The Tattered Scroll News, Reviews, & Opinions on Fantasy and Espionage Books

Amazon Sales Report: December 2011

I haven't written one of these Amazon reports in a couple of months, so I thought it was time. In case you are new, I try to be honest and report back to you about the money this blog makes from the affiliate sales..the commission this blog gets when you buy something on Amazon after clicking one of the Amazon links. December was a huge month in terms of number of things sold, and commission. I did make around $100 sometime in the early spring of 2011, but that was mostly due to someone buying 4 Kindles. I normally sell around 50 items (mostly books) per month. Since most of the sales are book deals, the 6% commission on 0.99-2.99 isn't very much. But last month, you guys bought 179 items from these links. Crazy! That resulted in a commission (Amazon gift card) of $98.66. You actually bought $1,406.97 worth of stuff. As always...thanks for that! I'll get that credit at the end of February, and will use it to buy Kindle books (probably the Wheel of Time books) and some MP3 albums (but mostly books).

I find it interesting to note what people buy. I get a surprising amount of sales from non books...meaning you click a link, visit a book page, decide to visit some other Amazon pages, and buy something totally different. But because you first got to Amazon from my link, this blog still gets credit. Just thought I would explain that in case some of you didn't know how the referrals worked. Also..while I do see what is purchased each day, I have NO way of knowing who bought each item. There is no personal info passed on to affiliates from Amazon as far as I know. With all that said, here are some interesting things from December sales:

Total Items sold: 179
Kindle Books: 128!
Print Books: 29
DVD's: 5
Toys: 3
Video Games: 1
Misc items sold: heated electric mattress pad, canon all-in-one printer, 14kt gold pearl necklace, plus other random stuff...
Highest cost item: the mattress pad ($124.99)
highest commission: mattress pad ($8.75)

Most popular books sold:
Demonstorm (6 copies)
Den of Thieves (7)
Graceling (5)
Leviathan Wakes (6)
Phoenix Rising (4)
Sandman Slim (5)
Black Prism (6)
The Company Man (3)
White Tiger (3)

Thanks again for the support, and glad you like the book deals and new releases posts...and still follow the blog despite the lack of frequent book reviews (though I hope to be at least a little better about reviewing this year than I was in 2011). And just to re-iterate, this report isn't to boast or anything of that sort. I just feel like I should let you know what this blog receives from your purchases.

Amazon Sales Report: June & July 2011

If you are new here, I try to recap my Amazon sales each month (the things bought via the links on my blog)..I figure since you guys do the buying, you should know what I am making from it. And that I am still using all of the proceeds to buy kindle books that I will read and discuss on the blog. Most months the "revenue" from this blog is $20-$30, but every once in awhile it is more. And note that I cannot tell who buys what, so the sales are totally anonymous. All I know was that product X was purchased on a certain date. That is it. Anyway, on with the summary of interesting items from the last 2 months.

JUNE:
Total Items Sold: 113
Total Amazon Revenue: $842.12 (this is what Amazon gets)
Total Money for my blog: $59.83 (this is my "commission" based on the sales above)
Physical books sold: 11
DVD's sold: 4
Music (cd & mp3 albums): 3
Video Games: 2
Miscellaneous Items: 3
Kindle Devices: 1 (this makes me the most, $9.73 for this sale alone)
Kinde eBooks: 79 (there was a Kindle sale on many books this month, leading to the increased sales)
Sold the most copies of: The Dervish House (9 copies), Into The Dark Lands (5..still on sale for $0.99), Armageddon's Children (3..still on sale for $1.99), everything else sold 1 or 2 copies each.

JULY:
Total Items Sold: 118
Total Amazon Revenue: $1519.19
Total money for my blog: $103.43 (yeah, this was a record month. by a lot.)
Physical books sold: 18
Shoes: 1 (Asics running shoes)
Miscellaneous items: 5
Kindle Devices: 6 (this accounted for the largest chunk of sales, and was $68 of the $103 the blog made last month. 5 of these sold on a single day. I was pretty shocked when I checked my sales and saw it jump by $50 in just one day. Thanks to the person(s) who bought these!)
Kindle eBooks: 88
Sold the most copies of: Empire in Black and Gold (12 copies), Child of Fire (8...still on sale for $0.99), Blood of Ambrose (6), Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack (5), Dawnthief (4), Elfsorrow (4), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (4)
Total Pyr Kindle books sold: 31

So that is my earnings summary for the last 2 months. I don't expect to repeat those level of sales, especially the abnormal number of Kindle devices sold in July. That was just crazy luck. I'm expecting my earnings to drop back to the $30 dollar level, but want to thank everyone who bought stuff via the links. I should get the June earnings at the end of this month (I think), and the July earnings at the end of September. This money will help keep me reading for quite awhile! And as I said at the top of this post, I use this money strictly for kindle books and the occasional MP3 album. In other words, I put the blog earnings back into the blog.