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    Data Analysis for Self-Publishers
    Data Analysis for Self-Publishers
    Data Analysis for Self-Publishers
    Ebook80 pages1 hour

    Data Analysis for Self-Publishers

    By M.L. Humphrey

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    About this ebook

    If you want to make money from your writing then you need to treat it like a business. And part of treating it like a business is looking at data about how that business is performing and using it to inform your business choices.

     

    In Data Analysis for Self-Publishers M.L. Humphrey walks you through how to do that, starting with what information you need and then moving on to ways to use that information and interpret it to improve your results.

     

    If you're ready to take your writing income up a notch, then this is the book for you.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM.L. Humphrey
    Release dateMay 22, 2020
    ISBN9781393235460
    Author

    M.L. Humphrey

    Hi there Sci Fi fans, my name is Maurice Humphrey.I am a Vermont native, husband, father, grandfather, well over 60, Navy veteran, retired IBM engineer, retired printer repairman, Graduated: Goddard Jr. College, VT Technical College, and Trinity College. Over the years I’ve written technical articles, taught technical classes, and presented at technical conventions.I’ve been reading science fiction for over 50 years now. First books were “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” by Jules Verne and “The Stars Are Ours” by Andre Norton. I’ve read and collected many great stories, and a considerable amount of junk ones as well. I’d say by now that I probably have a good idea of what I consider a good story.

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      Book preview

      Data Analysis for Self-Publishers - M.L. Humphrey

      Data Analysis for Self-Publishers

      ALSO BY M.L. HUMPHREY

      Listing of all books by M.L. Humphrey

      Writing Essentials

      Writing for Beginners

      Excel for Writers

      Data Analysis for Self-Publishers

      Affinity Publisher for Self-Publishing

      Affinity Publisher for Fiction Layouts

      Affinity Publisher for Ad Creatives

      Affinity Publisher for Basic Book Covers

      Affinity Publisher for Non-Fiction

      DATA ANALYSIS FOR SELF-PUBLISHERS

      M.L. HUMPHREY

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Time Required

      What To Track

      Profit and Loss

      Visualize Your Data

      Ad Spend as a Percent of Revenue

      Profit Margin

      Series Sellthrough

      Customer Value: Simple Version

      Customer Value: More Complex Version

      Pricing Scenarios and Income Projections

      Conclusion

      About the Author

      Copyright

      INTRODUCTION

      I sat down the other day to edit a book I'd published in 2017 called Excel for Self-Publishers that I'd unpublished earlier this year (2020) because there was information in there that was no longer relevant due to changes at Amazon and a few platforms disappearing. I was stuck on starting the next novel and I figured it would be a day or two of effort and then I'd get back to the novel once I gave myself time to figure out how this new fantasy world worked.

      But I got about a third of the way through the book and realized that I didn't want to republish it. Because it was not what authors needed to know.

      I love Microsoft Excel, don't get me wrong, I use it for most of my quick data analysis. But I realized that what I wanted to tell authors wasn't really about using Excel. That's the tool I use but you could, if you really wanted, use pen and paper.

      What I wanted to share with authors were the concepts behind that analysis. I wanted to tell authors about how I approach writing as a business. Because for me personally when I stepped back and started thinking about my writing as a business was when I started to make actual money from it.

      I have an MBA from one of the top business schools in the world (Wharton) and yet when I first started self-publishing I wasn't using what I'd learned there at all. I was listening to people who told me to write a bunch of short erotica and throw it out there and then some magical fairy dust would be sprinkled on my books and they'd suddenly take off and I'd make millions. Or the ones who said you just have to write three books in a series and it'll somehow happen. Readers will just find you and it will all go great from there.

      (Now that number is something like five books in a series and it'll take off. Kind of a problem if you like to write trilogies like I do.)

      I listened to those people for about three years. And I made some money. I was profitable. But it wasn't money to write home about.

      Only when I sat down and started thinking of my writing as a business did I start to make slow but steady progress.

      I started to actually advertise. Not just a $5 why not promo here or there, but actual considered, planned advertising. I realized looking at those business lessons that I needed a way to get my product in front of my potential readers.

      And I only continued to use the advertisers that worked for me and made me money.

      I learned AMS ads because they let me sell my books consistently at full-price. That also helped me realize that some of my books have a bigger audience than others. And some will sell at one price point but not another.

      All books are not created equal. Different genres sell differently. Different lengths sell differently. Some books do well in KU, some don't. I learned that I had to tailor my approach for each title I published.

      Does that mean I'm perfect now and making millions? No. I still make mistakes. And I can have all the data in the world and still make a less-than-optimal choice. (Like writing this book.)

      According to my data analysis I should be writing billionaire romance. I'm not.

      Data is not a panacea. We're all still human with flaws that can't be easily overcome even when we know what they are.

      But I've done better because of data analysis. Because I chose to start looking at my writing and my writing performance with an expectation that I should make a profit and enough of one to pay my bills.

      It took me a lot of try, fail, and try again to make progress in this business.

      The key was that I didn't keep doing the same thing without looking at my results. I didn't run an ad and think, Okay. Done. I said, Hey, I ran this ad for these three days. This is how I was doing before. Did anything change when I ran that ad? Or after? Did that ad cost me money or did it make me money? And then I adjusted accordingly.

      That's what you need to do to improve. You need to try something, assess what happened, and then adjust and try again. And you need to be using the right metrics when you do so.

      Self-publishers love to talk about how many books they've sold. And trust me, I do it too. I just hit 50,000 paid sales and it was a big moment for me.

      But sales are not the metric you want to use to run a business.

      Maybe you're wondering why not. I mean, sales, right?

      Well, let's do a quick example here. Let's take Random Author A and let's look at a couple scenarios where that author has sold 50,000 copies. (Paid. Because some people like to throw their freebies in there, too, and yeah, no. Freebies have their place but they are not paid sales.)

      If Random Author A sold those 50,000 books at 99 cents, that's going to

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