[Larry Buttram]

May was my first full month on Kindle and I received 45 sales. Is that good? How did others do their first month?

 

[D Girard Watson]

May was also my first month, and I did about the same: 41 sales.

I haven't done any serious promotion yet, though.  I think I'm going to wait until the second book in my series is complete, which will be sometime at the end of the summer. 

 

[jimbronyaur]

My first month, in April, I sold a little over 30 books.  You're doing great... keep writing and enjoying!

-jb

 

[Tara Shuler]

May was my first full month. I released my first book April 26th.

In May, I sold 479.

But 41 sales is definitely not a bad first month at all.

 

[Joseph.Garraty]

I haven't done any serious promotion yet, though.

What do you mean by "serious promotion"? What promotion have you done so far? The reason I ask is that I've been up for about ten days, and my sales are on track to be, um, considerably less than 40 for the first month, so I expect I'm doing something wrong.

 

[R. M. Reed]

Geez, I thought 15 was a respectable start. 10 on Amazon and 5 on Smashwords. I think they were all people who saw my Facebook and Twitter posts. I don't know how to reach the reading masses who search without a specific title or author name.

 

[LeonardDHilleyII]

May was my first full month. I released my first book April 26th.

In May, I sold 479.

But 41 sales is definitely not a bad first month at all.

Wow! That's great!

 

[Erica Sloane]

May was my first full month as well. Here's how my sales break down to date.

APRIL (two weeks on the market)
Amazon sales: 23
Smashwords sales: 18
Total for two weeks in April: 41

MAY
Amazon sales: 93
Smashwords sales: 18
OmniLit sales: 81*
Total for May: 192

Total books sold in six weeks: 233
*Books have been "live" on OmniLit for only two weeks so far

 

[BarbraAnnino]

Were you folks able to see the report? I don't have May yet.

 

[D Girard Watson]

What do you mean by "serious promotion"? What promotion have you done so far? The reason I ask is that I've been up for about ten days, and my sales are on track to be, um, considerably less than 40 for the first month, so I expect I'm doing something wrong.

All I've done is have a blog that I post to maybe twice a week and I do some twittering. I don't really plug my book all that much on either of those platforms. My book is a steampunk novel, so I did one post about it on a steampunk forum. That's pretty much it. To be honest, I don't know that any of these things really mattered. My biggest boost came after I got a couple of reviews, and most of my sales have been in the latter part of May, so you may be on track. I'm not really sure how people find my book but I sell one or two a day.

After seeing some of the other numbers on this board, I'm not sure my model is the one to follow.

Tara, I'm in complete awe of your numbers! They're fantastic!

 

[Jon Olson]

I think 45 is pretty good. My first month back in December I was stuck in the 30s.

 

[Larry Buttram]

479 sales the first month! I need to write a vampire book.

Larry Buttram

 

[Joseph.Garraty]

All I've done is have a blog that I post to maybe twice a week and I do some twittering. I don't really plug my book all that much on either of those platforms. My book is a steampunk novel, so I did one post about it on a steampunk forum. That's pretty much it. To be honest, I don't know that any of these things really mattered. My biggest boost came after I got a couple of reviews, and most of my sales have been in the latter part of May, so you may be on track. I'm not really sure how people find my book but I sell one or two a day.

After seeing some of the other numbers on this board, I'm not sure my model is the one to follow.

Thanks! That's really helpful, and it takes a little of the concern away--I'm doing similar things, and I guess I probably just need to wait until some reviews are up before I really sweat it.

 

[julie sellers]

Coming Home

April (less than two weeks) = 18 Amazon + 3 BN= 21
May 133 Amazon + 22 BN + 1 Smashwords = 156

Immediate Family  (non-fiction on sale since May 19 @ $9.99)
2 Smashwords

 

[SJWrightAuthor]

My first book, The Vampire's Warden, sold about 540 copies between B&N's Pub-It and Amazon in its first full month (March).
The second full month (April) was HUGE with over 5,000 sold between the two platforms.  Things slowed down a lot in May.
I've done two blog tours, two spots on Kindle Nation Daily and a few other advertising avenues.

I highly recommend doing a couple of blog tours.  There are some great coordinators out there who can help.  If you're going to do
a tour for a paranormal book, I recommend Bookish Snob.  As for the biggest exposure, I had short-term bumps from using Kindle
Nation Daily.

I'm still trying to find something that will get me up into the top 100 in my category and keep it up there.
Hopefully the second book in the series will help with that.  It should be released this month.

 

[Kimberly Spencer]

My first book, The Vampire's Warden, sold about 540 copies between B&N's Pub-It and Amazon in its first full month (March).
The second full month (April) was HUGE with over 5,000 sold between the two platforms. Things slowed down a lot in May.
I've done two blog tours, two spots on Kindle Nation Daily and a few other advertising avenues.

I highly recommend doing a couple of blog tours. There are some great coordinators out there who can help. If you're going to do
a tour for a paranormal book, I recommend Bookish Snob. As for the biggest exposure, I had short-term bumps from using Kindle
Nation Daily.

I'm still trying to find something that will get me up into the top 100 in my category and keep it up there.
Hopefully the second book in the series will help with that. It should be released this month.

Wow, that's awesome!

 

[Carol (was Dara)]

May was my first full month on Kindle and I received 45 sales. Is that good? How did others do their first month?

The first month usually tends to be slow so I think 45 sales across several books is decent.

 

[Mike Dennis]

In February, I sold 19 copies (2 books out), but easily half of those were Kindle gifts I sent to people asking for reviews (I got none).

In March, I sold 46 copies (2 books out), but again half of those were in the beginning of the month when I was still Kindle gifting (no reviews).

In April, I sold 4 copies (2 books out).

In May, I sold 61 copies (3 books out), but 50 of those came from a spike caused by my KND appearance on May 12-13. After that, that particular book sold 0 copies the rest of the month.

Despite the fact that I have a website, a Facebook author page, have done numerous interviews, and I leave comments on a lot of blogs, I don't think I'm really doing this right. I can't seem to grab any sustainable numbers like a lot of those posting on this thread.

 

[Sarah Woodbury]

45 is great for a first month.  My first month, I sold 22 across three books, 6 of which either I or my daughter bought

 

[Douglas E Wright]

In February, I sold 19 copies (2 books out), but easily half of those were Kindle gifts I sent to people asking for reviews (I got none).

In March, I sold 46 copies (2 books out), but again half of those were in the beginning of the month when I was still Kindle gifting (no reviews).

In April, I sold 4 copies (2 books out).

In May, I sold 61 copies (3 books out), but 50 of those came from a spike caused by my KND appearance on May 12-13. After that, that particular book sold 0 copies the rest of the month.

Despite the fact that I have a website, a Facebook author page, have done numerous interviews, and I leave comments on a lot of blogs, I don't think I'm really doing this right. I can't seem to grab any sustainable numbers like a lot of those posting on this thread.

Seems to be the same with me. I've do my blog at least three times a week, which goes to my FB and now my Twitter. I gifted a quite a few and nothing for reviews. I also think that maybe I haven't the genre right. I know my writing is horror (quiet or soft horror) and most of my stories has romantic elements, but still not selling. I've sold about 2 a month for the last couple months on Kindle. Smashwords is a little better, but not much! The blog tour seems to have been done to death. So, I wonder if it's even relevant anymore. Oh well, I'll keep on blogging on my site.