A month of The Reaper: So many events! Plus, first month sales figures

I’ve been a published author for one month and I think it’s finally settled in. I signed my contract in 2022, and it just felt like I’d been working on this book for ages, grinding away in the shadows. I was beyond ready for publication. Release Day was a beautiful dream, and I’m grateful so many people came together to make it so special for me. Many authors speak of the “debut blues”: the crash that follows release day, when all that bubbling adrenaline dissipates in the air and life simply continues as normal. It’s easy to expect more to happen, for the world to slow down, for the internet to be flooded with news of your book for weeks on end. When everyone carries on with their lives, disappointment follows.

Because I’ve been so chronically online, I knew from early on that THE REAPER wasn’t one of those books. It didn’t catch the eye of the main influencers or receive the massive industry push, but since YALC it’s enjoyed a small and mighty reader base, one of which, Nabzrealbooktalk, turned evangelical in recommending it to others. Also insanely, Samantha Shannon has been consistently hyping my book on Instagram. I don’t have the words to describe how happy her support has made me. Maybe that’s what made it easier to continue life alongside everyone else after pub day. What also helped are the events my publisher got me involved with after release, such as: hosting a speculative fiction workshop at Black Ballad’s Big Weekender, joining Elise Kova and Gareth Brown for a panel at Waterstones Bookfest, taking part in Penguin Huddle’s Fantasy Showcase in Bristol, and signing stock at Forbidden Planet’s flagship store in central London. It’s like an extended release week, and it’s made me feel like a proper author.

Anyway, none of this touring makes sense if it doesn’t translate to sales. For the reasons mentioned above, I had extremely low expectations. I imagined selling 20 or so copies, maybe 100, in my first month. I scoured the internet for sales figures, desperate to know what was normal, but because there is no normal in publishing, it’s impossible to find anyone willing to share the hard data – unless they’re shifting thousands a week. I’ve decided to share mine here so that others don’t have to do so much digging.

Some housekeeping, as these factors correlate to my numbers:

·         I’m a debut, with no prior sales record in another genre or in the indie space

·         I have less than 10, 000 followers across all my social media accounts combined

·         I don’t have any sub rights, meaning my book is only available in the UK

·         My genre is urban fantasy

·         My initial subs (retailer orders) amounted to just over 1000

·         I had about 120 preorders

·         My advance was 45,000, or 15,000 per book in a 3-book deal

First Two Weeks

212 books sold

[158 hardbacks, 54 ebooks, 37 audiobooks]

First Full Month:

477 books sold

[361 hardbacks, 68 ebooks, 48 copies in audiobooks]

I sold 225 hardbacks in July and 136 during the first 15 days of August.

I also had a special edition with The Broken Binding, which purchased 750 copies.

This gives me a sales total of 1227

Notably, you’ll see that the special edition gave me a massive boost. In the UK, book subscription companies like Illumicrate and Fairy Loot, and other special edition groups like The Broken Binding, make huge bulk purchases that are non-refundable, that means they count as individual sales. Getting chosen as a monthly pick in these book crates guarantees a spot on the Sunday Times bestseller list, which is why they are so coveted. A publishing team can sit back a little bit when they secure these deals because they know the book crate will do the heavy lifting: designing a whole new cover with sprayed edges, shipping copies out to thousands of global subscribers who will in turn post the book on social media to generate hype, and ensuring bestseller status for an author. So, if you notice a book has multiple special editions, or that it featured in a crate deal, don’t be shocked if it becomes an “instant” Sunday Times Bestseller. The downside to this, from a debut perspective, is that after the initial bestseller placement, the book is likely to fall into obscurity immediately after. It might be disheartening, but it’s still amazing to be a Sunday Times bestselling author.

When my numbers came in, the first thing I asked my publisher was whether these sales met their expectations. I’ve connected with some amazing debut authors over the past 12 months and I’ve been a bit disheartened by the number of times one of them has received an email from their publisher stating that their book underperformed in its first month. These authors didn’t know their publisher even had a sales goal in mind, and was only informed once they’d failed to meet it. To add insult to injury, their “low sales” put their future books in jeopardy. If those initial sales were so important, you’d have thought these publishers would have discussed them with the author months ago instead of waiting until a month after release.

A few days ago I posted a TikTok video expressing mild irritation at the many veteran authors, those who debuted 10+ years ago, who rush into the comments of debuts to declare “no one is a breakout success” and that big sales don’t start happening until authors are five or more books in. While I’m sure they mean well, it comes across as tone deaf and dismissive in the current market, where debut authors aren’t even given a chance to grow beyond their first month – and you have to add the marginalisation tax. If the author is non-white, or disabled, or queer, and writing characters with these same identities, then they will have to fight extra hard to encourage the big bosses of trad pub to take risks with their marketing and bookshop placement. These are the various issues plaguing today’s debut experience.

Your mileage my vary, and you might want to run it by your agent first, but I think debut authors should ask their publishers about sales expectations as early as possible. When publishers do otherwise, they make the book sales the sole responsibility of the author, and penalise that author by halting any future book acquisitions. However, if the author asks the publisher: “what are your sales goals and what strategy do you have in place to meet them?” then the responsibility is properly assigned in the right direction. Selling books is the publisher’s job. Writing books is the author’s job. It’s cruel to pretend any different and only makes the author feel like a failure when things miss the mark.

Thankfully, my sales did meet publisher expectations due to the reasons listed above. I hope my sales continue to grow, especially once the paperbacks are out. More than being a bestselling author one day, my dream is to earn out my advance. I want royalties, baby. I’m not writing books into the early hours, working full time, and looking after a gloriously wild four-year-old for no financial returns at all. No one has time for that.