2023 – Year in Review

This really should have been my January post, but that month turned out to be frantic for all sorts of reasons. As a result my blog looking back at last year arrives at the party fashionably late, but I really wanted to post this rather than postpone it for another year. I think financial and sales transparency in the indie writing community is really important and it’s something I want to encourage. I know I would have valued having this kind of information being more readily to hand when I first took the plunge and released my debut in 2020.

Before I start delving into facts and figures it’s important to make one thing clear. Many independent authors will have sales ten times my numbers, if not more. Others will be looking at numbers which are ten times less. This isn’t about where we are all at relative to each other, although making those comparisons is inevitable. It’s human nature, after all. In my opinion, the most important question is whether or not I’m doing better than the year before. The only meaningful measures of success are improving your own craft, writing more books, and finding and expanding your audience.

Book Sales

I’m exclusive to Amazon and don’t currently sell direct, so it’s pretty easy to keep track of sales each year. Paid eBook and paperback sales of my titles in 2022 totalled 443, boosted by a SPFBO Finalists sale in February and the release of Lost Gods in November. 

2023 saw that number grow to 565. Again, the SPFBO Finalists sale in April gave me a helping hand, plus I had a new release that month as well with my standalone novel A Quiet Vengeance. Those numbers then slowed and remained relatively static for the rest of the year. They don’t include The Anatomy of Fear short story anthology, which came out in November 2023. Via that Kickstarter campaign we distributed hundreds more books, which further helped to widen my audience last year.

Kindle Unlimited

Being an independent author would not be a viable business for me right now without being in Kindle Unlimited. Since 2020 KU has accounted for around 60% of my author income, providing a valuable daily contribution in contrast to the more up and down nature of paid sales. 2022 was a breakthrough year for me on KU, with a real surge in those final two months as the third book in my series came out in November. 

2023 saw me exceed those numbers and reach half a million pages read on KU for the first time in a calendar year. This graph really shows the impact of continuing your series, the latest book giving a sustained surge to those numbers, one which ran on for far longer than the paid sales bounce. In contrast, A Quiet Vengeance (which appears in green) as a standalone had a much smaller impact.  

 The lifetime graph is interesting here. It more clearly shows the impact of new releases and how that produces a surge in figures, before returning to a baseline level. My income from writing tracks exactly the same trajectory for this period. 

How does that translate into earnings?

Despite more sales in 2023, my Amazon author income was almost identical to what I earned in 2022. Total income for 2023 was actually slightly higher once my (small!) fee for contributing to The Anatomy of Fear and The Advent of Winter anthologies is included, but since those are part of wider projects involving other people I’m not sharing those figures here.

The main reason for my level performance on Amazon is that, whilst I sold more books, I included more titles in 99p sales, so those were sold at more of a discount. Nevertheless, there are signs of growth and an increasing readership, so I’m happy I’ve maintained my income levels.

Clearly I’m not giving up the day job yet, but for my hobby to be earning this kind of money is still very satisfying.

Obviously there are underlying costs to independent publishing, which aren’t captured in these graphics. I account for my income and taxes in April each year, so to give you an idea of what this means after expenses are taken into account:

2021-22 = £100.80 loss

2022-23 = £1,507.61 profit

I’m currently on track for a similar performance in 2023-24 compared to the last tax year. Breaking into profit in April 2023 was a really important goal for me. I’ve always taken the approach that I’m not going to spend thousands of pounds I don’t have on my writing career. I accept this means my sales growth is going to be slower than someone willing to push the boat out on rapid release and advertising. For me, though, this model is about building something sustainable over the longer term.

As such, I keep my costs low. The main expenses each year are cover art, maintaining my website, physical proofs, reviewer copies, ISBNs for the books and conference fees. And that’s pretty much it.

So what does all that mean and what are my goals for 2024?

First of all, this demonstrates you don’t need to sell thousands of books to make money from doing this. However, it also illustrates that I’ll need to significantly increase my current readership, by at least a factor of ten, if I want to start thinking about this being my main career.

There’s no point having lots of data available to you if you don’t use it to inform your decisions. It’s clear from the last couple of years that the single most important thing I can do to move things forward is release the fourth book in my Brotherhood of the Eagle series this year. The impact of Lost Gods on a series with a small but committed reader base was far more significant than putting out a standalone the following year. Standalones still definitely feature in my upcoming plans, mainly because I enjoy writing them, but the priority now is completing the editing work on Broken Brotherhood and releasing that later in 2024. It will be interesting to see what the impact of having a completed series is as well. There’s a specific section of voracious readers who want to binge on a series from start to finish, so by completing The Brotherhood of the Eagle an untapped section of the market opens up to me.

In early 2024 the short story collection The Advent of Winter goes on general release. I’m not in charge of publication (that rests with the series creator, Dom McDermott) but having one of my tales in that anthology is a useful promotional opportunity, and another way for readers to discover my writing.

I also want to look at entering the audiobook market. It was a revelation having my short story for The Anatomy of Fear transformed into audio last year. It’s a whole new way to experience someone’s writing and, again, there are readers out there who much prefer this medium to eBooks and paperbacks. Expanding the formats in which my stories can be consumed is a logical next step in my plans to achieve sustainable growth in my readership, so watch this space on that front.

My reader numbers remain small, so I know I need to invest more time in promotional activities. With a full series about to be released, there’s the opportunity for a greater payback on paid advertising. This is an area where I plan to test the waters with a fixed budget once Broken Brotherhood is released.

Lastly, there’s no doubt being a SPFBO Finalist in 2021 has been massively helpful in my visibility as an author. Entering writing competitions remains part of my strategy, and I intend to submit A Quiet Vengeance in the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Awards in 2024. I also have plans to release another standalone novel called The Wolf Throne, which is due for completion in 2025. This would enable me to enter SPFBO again that year. As ever, it’s about thinking ahead, planning for the long term and finding ways to remain in the eye of the reading public.

Conclusion

When I released my first book back in 2020 I really didn’t know what to expect and frankly, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Four years on, I now have a much clearer plan and a better understanding of which actions make the most difference. I feel like I’m in a good position at the beginning of 2024, with plenty to build on and lots of books in the pipeline.

I hope this has been a useful read for other authors out there. I’d be very interested to know your views and experiences in the comments section below if you feel like sharing your thoughts.

I plan to post my figures annually from now on. Who knows – I might even be organised enough to get them out in January next year!