Where Do You Check Your Book Sales First?

Most indie authors want to get their books to as far-reaching places as possible in order to increase their chances of making a sale. Those who publish through Lulu may opt for Global Reach, those who choose Createspace may select the Extended Reach option. They pay for the privilege of their books being listed on nearly every site around the world.

It's almost well-nigh imposs to get an indie book into a bricks and mortar bookshop, but many do try really hard, and even succeed. However, readers can still purchase any book through a bookshop as long as they quote the author, title and, most crucially, the ISBN.

But forget the fact that they don't pay their UK taxes. Forget the fact that they diss book reviewers and remove any reviews from their site from people who didn't buy from them, or from book review services who want to help indie authors get a lift and a bit of exposure. The one place the majority of authors go to first in order to check if they've sold a book is Amazon.

I know I do; because to sell a book on Amazon gives kudos. Getting reviews on Amazon is kudos, if anyone bothers to leave a review, that is. With Amazon you can create a Kindle edition of your print book, and if they've got round to buying a Kindle yet, someone in Brazil can even download your e-book.You may even sell more of your e-books than you do of your print books. That could be down to a number of factors, pricing, with e-books being a lot cheaper, and the fact that e-books have taken off in a big, big way. I've sold more copies of Goalden Girl on Kindle than I have in print.

If you see a sales rank on Amazon, you know you've made a sale. Cool, eh?

But while you're gushing over the fact that you've sold something on Amazon, don't forget the likes of The Book Depository and Barnes & Noble. They have sales ranks, too. Sometimes if you haven't made a sale for a while a rank may disappear. It happens. It also happens that you may sell a book through a site which doesn't do sales ranks. That happened to me last month. I can only guess that I sold copies of Goalden Girl from Waterstones in May because they do this weird thing by saying delivery dates are between 2-3 weeks (I know it doesn't take that long). I've no idea which store sold Epiworld or Abbie's Rival, I only know they were sold in the UK.

So don't put all your eggs into your Amazon basket. Check your sales on other sites, too, and maybe you'll get a pleasant surprise.