First of all: My goals with these stats posts are not to complain, but to have a concrete record for myself about what’s working, what’s not, what I can learn, and what strategies to take in the future. Maybe it’ll be useful for someone else out there, too, which is why I post them. Maybe not; no two books are alike. But let’s not leap to the worst possible assumptions of my motives, okay? Like in general. Anyone’s motives, while we’re at it.
I appreciate all the work that went into organizing this sale; thanks to author Tessa Hastjarjanto for putting it together, to all the authors for cross-promoting it, and to the readers who bought any books from it.
The Basics:
This was a three-day sale, from Sat.-Mon. Aug. 23-25, 2025. It was open to indie/self-published and small-press fiction under the genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror. Over 300 books were included in the sale, at price points of $2 or less (or free). This is the longest promo I’ve joined so far, and the one with the broadest scope (not one subgenre, but all of specfic).
Past stats posts:
Context:
I am a small-time self-published author with 3 novels (soon to be 4!) and 8 novellas out; all but one of the novellas are bundled into two omnibuses everywhere but Amazon, so in effect I have five books in circulation. Three are in my “old series”, which wasn’t part of this sale; they came out between 2014 (not a typo) and 2022. Two are in my “new series”, with omnibus releases in 2023 and 2025.
I write queer fantasy, and narrowing it down further than that gets kind of hairy. It’s not epic, it’s not dark, it’s not romantasy, it’s not litRPG. It’s closer to cozy fantasy than any other subgenre, but it falls outside a lot of people’s definitions for that. One of my pen names tends toward character-focused, emotionally intense but not overly dark stories; the other pen name is for a lighthearted isekai (“reincarnated in a fantasy world” version) series that pushes back a little on some of the major isekai tropes, but isn’t a straight-up deconstruction or parody. The latter series is the one involved in this sale.
I only average $50 of royalties in months without a promotion, roughly a sale or two a day. Any sales are good sales for me, basically. I’m not a full-time author, so I’m not in peril either way. The group promos that I’ve done before (see above, and also all the Cozy the Day Away promos in 2024) have netted me about 100 sales each, or what I’d usually make in 3 months! (Not in royalties, however, because the books were on sale.)
Since March 2025, my books are available wide in ebook and paperback. “Wide” can mean a lot of things; for me that’s Amazon, everything Draft2Digital offers, and itch.io. This sale only concerned the ebook.
Overall impressions:
I really liked how the main sale website was laid out. Randomized order with every reload, so that nobody ends up at the bottom of the page all the time. Cover, availability (buttons for Amazon, Direct, and Other), short description. Filters for availability, subgenre, and representation; my only quibble was that it wasn’t too clear that selecting multiple filters functioned as “and” not “or”. (Or maybe I just missed it!) Still, the filters worked fine once I realized that.
As a Reader:
I enjoyed browsing this one as a reader, and I only have one quibble. I’m not even sure where to direct this quibble. Several books listed “direct” or “other” links that only went to Amazon, or to authors’/indie presses’ websites that said the ebook was only on Amazon. In other words, not “direct” or “other” at all.
I don’t buy from Amazon, although I understand why people stay there, and I have my own books there. The link run-around was unnecessary, though. Just admit you’re only on Amazon. Most readers don’t care and will happily buy there. Maybe there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line, or maybe they figured so few people eschew Amazon that they don’t care about misleading us. Whatever it was, it irked me, and I still didn’t buy their books.
All that said, though, I bought several books from the sale. I didn’t buy the itch.io bundles because I already owned a number of the books in them; instead I picked individual books. I also ran into a lot of books that I’d forgotten I already owned from previous itch.io bundles, so if you were in the sale and on itch and your download numbers exceed your sales numbers… that was the “oh yeah, I already have this” factor. My bad.
What I Ran and How I Ran It:
I entered the first omnibus volume of my novella series, How I Became a Therapist in Another World. This is a 4-novella compilation, about 160k words altogether: fantasy-novel length, but not a giant doorstop. Its current everyday price is $4.99 in ebook; I set it to $0.99 (converted to local currencies) for this sale. That price was the same across all locations and stores, except for itch.io, where it was $0.94 (they do sales by percent off rather than set amounts).
I did not join the itch.io bundles for this sale for two reasons. First, every bundle I’m in vastly underperforms compared to the average: bundles usually net at least $1k total revenue from what I’ve seen, but the bundles I’ve been in top out around $300. I would not like this to happen to anyone else, so I am not joining any more bundles. I joke that I’m cursed, but the actual situation is that I don’t know what’s causing it, and it’s easy enough to just not join any more bundles and thereby solve the problem.
Second, itch does not pay me. This is not a universal problem, from what I’ve read. Many authors laud it as the one and only place to buy indie books, so I’m assuming they’re getting paid normally. I’ve even gotten payouts from itch before. But that has stopped, without any rationale given (I do not write erotica, so the “usual” excuse, unjustified at best, doesn’t apply here anyway). My “pay me what I’m owed please” request sits in limbo, and seemingly always will.
