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September 2025 Indie Author Report

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Each month, I post my earnings and social media growth as an indie author. I hope through this transparency, other indie authors will see not all paths to publication are the same. Really, success as an indie author is defined solely by the author’s goals. AND, even though there are many companies who would like to sell you a fast track, most paths are a marathon, not a sprint.

So Many Events

September was crammed full of book selling to-do’s that greatly hindered my energy to dedicate to book writing to-do’s. The anxiety surrounding book events isn’t as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there. There were four events this month! Having two events, back-to-back in one weekend, drained me. I was useless the day after the second event. I’ve learned this year that as much as I want to be the Keep On Going! author, I’m not. I need to schedule in recovery days.

Group Promos on Book Funnel

I organized and ran a group e-book promotion through Book Funnel for Fear the Wolf, the first book in my Alex Steward series, during this month. It included adult and YA urban fantasy, but excluded paranormal romance. Of any romantic subplot included in the story, it was required to be no-to-low spice. Why? I’ve been starting to hear grumbling from a less vocal reader segment asking “Please, I don’t mind a bit of romance, but I’m here for the urban fantasy shenanigans and if you wax poetic about this guy’s d*ck one more time…”

By providing this type of curated book fair, I’m hoping to offer readers a solution to their love of urban fantasy and aversion to high heat, open-door stories. And it seemed to work! New readers are purchasing and being introduced to my series, and I’ve already seen some resulting read-through beyond Book 1. I’ll be working in these types of more finely-focused group promos for my marketing plan next year.

Kickstarter & Audiobooks

This month also saw the successful Kickstarter campaign of Track the Wolf : Alex Steward Book 4! I was delighted to be able to work with voice actress Tia Rider again. I also commissioned artwork of Alex and Ben from their adventures in Book 4. Pay your artists!

From the low amount of backers, and the high amount of backing $$$, I’m reminded I need to constantly work on growing my readership. Without the backers’ generosity and support of my work, the campaign would have failed.

As far as other audiobook sales, I’m nagged by the fact I STILL haven’t figured out the best way to market audiobooks. Earning reports from Audible are always pretty useless because I’m not exclusive to them, and Spotify and Voices by InAudio are finally beginning to sort out the details, hence the $11 reported.

Restocking Bookstores

Since we are moving into spooky season, and writing werewolves makes me spooky season adjacent, I checked on local indie bookstores to see if they needed restocking. Then I visited those that did. If you are working with indie bookstores, remember most of the time they are running on a small staff, with the same workload as the book boxstores. Be patient, follow-up, and do as much as you can to help them provide your book to readers.

Finally, here are stats for September 2025:

September 2025 Sales

  • Audiobooks: $11
  • Print books: $0
  • E-books: $121
  • Website direct sales + payment link sales (all book formats): $97
  • Bookstore direct sales: $81
  • Live events (all book formats): $ (4 events: 1 library event, 2 bookstore events, 1 comic convention): $1,052
  • Total: $1,362

September 2025 Social Media Growth

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