A Year’s Sales

I’ve just completed my review of last year’s online sales: I sold 582 books – or 1.59 every day. I’m not rich yet, but I’m very happy to think that every day, on average, someone out there in the world chose to spend their money on my work. Adding in the sales in-person at events, that just tops 600 – a considerable increase on 2020’s total of around 180.

What are people buying? Well, chiefly my three Steam Highwayman books, although a very small number are interested in Write Your Own Adventure: Choice-Based Fiction in Schools. The exciting number here is that I have sold over 260 copies of Steam Highwayman: Smog and Ambuscade, the first in my series, which each represent a reader new to the midnight road, and to my work.

And does it pay? Well, I’m proud to say that these sales have made me a gross income of around £2400, spread over the year. After expenses and tax (I already have a full-time job), it’s not a great deal of money. A large proportion of my sales in the second half of the year were seeded by an ongoing advertising campaign on Facebook, which isn’t cheap. Yet to be making a profit at all is validating and encouraging: the four years since I began Steam Highwayman are beginning to pay me back.

So what next? I’m keen to increase my sales, both to share the world I’ve created and, clearly, to profit from my work. So I’ll be continuing to invest income into advertising. But I’ll also be taking opportunities to write for contract, which was always part of my intention for the Steam Highwayman project: that it would serve as a display of my ability and allow me to pitch ideas to other publishers.

And maybe I’ll look back at this post in a year’s time with an entirely different perspective.

Steam Highwayman I Live on Amazon

[amazon text=Click here to find Steam Highwayman I on Amazon.&asin=1999798503]

Writing this is a watershed moment for me. The process of writing and self-publishing a book has changed my self-perception significantly. I love to try new things, to start projects and to come up with ideas – but pushing on through the delivery of long projects has always tested me. Today I can say that I have brought an entirely self-supported project to completion: from an idea I had in 2010, through refining my intention in 2016, writing the book in early 2017, finding and collaborating with an excellent illustrator in Ben May, managing and completing a Kickstarter campaign in September 2017, marketing and promoting the project through the autumn and winter, editing and proofing and finally to organising the printing and worldwide distribution of my book, I have had to motivate and organise myself as never before. Nobody has given me a deadline and no-one else has stood between me and my mistakes: I have learnt to persist in pressing on to achieve my own intention.

Of course I’ve had a lot of help. The Lord, first of all, has answered every prayer – sometimes quite miraculously. My wife Cheryl has constantly encouraged me to continue and to believe in myself as she believes in me. The generous and trusting attitude of almost two hundred Kickstarter backers gave me the capital I needed to produce a high-quality gamebook. The interest and support of many in the online and real-world gamebook and steampunk communities has kept me motivated and allowed the project to grow.

So now I go to work on the next part of the journey: a book which will develop and respond to the best things and the difficulties of writing Smog and Ambuscade. I’m tweaking my writing method, the mechanics of the gamebook and my marketing strategies. I’m investing time and energy in face-to-face meetings and maintaining a strong online presence. And I’m allowing my imagination to take wings… Or rather, to build pressure. Steam Highwayman II: Highways and Holloways will be a new challenge, but I know this for sure: the heavy machine has begun to move. I am no longer stationary and I am picking up speed!