You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 18

Royalties0430.1110
 On April 17, I predicted in a post on this blog that I'd earn $1400 in Kindle royalties this month. I was right. I earned $1416. It was, by far, my best Kindle month since I began this experiment eleven months ago. Last month, I sold 1360 books…this month I sold 1798, an increase of 438 books and $400 in royalties. (Click on my royalty statement for a larger view).

BADGE 3  I credit the surge this month to three things:

1.   my bet with Joe Konrath, which resulted in new covers and titles for my Vigilante novels. It was a bet I was thrilled to lose.

2.  raising the price of THREE WAYS TO DIE from .99 cents to 1.99. 

3. adding a Kindle edition of my out-0f-print book THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE to my available titles. 

Sales of the VIGILANTE books (now known, thanks to Joe, as The Jury Series) shot up enormously. For example, the previously titled .357 VIGILANTE #4: KILLSTORM sold  14 copies last month. This month, by rebranding the book GUILTY, I sold 125 copies.  I now have someone re-reading the manuscripts of all four books, correcting the conversion errors that have bedeviled me since I posted them a few months ago.

Last month, THREE WAYS TO DIE sold 201 priced at 99 cents and earned $70. This month, I sold 169 and earned $103. Fewer sales, but higher royalties. I can live with that.
.

THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, priced at $2.99, quickly became my second best-selling title, if not in volume (234 copies sold) certainly in profits ($245). Those sales reassure me that my bestselling title, THE WALK, will do fine when, in late June, I raise the price from $1.99 to $2.99 to take advantage of Amazon's new royalty formula, which will give me a 70% royalty instead of the 35% I get now.
By the way, this month THE WALK  sold  629 copies, earning me $440 (last month I sold 575 copies). A new high.
Beyond project4  

Changing the cover and title of BEYOND THE BEYOND boosted sales a bit. Last month, under the BEYOND title, I sold 73 copies. This month, rebranded as DEAD SPACE, I sold 92.

I can't wait to see how things shake out in July once my royalty doubles. Will my earning, if not my volume of sales, go up? Or will it level off? Or will the bubble burst and sales slowly begin to deteriorate? I don't know, but no matter what happens, I am already a winner. As I keep saying, this is all found money on out-of-print books that were packed away in my garage or in a dark corner of my hard-drive.

2 thoughts on “You Can Become a Kindle Millionaire, Part 18”

  1. I must admit that this has become my favorite part of your blog. I don’t write books or want to write books but following this aspect of your life has been very intereting. I hope you keep this up.

    Reply
  2. This is fantastic, Lee. Glad you posted this–you are an inspiration! I have a couple of out-of-print YA’s, trying to decide what to do with them. Wish I wasn’t so techno-challenged.

    Reply

Leave a Comment