by Jay Hartman
As I sit and write this month’s column, my desktop is littered with enough Excel spreadsheets and Word documents to make an office assistant want to make a Starbucks run and never come back. Sadly, I don’t have an assistant, so the joy of going through all these reports lands in my lap.
What am I doing? Looking back at Untreed Reads’s fiscal 2021 and analyzing the business. From the number of print copies sold of Peace, Love, and Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the ‘60s to looking at the total spent on cover design, proofreading, vendor fees, it’s the definitive publishing year-in-review for myself and my business partner to determine the health of the business and make decisions on where we go from here.
It may not be the most fun activity I’ve engaged in recently (that would be taking pictures of Gizmo the Guinea Pig, Untreed Reads’s marketing director, in various winter scenes), but it is a critical part of operating a business. And it should be something you’re doing as well.
The old adage is definitely true: you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. If you want to set yourself up for success for 2022, you need to take some time to look back at 2021. The best indicators to look at are the same questions reporters ask when writing their articles:
WHO: If you’re able to access the information as to who has been purchasing your titles, that’s a really important thing to know. Age, sex, and other demographics help you figure out who your reading audience is, which in turn helps you to better tailor your marketing and find new audiences. If you aren’t able to determine this information, run some polls in the new year via social media or your own website to help you figure out exactly who reads your titles. Hint: Most mystery readers are women between the ages of 45 and 65 with a high school degree or higher.
WHAT: If you tend to write in multiple genres, now is the time to look at which of your genres seems to sell the best. This may influence what you choose to focus your writing on in the coming year. If you typically write in the same genre, try to figure out why one book may sell more copies than another. If you have multiple books, did they sell equally? Did some sell the same amount as some others but not all? What’s the common denominator among your bestselling titles? Also, be aware of trends that may have been popular at the start of the year that fizzled out by the end. Hint: Nobody wants to read pandemic/lockdown fiction. Honest.
WHERE: Okay, this one won’t apply to those of you who put all your eggs in one basket and only sell through Amazon (please don’t do this…see, well, all of my previous columns). Look to see where you’re selling the most copies of ebooks and/or print. Even more important is understanding where you’re actually earning the highest royalty for your books/stories. Also, determine if there are any sales channels you aren’t currently in that you should be in, or markets you aren’t reaching. The more places your titles appear, the higher the sales. This will also help you determine where you should promote and other do marketing. Hint: Selling from your own site, Facebook Store, or Instagram Shop is the best thing you can do for royalties.
WHEN: All books sell on a cycle. Most new releases earn 85% of their lifetime sales in the first six months of publication. Test Prep sells better six months before an exam. Gardening books sell better in the fall and winter. Romance sells the worst at Valentine’s Day. Some retailers such as Smashwords or DriveThruFiction offer a Christmas-in-July or End-of-Year Sale. Look at the sales history of your titles for peaks and valleys in your sales history and determine how that correlates to what happened at the time, whether that be promotions, new releases, tie-ins with events or holidays, etc. You might find yourself wanting to move your next release to a more advantageous time. Hint: Holiday-themed books sell best two months before the holiday they’re written for.
WHY: This is really the question you need to ask yourself before you start writing and publishing, but it’s important to understand why you’re in this crazy industry. Do you want to be read? Are you in it to make money and build a brand for yourself? When you’ve determined why you’re writing, look back at 2021 and think about what your reason was for writing then. Was it the same goal? Is it a goal you achieved? Is it time to change the goal? Hint: Move the goalposts and set higher goals year after year. “The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.”
Here’s wishing all of you a successful 2022, no matter how you measure success.
Looking to get The Publisher Perspective? Send your questions to jhartman@untreedreads.com with TPP in your subject line. If your question is used, we’ll send you a free ebook from Untreed Reads.
Jay A. Hartman, editor-in-chief at Untreed Reads Publishing, founded Untreed Reads to promote ebooks with an emphasis on independent authors and publishers. He’s written about the ebook industry for fifteen years and previously served as content editor for KnowBetter.com, one of the internet’s oldest sites reporting on ebooks and epublishing.
