I post my sales and social media numbers each month, not only for me to track, but in an effort to be transparent about an indie author’s income. Every author’s journey looks different, and I feel it’s beneficial to other writers to realize this.
I had one, unadvertised live event this month. The event didn’t bring in a lot of profit, but because it was the opposite side of the state, it was invaluable to me for networking with other authors. There was a large bump in Amazon sales at the later half of this month, and I suspect the reason is residual sales from this event. For each Book #1 I sell, I include a bookmark to let the reader know where to buy the rest of the series.
My author Instagram following increased nicely this month. I believe it’s from a horror camp / writing retreat I attended at the end of June. All of us that met at camp were finding each other online to keep in touch.
This month I made an effort to post a few Reels on Instagram. They were fun to make, but took longer than I’d like because the editing tools are new to me. Instead of creating content for ALL THE SOCIALS, I’d like to find the few that give me the largest ROI, which for me are books sales rather than follower numbers. That’s tricky since Amazon’s tools for tracking sales are horrendously awful.
Anyway, here are this month’s numbers!
July 2026 Sales
- Audiobooks: $0
- Print books: $40
- E-books: $13
- Website direct sales + payment link sales (all book formats): $0
- Bookstore direct sales: $44
- Live events (all book formats) – 1 event: $104
- Total: $201
July 2026 Social Media Growth
- Author Stefanie Gilmour on Facebook: 372 (+12)
- Author Stefanie Gilmour on Instagram: 479 (+59)
- Author Stefanie Gilmour on “The TikTack”: 609 (-3)
- Stef’s VIP Mailing List: 324 (+1)