Edit to update, 8/28/25: In an uncharacteristic moment of confidence, I sent a (hopefully) polite email to itch.io’s support about this. They said they just had too much of a backlog and put my payment through. I hate to be a squeaky wheel, but it worked in this instance. So I have been paid.
(returning to the original post)
Between these two factors, I did not join the bundles. It’s nothing against them; I hope they did well! I put my book on sale individually instead. I assume I won’t get paid for those sales, either, so I guess you’re welcome for the free money, itch.io!
Promotion:
In large part because I was on vacation while this entire sale happened, I didn’t put as much effort as I probably should have into promotion. I sent out a newsletter notice on the first day, posted on Bluesky a couple of times a day, and reposted a few of others’ promos. I don’t have a huge reach to begin with, but I did what I could at the time.
How It Went:
I counted sales from the day before the sale as well, because my prices were at the same level for an extra buffer day on either end. This only accounted for one sale on Amazon, so it wasn’t a huge factor. Stats for Draft2Digital took an extra day to update, which is typical.
| Amazon | Draft2Digital | Itch | Total | |
| Copies | 29 | 11 (8 Kobo,1 Apple, 2 Smashwords) | 11 | 51 |
| Royalties (before fees) | $10.17 | $6.51 | $15.70 | $32.38 |
“Wow, those royalties are low” = Welcome, you must either be not an author, or an author who’s always been Amazon-exclusive. 😉 Dropping a price below $1.99 US on Amazon caps your royalties at 30%. So for a 99c book, I make about 33c. There’s a special arrangement that Amazon offers its Kindle Unlimited / Zon-exclusive books that pays out the regular 70% royalties during a sale, but only in the US and UK, and only if you don’t put it at a sale price anywhere else in the world.
My spouse, whose book was still in KU during the sale, ran into this problem. He didn’t want to shaft the entire world outside the US and UK, and so dropped his prices in other regions too. This bumped his royalties down to 30% despite the sweetheart deal from Amazon.
This pisses me off, personally, but lots of people stake their livelihoods on Amazon and swear by it. It’s all very subjective, and no strategy or store is one-size-fits-all.
As for itch’s royalties being higher than Amazon’s with a third as many copies sold — that goes a long way to explain why so many authors love it so much. The rates are much, much higher, and some readers optionally tip even during sales. If itch sees fit to pay you (yes, I’m very salty), it’s a great situation.
Other sales:
It might have been a coincidence or a mistake, but someone bought the entire Therapist series outside the sale, in individual novella form, on Amazon (the only place that has the individual novellas). I hope they don’t get mad about this, because I never said the individual novellas were on sale. If it was intentional, that’s awesome. I’m just worried I’m about to get review bombed / yelled at, so I can’t enjoy it. 😉
Over on itch.io, also possibly a coincidence, I sold a copy of the second omnibus volume for this series as well as a preorder for my upcoming novel, which is connected to my other series.
Takeaways:
I don’t regret entering this sale — it was well-organized and very well-publicized, the listings looked great, and the site was easy to browse even with so many titles. However (and this is more neutral than it sounds at first), it’s worth noting that I got about half as much results than I did with a more targeted genre group promotion, even when my book is on the periphery of that genre. See my posts linked above for more on what I mean by “on the periphery.”
This seems reasonable to me: a subgenre promo has a more targeted audience, and you can be reasonably sure that everyone visiting it is interested in that subgenre, whether or not your specific book appeals to them. With a more general sale, there’s that layer, plus the “is this person even remotely interested in my subgenre” layer. Someone might come there looking just for horror or science fiction, and all I have is fantasy. Out of every 100 visitors, 100 of them are interested in cozy fantasy in a cozy fantasy sale; in a general specfic sale, the number of readers interested in your subgenre might be 75 or it might be 12. You’re casting a wider net, and so it’s more variable.
That’s fantastic on the readers’ end, speaking as a reader — especially for readers who read across genres/subgenres. I know I picked up fantasy and sf this time (can’t recall if I got any horror). And I think there is an advantage to it on the author end, too: it’s a plus to get my book in front of a wider audience, and most crucially, a new audience. Even if most people skimmed past it while looking for something else, there’s a chance it might catch the eye of someone who hasn’t seen it before. In a more focused sale, where I’ve been entering the same few books repeatedly (I’m not a fast writer!), there’s a chance I’ve already tapped out the audience.
I suppose the overall takeaway for me is that a wide-net, large sale is worth the time and can have nice results — even at half the sales I got from the other promos, that’s still a month’s worth of sales in a few days! — but to manage my own expectations.
Regardless, I am thankful for the chance to participate, and for all of the readers who gave my book a shot. I hope you enjoy it.
Later Edits: Updated numbers all around.
A Bluesky post, reposted by the sale organizer after the sale, suggests that thousands of sales is a more typical result. I’m glad for all the authors! Obviously I did not reach that, but I’m happy with the results I got in any case.