Hi , welcome back to my author newsletter with alien peens, monsters, magic, and the readers who love them!
My newest release Her Alien Delegate broke even during its first 30 days of launch! That is the best birthday present I could ask for!
It came out August 26th, and it's now September 15th!
Launch costs achieved in 21 DAYS!
Yes, my birthday is September. I'm a Virgo monster. You might have guessed from my obsession with spreadsheets, and indie author data hording.
I love seeing tangible statistics to see my progress since launching my alien romances.
If you've been with me from the beginning, maybe you can recall one of my author milestones was to be able to have all of my book launches break even on launch costs within a month of releasing them, and that I predicted that if I could maintain that goal for a year that I'd be able to pay off my startup costs by the end of 2026, and finally have an author business that does more than break even, but pays me for my writing time... progress towards being a paid full-time author.
Based on my previous spreadsheets, I'm a little behind on being able to meet my goals of breaking even on all of my author start-up costs. But with another book over the hump of launch costs, that's another book working towards paying off author costs accumulated on marketing and services since starting Sky Robert in January 2023 with my first launched book Jewel of the Alien Bandit!
Because of my previous launch of Her Alien Insurgent I was nervous about the launch of Her Alien Delegate. I spent $900 on launching Her Alien Insurgent and have only received half of that back after over a year of being published.
On Average, Her Alien Insurgent brings in around $2 to $10 a month, meaning there is usually at least one new reader a month checking it out, but sometimes around 5 to 10 readers. (It's around $1 per reader in KU, and around $2 per reader who grabs the ebook.) It's been stuck at 39 reviews on Amazon for a while now and 74 reviews on Goodreads.
As one of my highest rated books at 4.8 star average, it's sad to see not many people reading it. It's one of my favorite books, but because it's better to read it after reading Her Alien Prince first, it doesn't get read as often as the rest of my books because of that.
Her Alien Warrior was my first book to breakeven within launch month! I got so excited, that I spent money on character art for it, thinking that it would pay for itself in a month as well, and instead ended up taking another 17 months to break even on the cost of the character art, only now breaking even on costs end of August 2025!
Her Alien Savior is my highest performing book, having made the most out of all of my books. It broke even in May 2024 - 10 months after launch
Her Alien Prince broke even 12 months after launch.
Really, my addiction to character art was also a reason for being behind on paying back launch costs, which is why only Her Alien Prince, Her Alien Starbreaker, and Her Alien Warrior have special character art, because I still need to pay off my author costs before commissioning new human artwork.
Her Alien Delegate is my second book to breakeven on launch costs within a month, and unfortunately, I won't be able to spend more money on character art like I did last time with Her Alien Warrior, because I really need to save up whatever profit Her Alien Delegate gets from now on towards editing costs for the next launch.
But, once Her Alien Captor is launched, I think a really nice thank you to everyone supporting Her Alien Delegate would be to create some character art that can replace the current book cover to more accurately represent the aliens in the book with the tentacle hair and adornments. The current book cover was purchased as a premade alien cover on sale to save on costs.
In fact, Her Alien Delegate is one of my most frugal launches yet. Because of not breaking even on Her Alien Insurgent yet, I had to get very creative on limiting my launch costs. I was very careful on my spending to only pay for editing, a pre-made plus a flash sale cover art that kind of gets the gist of the book. My largest expense was editing costs, and I wasn't able to have a custom cover.
Thank you to everyone who supported Her Alien Delegate by reading it during launch month, because of you, it has been my best launch yet, breaking even on launch costs within 30 days, reaching 45+ reviews on Amazon, 70+ reviews on Goodreads and a 4.39 star average! Over 50,000+ pages read in Kindle Unlimited in 30 days. Over 100+ ebooks purchased during launch month.
I was concerned Her Alien Delegate would flop based on pre-order results, but was pleasantly surprised by the turn out after official launch day. We went from only having 37 preorders on Amazon and 34 preorders from my author store for a total of 71 preorders, which my goal was to have around 100, so I was disheartened on launch day to see results that were less than Her Alien Insurgent, especially since Her Alien Insurgent has yet to break even on launch costs. I feared that similar results were bound to happen and I'd have another book that wasn't helping me reach my author goals of doing this as a career and not simply a hobby.
Thankfully, after launch, I was proven wrong, and I have a new surge of hope that my alien romances aren't a dwindling interest but are still steadily working towards being self-sufficient.
Her Alien Delegate is officially launched and now working towards paying off my author startup costs, including my author logo, website design, hosting, author services, and giveaway costs.
My motivation has been invigorated, and I'm hard at work on the next book!
If you love alien romances, please do share with readers you think would share that love with you. You are the reason indie authors share their worlds, otherwise, the stories would simply remain on our digital hard drives for our own pleasure.
If you haven't already, please do check out Her Alien Delegate available in Kindle Unlimited! https://books.steviemarie.com/aliendelegate
What Readers are Saying about my newest release Her Alien Delegate!
If you like tentacles, an absurd amount of alien seed, and caring aliens that worship their human mate then this is the book for you!
https://books.steviemarie.com/aliendelegate
Her mating contract is sold. Her future and freedom uncertain. Until an alien leader scours the universe to keep her!
- Protective partners
- Bonding rituals
- Fated mates
- Reverse harem/polyamorous (3 mates) FMMM
- Tentacles
- Breeding
I've been sick with Covid for a while, but I think I'm on the upswing now, and getting back into writing with the kids back in school. I'll have more progress updates soon.
You can check out my romantasy reads by trying out Taking Medusa Freesies!
https://marketplace.curios.com/collections/0x9a5eb1ec72538888934fd82bbb1a768612a93c21
One of my goals this year is to get Her Alien Insurgent up to 50 ratings/reviews on Amazon! It's got 39 ratings on Amazon now, and 74 ratings on Goodreads! With a 4.8 average rating!
Thank you for being part of my author journey and supporting my human-made worlds.
xoxo
Sky
Standalone plot with spice adventures of fated mates, space vampires, knotting, and bonds that will last beyond the stars! All available in Kindle Unlimited!
Check out all books by Sky Robert here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BNXSFHZ4/allbooks
Discover all books by Sky Robert:
1) Jewel of the Alien Bandit 2) Her Alien Exchange 3) Her Alien Prince 4) Her Alien Savior 5) Her Alien Warrior 6) Her Alien Insurgent 7) Her Alien Starbreaker 8) TKManAteHer -Short Erotic Terminator Sex Bot Romance 9) Her Alien Delegate Upcoming books: Her Alien Captor and Her Alien Nectar
Books by S.M. McCoy
1) Taking Medusa 2) Breaking Fate Upcoming: Reaping Olympus, Goblin's Treasure
All of my books are standalone alien romances, each a separate complete romance, read in any order, and with their interconnected plots, each book layers and you find out more about the world the more you read. Have questions from one book? Read another one, and you're sure to find more answers, and perhaps more questions as the universe unravels. That's what I love about sci-fi adventures set in the same universe, there's so much room to play!
Happy Reading and Thank you for being part of my author journey,
xoxo
Sky
LINKS
Check out all books by Sky Robert here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BNXSFHZ4/allbooks
Follow me on Instagram here: Stevie McCoy (@authorsteviemarie) • Instagram photos and videos
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