Year end totals

I've sold slightly over 81,000 books this year (not including the tens of thousands of free downloads I've had in the past two months). That's via Barnes & Noble and Amazon, for two different pen names. Here's how it breaks down: 39,402 books sold through B&N, 41,990 sold through Amazon. (Almost all these sales were of 99-cent books.) I've sold quite a few through Apple, but Smash's reports are so horrifically complex that I wouldn't want to speculate on exactly how many. I think it's less than a thousand, in any event, though I haven't gotten my last report from Apple for the year. iTunes is growing rapidly, but for me, it's not up there with B&N and Amazon yet.

Thoughts. First of all, it's important to note that my B&N numbers were very, very high at the beginning of the year, before they readjusted their system to kick all the erotic romance out of the top sales lists. I had 11,500 sales through B&N in February alone, so you can see that badly distorts the picture of what I'm currently earning through them. My sales on B&N are way, way down now, while my sales on Amazon have remained fairly steady.

Despite that, I believe the Amazon Select program would be a very bad move for me. Not only have I made a lot of money through B&N this year, but I'm doing increasingly well over on iTunes, too. I put a couple of my very worst sellers into the Select program, but I certainly wouldn't do it across the board. My advice is to look at your numbers carefully before leaping into it.

Also, my numbers for Amazon have been up quite a bit this month thanks to having had a successful freebie (In the Mood). Free books do seem to do quite a bit to improve your exposure.

And finally, I'm almost up to 100,000 sold since I began indie publishing! One more month, and I might just accomplish it.

Thanks to everyone who bought my books this year. You're all awesome. And good luck to all my writer friends-- I hope you all sell a million books in 2012!