Publicly sharing my poetry booklet’s downloads & sales stats

It’s been two months since I released Seven uni-verses as a celebratory poetry booklet on humanity’s exploration of space. Some friends and readers have been curious about how it has fared, especially considering my unusual open access approach that also rejects traditional publishing norms. And so for public curiosity as well as for transparency on this experiment, I share below how many times my booklet has been downloaded and/or ordered as of January 20. Note that these numbers represent the lower limit since tracking every single copy of a globally available multi-format and multi-platform book is impossible.

• My own website: 1206
• Ebook platforms: 172
• Paperback: 61
• Audiobook: 89
• Internet Archive & Libraries: 54

So that’s about 1600 copies in total. I don’t know how you’d interpret these numbers but personally I’m happy with it, especially when considering my no-nonsense approach to publishing as an indie author:

• The booklet is self-published, meaning there were no external publisher payments or promotions. Tools-wise, I used a combination of Apple Pages, isbn.gov.in, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, Pothi, Google Play Books, Internet Archive, and several more services. These turned out to be the right ones for me only after trying too many services. You’re welcome.
• I did not do any paid ads or sponsored placements anywhere.
• There were only a couple of announcements on my blog & newsletter, which gladly drove most of the downloads & sales as intended—a good sign for future booklets I want to publish.
• I did do a few social media posts (ugh) but which very gladly did not bear much fruit. Instead, sharing the news directly with many friends I thought might be interested worked better and led to interesting conversations as well. I like this because it’s not as much promoting as it’s sharing and answering the curiosities of people about the publishing process.
• I vehemently avoided exclusive distribution of my booklet on any platform, especially Amazon, even if it meant lower visibility. I care more about diverse global access and my long-term independence as a writer. Among other issues, going Amazon-exclusive would’ve meant I wouldn’t be able to provide my booklet digitally for free at all.
• I did not ask any media outlet, journalist, or creator to talk about my booklet, especially out of editorial ethical considerations. Obviously, I did not approach any stupid influencers either; this one doesn’t need any considerations.
• Marketing departments of some publishing platforms I used either reached out or emailed lengthy ads to ask me to promote my booklet in various paid ways, so as to upsell, all of which I rejected. I’d be more interested if they simply did organic shares of some sort for all authors using their platform by default.
• Lastly, I did not promote the booklet at any bookstore with an author event or such. Although this isn’t an inorganic method, and so I’d actually love to engage with real readers at some point if a store is genuinely interested.

If you’re one of the people who has read my verses, thank you. I’d certainly like it if you wished to share your organic thoughts about the poems on any book platform, like this review on Goodreads. Or best, blog about it. If you’ve not yet picked up a copy of my space poetry, you can get one here:

It’s free digitally and priced minimally in print because I wanted my verses to be globally accessible. As such, I don’t make money from the any sales directly and instead rely on reader donations to support all my space writing.

What’s next?

Figuring out how to independently publish my poetry on platforms globally in multiple formats with non-exclusive open access has laid a solid logistical foundation for me to publish future booklets & books for public good. These numbers will now help me streamline my publishing process. I’m very excited for this next phase of my career: Merge the worlds of blogs & books to bring affordable and accessible writing on important but undercovered space exploration themes to people all around the world. I aim to publish at least one booklet later this year for which you can get notified via Email or RSS.