Peter E. Fenton Newsletter – So How Many People Have Read My Books?

It’s just a little over two weeks until the launch of The Attercop, and it seems like a good time to look back at how my books have done … by the numbers. The graph above is a visual depiction of the rankings for Mann Hunt since it launched on August 29th of 2023. This image represents the heartbeat of sales through that time. As you can see, in the early stages, the heartbeat was wide. A single sale within that time period (where a lot of other books didn’t sell a single copy on that given day), spiked my rankings and position. The heartbeat can go from drastic lows to more promising highs. And over time, the hope is that the book heartbeat stays more toward the upper end of the chart.

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During peak sales times, the numbers can go up substantially. Amazon WANTS to make money, so they have sub-categories that your book is assigned to. In the case above, Mann Hunt was the #2 best seller in Gay Romance Books and the #2 book in Gay Romance eBooks in Canada. Its overall ranking at that time (which isn’t shown in this screen capture) was around the 678th most popular book in all of Kindle … for a few hours. I have achieved #1 best seller status with my books in their specific categories, and during one sale, The Woodcarver’s Model was a Barnes & Noble Best Seller in eBooks for a few days.

Now one might think that with sales numbers THAT high, that I would be buying a mansion and a new yacht. But of course, the numbers can be deceiving. The high rankings in the paragraph above were from a sale where the eBook was priced at 99 cents, and my royalty after deductions was close to 40 cents per book. If you are in the top 1000 of all eBooks, it means that you might be selling 70 books per day, and as the numbers rapidly shift throughout a week … things change. If you rank in the top 10 000 you are selling 15 books a day. And if your ranking falls into the 100 000 area … 1 book per day across the entire market. After all, there are a LOT of books out there to choose from. One estimate is that 7500 new books per day land on Amazon, and if you look at the overall market, there are millions of options for readers. Fortunately, readers like specific types of books, which means that they might be selecting your book from a smaller pool of only thousands of books in your category.

If you’ve ever been to a bookstore, you might notice that a small percentage of books are featured on tables near the front with stacks of 10 or 20 copies. These are often the books that have had recent film or television adaptations. If you go to the shelves, you will notice that MOST books only have 2 or 3 copies on the shelves. This is because standard print runs of novels without high media exposure and with small or mid-range publishers start at 2000 books in print, distributed through stores across the country. The average independently published book in Canada sells (on average) 250 copies. So why would anyone write for so little?

For starters, writers generally write because they LOVE to write. The wisdom in the business is “publish or perish”, so if you want to make a lot of money, then write a lot of books. Over time one can build an audience and eventually even make a living from it. Want to make a million dollars? Sell a million books! It was last estimated that a a writer could earn $50 000 per year in royalties with one catch … they had to have written 25 books. So … $2000 per book per year in a small market.

Of course, it is possible that you have written the BEST book in the world, and in that case, you may get a really big advance from a publisher that doesn’t need to be paid back no matter how many copies you sold. Hot properties in the U.S. have had advances in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars … rare, but it does happen. Or, some writers have a great agent who gets a movie or TV series of a book (or books) that were published in the past. Suddenly, just like the adaptations of Rachel Reid’s Hockey Romance books, Heated Rivarly, yours are the books that everyone MUST read. Writers are dreamers, and if you’re going to put work into creating a new book, one might as well dream BIG.

As writers go, I’m pretty early in my career, but sometimes I do ask myself … Where do I fit in all of this?

Royalty amounts are somewhat protected through contractual clauses that say you aren’t supposed to talk about the numbers publicly. But I can certainly give you a sense of how I have done. You already know that I didn’t receive an advance on my mystery novels, and the advance on Not Not Normal was quite small, but I CAN say, that if I had been given a traditional Canadian advance on any of my books, that I would have earned out that royalty (in other words, earned enough to cover the amount the publisher WOULD have paid me as an advance). And the books continue to grow in popularity paying me small sums of royalty money each month.

So instead of talking dollars and cents, I am happy to share my most recent numbers of books sold based on royalty statements received through my career. I should note that these numbers don’t include how many people have read my books in libraries. It also doesn’t include readers who have received promotional copies of my books. So this reporting is simply the number of books that have been bought by purchasers online or at a bookstore both in print and as e-Books. This is a sort of snapshot of the success of the books.

And as a footnote, I am lucky because the Canada Council for the Arts has a program that pays me an annual royalty based on how many libraries my books are represented in across Canada.

So let’s get to those sales numbers. I will go from lowest sales to highest sales.

Since publication in Canada, Not Not Normal has sold about 650 copies. This book was always marketed more toward schools, libraries and institutions as opposed to the public. It has had limited distribution. The book is early in its life and each year it sells around 300 copies. Fortunately, that Canada Council payment allows for a decent royalty on the book each year.

The Burnt has sold around 780 copies in its first year. Again, this number will grow in time as the series becomes better known. It was released less than a year ago and hasn’t had a discount promotion on the book … yet. An upcoming sale will likely drive the numbers much higher.

Hoodoo House, the second book in the Declan Hunt Mysteries has sold about 2050 copies since it was released just a little under two years ago. As the series gains popularity, more copies of this book are being acquired.

My debut novel, The Woodcarver’s Model has sold around 2070 copies since it was released four years ago. Books in series tend to have larger followings than single books without a direct sequel in the intial stages of an author’s career. A recent promotion for this book sold many hundreds of copies. The actual numbers of those sales will be reported six months after the promotion (which is standard for Amazon to ensure that any returns are accounted for), so the statistics on this book will improve in time.

The first book in any series is always the most popular. And so my best selling book to date is Mann Hunt which has sold close to 4000 copies.

What this means, is that close to 10 000 copies of my books have been sold around the world. It means that those books are also in libraries and being enjoyed by borrowers. It means that with each passing year, as long as I keep marketing the books and adapting them to audio and translating them, that the books will continue to find new readers around the world.

So will I be rich and famous? Probably not, but you never know.

I have known authors who have only written one book and received advances of over $50 000 for that book. I have known authors who have self-published at a high volume of books per year and have earned enough to make a living. I have known authors who have sold only a few copies of their books. The bottom line is … I write because I like to tell stories. And truly … I am THRILLED when anyone picks up my book, takes the time to go on the journey and enjoys the ride. My goal is to write the best story possible and in time, hopefully lots of people will tell their friends and the reach of my books will grow. And maybe someday, someone will make a series about a gay detective and his assistant solving crimes in Canada. In the meantime, I will keep writing … because truly … I love it.

Next week, things are going to get exciting. I’ll share some early reviews for The Attercop, as we count down to the release of the book.

Until then, thanks for reading.

Warmest Regards,

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