An Amazing Year for The Dantonville Legacy Series.

Was 2015 memorable? You bet it was. Fabulous book sales and recognition in various awards made it my best year yet. And that's all thanks to my wonderful readers who gave this little-known indie author a chance, bought my books, left lovely reviews and pushed Bloodgifted into the Top 100 in gothic romance on Amazon. It reached as high as #3, and at the time of writing this post, it sits at #11. Who could not be happy?

It's three years since Bloodgifted was released, and in that time I also released Bloodpledge and BloodVault. Now there's only Bloodwish to come before the series is complete. But that doesn't mean it's the end. I have Terens, Jake, Cal and Sam each nudging me to write their stories. How could I disappoint them?
And the recognition? I was honoured to have been either runner-up or awarded third place in several awards this year. Here they are in order:

I can't say thank you enough to all who voted for me and The Dantonville Legacy series. Without you, my books would be languishing somewhere in the bottomless sea of books that is Amazon. I've been overwhelmed by the number of readers who've personally messaged me on facebook and twitter, and even sent emails to let me know how much they've enjoyed reading Alec and Laura's story. As a writer, there's no greater thrill than hearing how much my readers are invested in the story. And for those who want more, especially on Terens... it's coming. *wink*

 Until then, happy reading.

My First Year's Sales as a Debut Author

I'm no maths wiz, and I hate tallying figures and doing tables, but this is exactly what I found myself doing this past week. I was curious to see how I did in my first year as a debut author, and to give other indies an idea what to expect - unless of course you're Hugh Howey or Amanda Hocking, then disregard these figures entirely.

Because I have not as yet discovered how to use the pie charts and graphs on my laptop, (yes, call me a techno-neanderthal), I've resorted to using the good-old fashioned table. My maths teacher would be proud of me.

As you can see, my first book - Bloodgifted - was published October 2013. My second book - Bloodpledge - wasn't released until May 31st. 2014, and my short story - Laura's Locket - came out February 2014. Hence the N/A in some of the columns.

I tallied all sales info from October 2013 through to the end of December 2014. It made sense to include those last two months.

These figures also include sales from all online retailers where my books are listed - Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo and Barnes & Noble.

I didn't enrol Bloodgifted into Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program until October, so I could take advantage of the lead up to the Christmas period.

Well, here it is -

                  Number of Books Sold on Amazon & Smashwords 2014

Year	Month	eBooks			Kindle Units	Free	Total
2013		Bloodgifted	Bloodpledge	Laura’s Locket	Bloodgifted	Laura’s Locket
	Oct.	39	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	39
	Nov.	18	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	18
	Dec.	16	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	16
2014	Jan.	13	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	13
	Feb.	9	N/A	6	N/A	N/A	15
	March	6	N/A	4	N/A	N/A	10
	April	4	N/A	2	N/A	N/A	6
	May	7	2	2	N/A	N/A	11
	June	24	23	4	N/A	N/A	51
	July	13	10	2	N/A	N/A	25
	August	17	14	5	N/A	N/A	36
	Sept.	19	9	6	N/A	N/A	34
	Oct.	33	9	2	15	404	59
	Nov.	66	7	N/A	20	121	93
	Dec.	18	18	3	29	N/A	68
SW		51	21			1132	72
Total		353	113	36	64	1657	566
P/bk							83
Total		353	113	36	64		649

*SW - Smashwords

*P/bk - Paperback

Total paid ebooks sold       502

Total KU units                      64

Total paperbacks                 83

Total                                  649

Total Royalty payments - $1388.44

I didn't include free units in the overall count, and kept the paid sales separate from KU units. That way I can tell what readers are preferring, and how my sales might possibly perform when I eventually pull Bloodgifted out of KDPS. 

It's nice to see paid sales exceeded KU units. 

If I deduct the November and December sales I still managed to sell 488, which is good when some sources state most indies are lucky to sell 100 books in their entire career.

As a totally unknown author, with no backlist, no fan base or publisher (and with no help from BookBub) I'm thrilled with these results. Hey, I can pay my gas and electricity bills from my royalties alone. 

Bring on 2015. 

If anyone has any questions on anything in the above table, just drop it in the comments section.