ebook sales for December 2012

5,584.

Which is both a new record and an amazing lot of books. Thanks, everyone!

Additionally, I was expecting a drop in sales, not a rise. My books sold fewer copies on Amazon and Barnes & Noble – but they sold quite a lot more on Apple’s iBookstore. I freely admit I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the iBookstore until September or so. One of Mark Coker’s (the founder of Smashwords) constant points is that Apple is poised for big international growth, and it looks like he’s on the money. In 2012 I sold an average of about 280 books a month through the various iBookstores, and quite a lot of them were foreign sales. So if you’re a self-publisher (or even a traditional publisher), neglecting the iBookstore is a poor idea.

In a few days I’ll do a “year in review” post for book sales. Meanwhile, for historical purposes, here’s a look back since I started publishing in April of 2011. Hard to believe it’s been almost two years already!

April 2011: 22

May 2011: 105

June 2011: 236

July 2011: 366

August 2011: 489

September 2011: 1335

October 2011: 1607

November 2011: 2142

December 2011: 2340

January 2012: 3261

February 2012: 3750

March 2012: 3644

April 2012: 3521

May 2012: 3886

June 2012: 3580

July 2012: 4153

August 2012: 4608

September 2012: 4785

October 2012: 4923

November 2012: 5400

December 2012: 5584

-JM