In April I got a bit distracted. Still in self-publishing, but I decided to collaborate with some friends to launch a book in the Italian market. It took quite a lot of my free time, and I am not sure if it was worth it. It’s still early to say if this bet will pay off in the long term.

I also improved a bit some of my previous books. When I initially wrote them I didn’t pay much attention to the interior graphics, and I wasn’t really proud of what I made. Now, I can say they are really high-quality books, both the content and the formatting. I will always aim at publishing high-quality books that can get very good reviews.

My main income at this point is still coming from freelancing. But my goal is to publish one book every month between now and the end of the year, and I am starting to build a system that allows me to publish books faster than before. For now, I have managed to publish 4 books in 5 months. Let’s see if I can get to 12.

Data Freelance

Paused.

Data Internships

Paused.

xTopics

Paused.

Soccrbets

Paused.

Freelancing

Still working approximately 10 days per month.

Publishing

Most of my efforts and money in April were spent launching the latest puzzle book that I published. It’s a book in an emerging niche, a puzzle type that came out last year, and it’s getting more and more traction online. There is only one book on the market right now, with another couple coming before the end of the year from the same author. My goal was to take a slice of the pie, which I think is very big. I lost money in the first month, around $150 taking into account ads, but I started to get to profitability in the last week of April, and the initial data that I have for May confirms the trend. On the flip side, I am getting some 1-star reviews from unhappy readers. They find some of the puzzles not clear, and I need to do something about it. Apart from it, I think this is a book that has a great potential, and could potentially be part of a series.

My Quantum Physics book is unexpectedly performing very well. Especially the Kindle version is selling a few copies each day, and brought around $200 net. All other books are still profitable, around $100 on average. I will keep running ads for them as long as they bring profit.

The cashflow

Time to look at how much money I made/lost this month (without freelancing).

I am back in the green. Still not where I want to be and probably still not profitable this year, considering the book production costs. But I am confident that I can get back the money in the long run.

As long as I launch books I don’t expect to make a huge profit. In fact, I expect to break even or even lose a bit of money. From what I have heard from other publishers, this is what the first year usually looks like. Of course, once you have a few books selling and bringing royalties each month, the effect compounds and you will get bigger margins. Or at least it’s what I hope.

Let’s see how it goes. As I said, I plan to publish a few more books this year, and we’ll see where I am in a few months. Numbers in May are already looking better, with fewer costs and more revenue. For the next books I will definitely keep production costs low and that will improve my margins significantly.