Comic Sales Jan/Feb 23

After a lot of Waiting-kettle-never-boils waiting, I finally work out that it's on the 15th of the month that Lulu publishes its sales through Amazon. These are the sales I made in January, which all get rounded up and published as if they were sold on Jan 31st.

I sold £34.92 worth of books on Amazon via Lulu in January. That compares to £26.87 in December, not bad growth considering that was the big Christmas month (though there were fewer books available then). Feb will be a proper test to see whether sales are growing in this group, given that I can't run Amazon ads for these books. The sales breakdown is:

Eurovision Vol 2                    10 (US)                                            10
60s Pop                                1 (Ger), 5 (US), 3 (GB)                        7
Punk Colouring                        5 (US)                                              5
Bowie Colouring                2 (US), 2 (GB)                                       4 
Doctor Who Colouring    1 (Aus), 3 (US)                                        4
Tales From Bible                     3 (US), 1 (GB)                                  4
70s Pop                                 1 (US), 2 (GB)                                     3
Prince of Denmark Street  1 (Aus)                                                    1

So, a lot more sales in the US than GB (29 to 8), and some titles (most graphic novels, and Eurovision Volume 1) don't sell at all. We'll monitor progress.

Meanwhile sales continue to grow on my restored Amazon KDP account. No colouring books in there any more, just the graphic novels and Bowie by Robot. Sales Jan 1 - Feb 16 so far are:

Midsummer Night's Dream Team - 4 paperback, 2 Kindle = 6
Bowie By Robot - 2 Kindle, 1 paperback = 3
Shakespeare Omnibus - 3 paperback  = 3
Tales From The Bible - 1 Kindle = 1
Findlay Macbeth - 1 Kindle = 1

Grand total takings from Amazon in 2023 so far is just £13.09. But I'm loving seeing the Shakespeare Omnibus moving. A kid brought one for me to sign at Welling Library this week and I couldn't have been happier!

Blurb's sales are harder to work out. It looks like I've sold 14 books in Jan (and 10 in Dec), and it's possible that those are mostly the hardbacks of Comics By Kids. It tells me my profit to date is £16.83, but I can't work out what period that covers. Let's face it, we're not talking big figures here, are we?

Most profitable of my publishing streams at the moment seems to be Etsy. £117 worth of books sold so far this year, £35 of that in February (so, actually, the same total as Lulu). Etsy also pays you straight after the order, none of this rounding up at the end of the month and keeping you waiting. Etsy sales Jan 1 - Feb 16 are:

Eurovision Vol 1 - 10

Eurovision Vol 2 - 4

Dr Who Colouring - 1

Punk Colouring - 1

FM, PODS, MNDT - 1 apiece

Draft2Digital doesn't add much to the pot. So far, since uploading my graphic novels to be read on readers like Kobo and other non-Kindle devices in November, I've still not earned the ten dollars that'll make it enough to be worth paying me!

For the record, sales for Jan - March 2022, all on Amazon, were considerably higher. For example I'd sold £80 worth of Eurovision, and £75 worth of 80s Pop Stars. But it's worth noting that, though I'd sold 37 Eurovisions, 33 of the 80s, and 8 or 9 each of the other colouring books, the graphic novels were still selling diddly squat. These things build up, and of course the cover prices were lower and the profit margin higher on those colouring books. Let us see how things develop this year. 

UPDATE: Friday Feb 24:

Here we go again....

My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Lulu

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy 

Eurovision Colouring Vol 1 - Amazon -  Lulu  - Etsy 
Eurovision Colouring Vol 2 - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 

Eurovision Colouring Best Of British - Amazon
Doctor Who Colouring - Amazon - Lulu  - Etsy 
Punk Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 
70s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 
60s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 

Scottish Pop Star Colouring - Amazon

NB: Etsy editions are signed and posted by me, and generally cheaper