Our Three Year Anniversary

July 3 marks the three year anniversary of Pegasus Pulp. We started in July 2011 with three e-books for sale. Three years later that number has grown to 52 titles in two languages with three more currently going through editing, proofing and formatting.

Our sales could still be better, but they are growing from year to year, which is the most important thing. Plus, we’ve managed to expand our reach and Pegasus Pulp e-books are now available at 68 retailers worldwide.

And now for the percentage breakdown of sales channels (rounded). For comparison, here are the respective figures for 2012 and 2013.

Amazon.com: 47.8%
Amazon UK: 18%
Amazon DE: 15.3%
Kobo: 5%
Barnes & Noble: 4%
DriveThruFiction: 2%
Apple: 1.8%
OmniLit/AllRomance: 1.6%
XinXii: 1.4%
Amazon CA: 0.6%
Amazon IT: 0.6%
Casa del Libro: 0.6%
Amazon AU: 0.4%
Amazon ES: 0.3%
Libiro: 0.3%
Der Club: 0.15%
Amazon FR: 0.15%

The trend observable in the 2012 and 2013 figures continues. As Pegasus Pulp expands into new markets, Amazon’s percentage declines, while the percentage of other retailers increases. Though it is notable that Amazon DE has managed to increase its share of our sales from 13% in 2013 to 15.3% in 2014 largely due to the higher number of German books available. In fact, in July Amazon DE sales were higher than those of all other retailers combined due to two new German language releases.

Kobo continues to be our biggest non-Amazon outlet. Barnes & Noble, where I couldn’t sell anything for the longest time, and DriveThruFiction have both taken off this past year. Apple had increased slightly, while the percentages for XinXii and OmniLit/AllRomance have dropped.

Now let’s take a look which of our books sell the most:

1. Seraglio
2. Under the Knout
3. Outlaw Love
4. The Kiss of the Executioner’s Blade
5. Unter der Knute
6. Der Kuss des Richtschwertes
7. Hostage to Passion
8. Rites of Passage
9. The Hybrids
10. The Spiked Death and Mercy Mission (tie)
11. Flying Bombs and Gesetzlose Liebe (tie)
12. Murder in the Family and The Other Side of the Curtain (tie)
13. The Butcher of Spain
14. Countdown to Death
15. Kurierdienst
16. The Iron Border and Christmas Gifts (tie)
17. Flights of Madness
18. Heartache and Honigtopf (tie)
19. “He has come back to me…”, He never brings me flowers…, The Hidden Castle, Insomnia, Letters from the Dark Side, New York City’s Finest, Old Mommark’s Tale, The Great Fraud and Reiche Beute (tie)
20. The Apocalypse Protocol, Courier Duty, Pissed and Die Liebe in den Zeiten des Frischkornmüslis (tie)
21. Acacia Crescent, Cartoony Justice, Muse and Crisis, Love in the Times of the Macrobiotic Müsli, The Dark Lily and Thirty Years to Life (tie)
22. Demolition, Dream Job, Elevator of Doom, Honeypot, Loot, Payback Time, Whaler and Familienkutsche (tie)
23. Family Car and Hanging Day (tie)

Again, many of the trends I’ve noticed in previous years continue. Historical fiction with a dash of spice is still my bestselling genre with The Butcher of Spain (formerly known as El Carnicero) selling noticeably less well than the others. Hanging Day is something of an outlier here, since I only announced it yesterday, even if it has been available on some platforms for longer.

The Silencer adventures sit solidly in the midfield with Elevator of Doom the lone outlier, since it sells much less than all of the others. Ditto for Mercy Mission, which should get a boost with the release of the next Shattered Empire story later this month. The success of The Hybrids and The Iron Border surprises me somewhat, though I suspect they profited from the fact that post-apocalyptic and dystopian SF are currently trendy.

The low sellers are the same as usual as well, mostly quirky stories like Cartoony Justice, Courier Duty, Letters from the Dark Side or Love in the Times of the Macrobiotic Müsli that don’t quite fit into standard genre classifications and standalone crime short which can also be found in the collection Murder in the Family (sales of which have grown quite nicely this past year).

Meanwhile, The Dark Lily still gets no love for reasons that elude me, especially since the sequel The Other Side of the Curtain sells decently, though sales have noticeably slowed down of late. I guess nobody wants 1960s set spy fiction with multiple first-person narrators and psychedelic covers.

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