December 28, 2011

It has been a very interesting few days over Christmas for the Jessica Daniel series.

On Christmas Eve, Locked In broke the 100,000 sales mark – a feat I’m still pretty stunned by. It managed those numbers in just five months.

The follow-up titles are also going well.

I have spoken to some fellow authors over the past few days and can say with as much surety as I can that Locked In is the fastest-selling indie book of 2011 in the UK. It isn’t the highest-selling – that belongs to Stephen Leather‘s The Basement – which sold more copies over the full 12 months – but I’m pretty certain it’s the quickest-selling.

After that, Locked In spent most of Christmas Day and Boxing Day at number two in the Kindle chart and number three in the Waterstones chart. It had a record sales day on Christmas Day itself, selling around a week’s worth of copies in 12 hours.

What was most interesting for me is how the sequels performed.

On 25 December, Vigilante was outsold by Locked In by a margin of nearly 10:1. This was perhaps to be expected because people with their brand-new Kindles were looking to try something different and because Locked In only costs 98p.

As you would expect after the Christmas Day high, Locked In sold fewer copies on 26 December – but sales of Vigilante and The Woman In Black actually increased.

On 26 December, Vigilante sold a third more copies than it did on Christmas Day itself, while The Woman In Black was up by 20 per cent.

I think that’s a pretty decent indication that people who bought the first book on 25 December were happy enough to buy the sequel(s) the following day.

On 27 December, Locked In sold fewer again – but Vigilante and The Woman In Black remained steady.

In all, it has been a pretty astonishing 2011. This time last year, I was in a different job than I am now (I’m not a full-time author) and trying to figure out what I might want to do with myself having turned 30. Now… well I guess I still don’t really know but things have certainly changed.

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Thanks for all of your support.
Kerry