? If not, would you care to share your graphic designer’s information?
My first two novels I published through iUniverse and Virtualbookworm, so I used what they gave me. Once I went to Createspace, I created my own covers. I did have help from another author who tweaked them for me though.

How did you feel when you got your first sale? Are you pleased with sales so far?
My very first sale was from a short story I wrote in high school back in the early 90’s that won in a contest that I wrote through Creative Writing class. I was thrilled with that, until my mom decided to use the money to create a frame for the check stub, and a little blurb about it that she mentioned to our newspaper. Anyway, in the here and now, I’m pleased with my sales so far, they could be more, but I just have to keep working at being seen.

What kinds of social media [twitter, facebook, webpage, blog, writing forums] are you involved with trying to garner attention for your book(s)?
I’m on places like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Goodreads, Shelfari, Linkedin, I have a blog and a website, forums such as Kindleboards, Nookboards, Mobilereads, eBookgab, and trying to promote on the Amazon message boards.
Author website: http://cliffball.webs.com
Author blog: https://cliffballauthor.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cliff_ball
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cliff.ball.author

Besides Amazon, are there any other sites where your books are for sale? Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple, Sony, Createspace, Diesel eBooks, Kobo, Borders for my e-books.

What’s next for you?
I’m actually trying to bring up my GPA by getting a 2nd BA so I can get an MA in Creative Writing from the University of North Texas, at least that’s the plan. I’m also trying to write an alternate history novel where the US establishes a moon base in 1979 when a different President is elected in 1976, and then he has the US set a goal of a Mars Base by 1989. The Russians see this, so they decide to create an interstellar starship so they can one-up the Americans. All sorts of real life events get in the way, like the Revolution in Iran, but that gets squashed by US Special Forces rescuing the hostages. The President in 1981 gets assassinated by those who take revenge for the failed Revolution. Al Qaeda comes along later, and blows up a cargo ship to the moon, tries to blow up the sealed habitat on Mars, and then blows up the space station in Earth orbit in the 2000’s, and so the US President orders Osama bin Laden to be taken out, and that’s the last of Al Qaeda. Eventually, US and Russia join forces to explore the galaxy, where they find the long lost Russian interstellar starship.

December sales numbers

I did this last month, so I figured I would do it again this month for December. This is for Smashwords itself, Nook, Kindle, and a couple of paperbacks. This is all without much in the way of paying for ads, or being on blog tours, just mostly from word of mouth across Facebook, Amazon, the Kindleboards, Nookboards, Mobilereads, and probably all the mentions I overdid with Twitter, and the occasional sponsorship such as Frugal eReader or Two Ends of the Pen, or interview on some blogs. I did pay for the Kindle Nation Daily sponsorship, and even though it was just yesterday, I did sell 50 on Kindle in that one day.

Sales for December:
2 paperbacks for The Usurper and Out of Time

Barnes and Noble’s Nook
The Usurper: 11
Out of Time – 15
Shattered Earth 7

Kindle US
Out of Time – 24
Shattered Earth – 12
The Usurper – 22

Kindle UK
Out of Time – 9
Shattered Earth – 2
The Usurper – 1

Smashwords
The Usurper – 6
Out of Time – 2
Shattered Earth – 1

This equals 112 sold. That’s almost double from November, and I’m trying to make it my goal to double my sales every month, or at least try to equal them. My total sales from 2008 to present currently sits at 25, 475. I’m hoping to break the 1000 sales mark by March.

New cover to Out of Time

I decided to update the paperback, and uploaded it to Createspace. The original was published through iUniverse in 2008, but, I’ve updated it since then, and its been the newer version in e-book form for a little over a year. Here is the brand new cover. Stay tuned for updates! Available for $.99 on Nook, Smashwords, and whenever Amazon gets around to updating it.