Thirty Fourth Income Report – January 2016 ($833.33)

Are you curious about a one-year delay? I explained it in my first income report.

January 2016 started on a high note. When I checked my sales on the 2nd, I found I’d sold over 100 copies on the 1st of January.

That was the first time ever that I’d sold over 100 copies of my books without any main event: a big promotion, book launch or participating in a book event. I did have two minor promos scheduled that day, but these had almost never worked for me in the past.

And it was still a ‘honeymoon period’ for Bulletproof Health and Fitness. Still, discovering these sales made my day. I bragged about it in a few author groups and fellow authors were very appreciative of my “achievement”.
Book sales continued at a decent level too, even when I finally increased the price of “Bulletproof…” Income wise it wasn’t a bad month at all.

I also sold the biggest number of print copies: all 39 of them! That was my record that held until August 2016.

Publishing

At the beginning of January, I finally submitted “Bulletproof’s…” manuscript on Draft2Digital. I didn’t do much else publishing-wise in January, apart from a few sessions tidying up some aspects of Book #14. I organized a few minor promos for the latest book, on top of ones I had previously scheduled. In their case all I had to keep an eye on what was happening and raise or lower prices as needed.

I was pleased there was little else I needed to do, because the frantic pace at my day job continued. I worked in the evenings and on the weekends. I was exhausted.

My Quora adventure

In December I had a foretaste of what success on Quora looks like. It exceeded my expectations. I got one nice surprise after another: one of my answers got 7,000 views in the first day; another one, that was buried under dozens of other answers, was suddenly dug out and put at the top of a huge thread; my blog posts from the beginnings of ExpandBeyondYourself were getting thousands of views.

That was a great ride.
I shared my results (and my joy!) in author groups on Facebook. I stirred some interest and inspired some followers. One of them got even better results than me. My Quora success drew attention of big fishes and at the end of the month I pitched a guest post idea to a couple of bloggers.

In the meantime, I kept writing for Quora and repurposing my old content for that platform.

Writing

Apart from Quora answers, I had been writing blog posts, email broadcasts, book reviews and guest posts.
I published a guest post on Marta Tuchowska’s Holistic Wellness Project. Actually, the post was published in February, but I finished and submitted it in January.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income:
Amazon royalties: €982.13 ($1079.24)
CreateSpace royalties: €39.85 ($43.83)

Total: $1123.07

Costs:
$10, BookTastic’s promo of Bulletproof Health and Fitness
$21.5, proofreading services Fiverr
$30, View From the Top Community fee
$29, Aweber fee
$35.35, royalties split with co-author
$121, my editor’s share in Know Yourself Like Your Success Depends on It first 3 months profits
$40.4, a print copy of Derek Doepker’s Break Through Your BS
$2.84, a Kindle copy of Quora Domination
Total: $289.74

Net Result: $833.33

Previous Income Report: December 2015