Q4 2010 Quarterly Report

I should actually be working on my NaNoWriMo project right now, but I did promise numbers and maybe some other kind of information.

This quarter included my first Christmas as an actual publisher with an actual product. One the one hand, it was exciting. On the other hand I did not want to be one of those callous merchants of artificial and manufactured merriment that seem to dominate the holiday shopping season (which gets longer every year).

Another big thing that happened this quarter was the release of Oz: Dark & Terrible, an "adult" RPG from a company called Emerald City Expeditions. It also served as the springboard to get me to record my first Adventures in Oz Podcast, an audio review of the game.


 Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

Sales Channel/Product Type	October	November	December	Quarter Total	YTD Total
Lulu/Print	6	7	6	19	50
Lulu/PDF	1	3	-	4	4
Paizo/PDF	2	1	-	3	3
One Book Shelf/PDF	9	7	5	21	50
Your Games Now/PDF	-	-	-	-	1
Totals	18	18	11	47	108

One thing to notice this quarter is that digital sales trailed off closer to December. Probably because those customers view their PDF purchases as personal purchases, since digital items are less easily giftable. This big sales month for any format or vendor was November. The sales might have been boosted by interest in Oz: Dark & Terrible (a Halloween release) or as a pre-Christmas rush.

Or it might have been the Doctors Without Borders Pakistan fundraiser in late October of that year. Which is just an example of the power of giving something away for free. Enough people were impressed with AiO even though they got it free with their contribution that they sought out my other work. At this relatively early date, all that was available was the print version over at Lulu. The fundraiser also got me my first review. Not only was it a 5-star review, it was by someone who's books were on my shelf. That's one of the strongest compliments I can imagine and it happened!

This was also the quarter that I broke 100 sales.  As we all know, anyone can sell 100 of anything. The challenge is coming up with more of that. So I close out the year with 108 sales over the space of 7 months. 2011 is going to be the challenge. We see how next time.