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June 2025 Indie Author Report

Each month I try to post numbers of my indie author business. I hope the transparency will provide perspective to indie authors during their publication journey. These numbers do not include expenses like inventory and event table fees because those come into the equation up to six months beforehand.

I’m still struggling with online retail sales. If I don’t run and promote a sale on e-books, the online income (my website excluded) is usually lower for the month. Where I do see a bump online is the week following a live event. I hand out bookmarks at events to readers who show interest in the series, but aren’t quite ready to buy. If they do decide to buy, they’ll do so within the first few weeks following the event.

The (pleasantly) surprising live event this month was the two-day Lakeshore Art Festival. I’ve had modest sales from art markets last year and so far this year. I completely underestimated the size of the Lakeshore Art Festival. The large event paired with nice weather (great attendance), and the fact it was my first year vending (the area wasn’t saturated with my book series yet), resulted in great sales on Saturday. On Sunday, the weather was uncomfortably hot and customers didn’t want to stand too long on the asphalt in front of our booths. The traffic was sparser as well, possibly from West Michigan’s tendency to church pretty hard. But the slower day allowed me free time to make new author friends. Overall, I was happy with the results!

Because I did well at the art festival, I had to panic order Book 1 in case the Columbus Book Festival next month is busy. It’s my first year attending, so I’m not sure what to expect. I’ll be spending the next two weeks with my fingers crossed, hoping the shipment of books arrive in time!

June 2025 Sales

  • Audiobooks: $15
  • Print books: $7
  • E-books: $36
  • Website direct sales + payment link sales (all book formats): $131 + $75 = $206
  • Bookstore direct sales: $42
  • Live events (all book formats): $1,065 – 3 events this month (art market, lit festival, art festival)
  • Total: $1,371

June 2025 Social Media Growth