My Smashwords Sales Figures

I've been neglecting my blog.

When Facebook removed the Notes feature, I told myself to use Blogger in place of the Notes feature. Sorry to say, I haven't been doing it. So, hoping to get things started again, I'll post a few figures I got from my sales from my books in Smashwords.

So, according to the numbers, I sold 578.3 books from 2011 to 2022. What's with the 0.3? How can you sell one-third of a book?

Those sales came from Scribd. They offer a partial sale (a small percentage of a book) for $0.10 with an option to buy the whole book if you liked it.

Out of those 578.3 books, I made $279.87 (USD). Why so little for the quantity of books? Did each book cost $0.48?

No, a large part of those books were sold for free. Yes, free. One of the advice from other authors, as well as Smashwords, was to offer books for free from time to time so that readers would get to know the author on the premise that, if they found the books interesting, they would later buy the author's other books. One book in particular, Travel Mashups and Mishaps was free for four years. You can see the effect in the graph below (from 2014 to 2017). Sales during those years went sky high (relatively speaking) but my earnings hardly went up. In fact, they went down.

In 2018, I decided the free-book-technique was not working so I put prices on all my books. You can see the effect right away. Sales dropped but earnings climbed. So, this practice of setting your prices to free doesn't work, at least for me. Book buyers who see that a book is free will likely get the book, but it probably doesn't give the author points. The buyer might even lower their opinion of them. It was that or I went overboard with the free-pricing thing.

You'll also notice that earnings spiked in 2020 and 2021, the first two years of the pandemic. Other authors also experienced increased sales during this period. It was probably because people bought more ebooks to keep them occupied during the lockdown. With the pandemic seeming to wind down, sales are going back down to pre-Covid levels.

So, in addition to checking my sales, I also checked a few other information that was available in the reports. The United States was my number one customer by a whoping 80.7%. The United Kingdom came in second at 6.7%, Australia was third at 3.9%, and Canada was fourth at 1.9%. Since all my books are in English it follows that 93.3% of my sales would come from English-speaking countries. My country, the Philippines, came in at ninth place with only 0.6%.

Next, I checked who was doing better at distributing my books. The Apple iBookstore and Barnes and Noble shared top spot at 39.1% each. Smashwords, which is where I publish my books only came in third with 12.1%. That's understandable because Apple and Barnes & Noble have a larger customer base than Smashwords but I find it sad that the company that gave me my start at being an author isn't getting the lion's share of my sales.

Finally, a comparison of how my books perform against each other. Note that this isn't a fair comparison since they weren't written at the same time and they're priced differently.

In terms of quantity, my first book, Travel Mashups and Mishaps (2011), is number one in terms of number of books sold. Remember, however, that this book was free for a long time and I also priced it at $0.99 for some time, hoping to get buyers interested in my other books.

By far, U-1215 (2016) is my biggest earner at $226.59, and it's still going strong. At first, it didn't sell very well, selling only three copies in two years. Then, I changed the cover in 2018 and that's when it took off.

My favorite book, Legend of the Moon, isn't doing very well. It is eighth in terms of books sold but it is third in terms of earnings. That's because I never priced it at free. I'm planning to change the cover also, like what I did with U-1215. That might catch the attention of readers more.

You might be wondering about Hamelin. It's sold 18.1 books but only made $1.27. Similarly, God's Shower of Blessings sold five copies but earned zero. Both of these books also went through a free-book phase. That's the reason for the discrepancies.

So, there you have it. Twelve years of writing books and richer by $279.87. A pittance compared to what the more famous writers are earning but that's okay. I get a small amount every month and those earnings have bailed me out a few times.

I could earn more by writing more books but I've been lazy of late. I haven't written a new book in four years. 'Need to change that. The more books you write, the more you'll earn. Of course, you have to be a good writer and one of the ways to get better is to write more books.