I had intended to make a post in the first week or so of February with the numbers for January, but somehow kept putting it off until February was nearly over. Last night I managed to notice it was a new month within only a couple of days of its start, and put together most of the numbers, even tweeting some of them. But Twitter isn’t the place for a lot of information to be displayed, so here’s a post. Podiobooks are difficult to gauge, so I’m including the inflated total episodes downloaded (“total”) and the more-likely-accurate number of times the final chapter/episode was downloaded (“done”). (*=only available free by request, no requests made in this period=all paid)
- Lost and Not Found – eBook: 85 dl’s in Jan. (2 paid), 82 dl’s in Feb.
- Lost and Not Found – Podiobook: 2885 total/138 done in Jan., 1991 total/88 done in Feb.
- Dragons’ Truth – eBook: 103 dl’s in Jan., 92 dl’s in Feb.
- Dragons’ Truth – Podiobook: 1929 total/228 done in Jan., 1243 total/124 done in Feb.
- Forget What You Can’t Remember – eBook: 98 dl’s in Jan. (1 paid), 79 dl’s in Feb.
- Forget What You Can’t Remember – Podiobook: 5890 total/186 done in Jan., 4649 total/144 done in Feb.
- Untrue Tales… Book One – eBook: 94 dl’s in Jan., 93 dl’s in Feb. (1 paid)
- Untrue Tales… Book One – Podiobook: 4078 total/337 done in Jan., 3907 total/354 done in Feb.
- Untrue Tales… Book Two – eBook: 66 dl’s in Jan., 84 dl’s in Feb.
- Untrue Tales… Book Two – Podiobook: 4220 total/344 done in Jan., 4232 total/357 done in Feb.
- Untrue Tales… Book Three – eBook: 121 dl’s in Jan, 67 dl’s in Feb.
- Untrue Tales… Book Three – Podiobook: 3050 total/274 done in Jan., 1607 total/155 done in Feb.
- Cheating, Death – eBook*: 0 dl’s in Jan., 1 dl in Feb.
- Cheating, Death – Podiobook: 8853 total/687 done in Jan., 4758 total/358 done in Feb.
- More Lost Memories – full eBook*: 0 dl’s in Jan., 1 dl in Feb.
- More Lost Memories – individual story eBooks*: 1 dl in Jan., 4 dl’s in Feb.
- Lost and Not Found – Director’s Cut – eBook*: 0 dl’s in Jan., 1 dl in Feb.
- Total eBook downloads: 568 in Jan., 504 in Feb.
- Total paid eBook downloads: 4 in Jan., 8 in Feb.
- Total Podiobooks downloads: 30,905 in Jan., 22,387 in Feb.
- Total Podiobooks “finished”: 2194 in Jan., 1991 in Feb.
Getting month-to-month stats for the Modern Evil Podcast is basically impossible at this point, but I from looking at the stats I do have, I can estimate that between 40 and 60 people are actively subscribed to the feed. Older episodes of the Modern Evil Podcast keep getting downloaded though, currently at a rate of roughly four times a week, each… which is a totally inaccurate way to state that, since it seems that what happens is that every once in a while someone finds the feed & downloads 50+ back-episodes, all at once. Anyway, there’s the download numbers for electronic versions. Now, here’s the numbers for paper versions, plus revenue figures for paper books, for art, and for eBooks: (Podiobooks donations are paid out quarterly, so YTD PB income is $0 AFAIK.)
- I had ZERO direct sales of books and art in January, and ZERO wholesale sales of paper books.
- eBooks sold in January: 4
- My cut from eBooks sales in Jan.: $7.70
- Total gross income for January: $7.70
- Mini-paintings sold in Feb.: 4
- Income from art in Feb.: $45
- Chapbooks sold in Feb.: 7
- Paperbacks sold in Feb.: 1 direct (W1kV2), 2 wholesale (C,D & UTFBF1-3), 1 sent to reviewer (FWYCR)
- Income from paper book sales in Feb: $32.63
- eBooks sold in Feb.: 8
- My cut from eBooks sales in Feb.: $9.73
- Total from book sales in Feb.: $42.36
- Total gross income for February: $87.36
Not great, but by not going to Tools of Change this year, I’m way, way ahead in terms of net income versus last year, even without sales in January. I’ll be at the Phoestival (read: Phoenix First Fridays Art Walk Block Party, on Roosevelt between Central and 7th Street from 6PM to 11PM) this week, and I’ll be showing/selling my art during Art Detour on Saturday outside Eye Lounge (5th St. & Roosevelt from 9AM to ~5PM), so hopefully I’ll be able to make some sales there.
eBook downloads are up again, after an off year in 2009. February wasn’t as good as January, but it was also 3 days shorter… though that doesn’t account for the actual level of dropoff in total downloads, or the opposite experience in sales. These numbers bring the total number of my podcast episodes downloaded (PB+MEPod, all time) to 264,615 (YTD: 53,292) with the total number of “final” episodes downloaded from Podiobooks.com (a more accurate number, I think) to 14,893 (YTD: 3,774), and the total number of eBook downloads from modernevil.com to 9,494 (YTD: 1,072). Total number of books sold (eBooks+paperbacks+chapbooks+giveaways) YTD is 23. One way to read that is to say that for each person who has downloaded a free copy of one of my books this year, less than one in two hundred of them decided to pay. And I think that’s more than enough numbers for now.
Yea for operating in the black by ANY margin! 😀
Well, almost black. I didn't mention any expenses, there. Like $50/mo to show at the Art Walk, or the cost of web hosting, art supplies, and office supplies. But without the cost of hotel, airfare, and eating in NYC, which I paid last February, I'm doing much better. And with the 1 painting sale I have pending (Crys will buy 'Love Takes Flight' soon), I'm about $18 from “in the black” so far this year. Which is great.
With the higher rates for art walk (I paid $385 for the whole year last year), and depending on how sales at Phoenix Comicon go, I'm probably not going to do the Art Walk in the summer months when foot traffic (&sales) drop off.