Late last night, Pegasus Pulp crossed the 500 sales threshold across all books and platforms. And as I did for previous milestones, here is a platform breakdown:
Amazon.com: 54.4%
Amazon UK: 18.4%
Amazon Germany: 13.2%
Kobo: 4.2%
OmniLit/AllRomance: 2%
Apple: 1.8%
XinXii: 1.8%
DriveThruFiction: 1.4%
Barnes & Noble: 1%
Amazon Italy: 0.6%
Amazon Canada: 0.4%
Amazon Spain: 0.4%
Amazon France: 0.2%
Casa del Libro: 0.2%
The various Amazons still dominate, but together the smaller stores make up almost 13% of my total sales. What is more, Pegasus Pulp books weren’t even available at Kobo until summer 2012 and at Barnes & Noble and Apple until late 2012/early 2013. 14% of our total tales were German language titles BTW.
And now for a title breakdown:
1. Seraglio
2. Outlaw Love and Under the Knout (tie)
3. The Kiss of the Executioner’s Blade
4. Der Kuss des Richtschwertes
5. Hostage to Passion
6. Unter der Knute
7. Rites of Passage
8. The Hybrids
9. The Spiked Death
10. Flying Bombs
11. Mercy Mission
12. The Other Side of the Curtain
13. Kurierdienst
14. Countdown to Death and The Butcher of Spain (tie)
15. Murder in the Family
16. Flights of Madness
17. He never brings me flowers…, Letters from the Dark Side, The Hidden Castle and Old Mommark’s Tale (tie)
18. Heartache, Pissed, Courier Duty and Reiche Beute (tie)
19. Cartoony Justice, “He has come back to me”, Muse & Crisis and Honigtopf (tie)
20. Dream Job, Insomnia, Loot, Love in the Times of the Macrobiotic Müsli, Payback Time, The Apocalypse Protocol, Thirty Years to Life and Whaler (tie)
17. Family Car, Honeypot and The Dark Lily (tie)
Compared to the last time I did this for the two year anniversary of Pegasus Pulp, the top of the list has hardly changed, though The Hybrids and Mercy Mission are rising up the charts, considering both titles have only been available for a few months. Kurierdienst is another title that has been doing surprisingly well of late (and much better than the English version), though it mainly sells at Kobo.
The low sellers are the same as usual – standalone crime shorts and stories like Cartoony Justice that are just a bit too quirky and different.
Countdown to Death still sells worse than the subsequent two installments in the Silencer series (The fourth Silencer adventure Elevator of Doom will be out sometime before Christmas) and The Butcher of Spain still sells much worse than my other historicals. And people still flat out refuse to buy The Dark Lily.
Price has less influence than genre and reviews have very little influence as well. Hence my bestselling title is also the one with the worst reviews (and Under the Knout isn’t all that well reviewed either), whereas the story with the most and best reviews, Old Mommark’s Tale, is only at No. 17. And Dream Job just got a wonderful five star review and still languishes at No. 20. Of course, it’s a new release.
So what do we learn of this, apart from the fact that I probably shouldn’t be writing any more crime fiction? I’m not sure.
But here’s to the next 500!
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Congratulations! It’s always nice to pass a milestone.
It is interesting how every book is different — and I find that from month to month which book sells or doesn’t will change. I do think titles make a difference too — but it’s hard to measure.
Thanks. 🙂
Seasons definitely play a role. The three top sellers sell pretty steadily across the year, but I find that German language books sell much better during the fall than in the summer, when people are on holiday abroad and may not have regular internet or 3G access. Ditto for UK sales. Others are obvious, e.g. Letters from the Dark Side, my collection of dark epistolary fantasy, only sells around Halloween and never very well, since epistolary fiction is a hard sell Some are not so obvious, e.g. the Silencer series sells better in the summer.
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Congratulations! That’s a lot of analysis of your sales – I think I would be way to lazy for that. 🙂
Thanks. I like knowing what stories and genres work for me, even if I ultimately still write what I feel like writing. 😉 However, it’s nice knowing that it’s usually profitable when I feel like writing historicals.
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