Sales of a Backlist Christmas Novel

A while back I mentioned how I’d been keeping track of weekly sales of my Christmas YA novel, FLOPPING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND, over the past year to give y’all a peek into what sales can look like in a category that has the potential to be perennial. The time has come to take a look at those numbers and see if the holiday season creates a big boost in sales when November 1st finally comes around after your Christmas titles have been laying dormant for most of the year.

In short, the answer is no, the Christmas season didn’t see a huge jump in sales for FLOPPING. But, there was a small boost, and there are a few things to keep in mind with my numbers in particular before we dive in:

*I’m a mid-list author, meaning I don’t have a huge following that’s spreading the word about FLOPPING all over the internet at Christmastime which could bring more readers to the novel. I imagine many of the adult Christmas-themed novels on the bestseller lists this year from big name authors will be sure backlist bets for years to come.

*FLOPPING was not a huge runaway success in 2024 when it came out.

*This is a gay YA book at a time when there is less promo/investment in gay YA. This is not to call anybody out by any means, but just to state an observation that many of us are making. (This is for another post, but this is part of the reason why I won’t be writing YA anymore, at least for the foreseeable future)

*I didn’t make any social media posts about FLOPPING on my own this year because I’m a firm believer that, for the most part, it’s content from readers, not authors, that has an impact on sales, doubly so for backlist titles (there are too many commas in that sentence). I did repost any FLOPPING mention that I was tagged in on Instagram and TikTok.

*These sales are for hardcover only, as a paperback version has not been printed, and I won’t know e-book numbers until royalty statements this spring.

Now, let’s look at sales together, in three-month chunks (I find that we don’t use the word “chunks” enough):

Week 1 (Nov. 12-16, 2024): 316 copies sold

Week 2 (Nov. 17-23): 120

Week 3 (Nov. 24-30): 150

Week 4 (Dec. 1-7): 117

Week 5 (Dec. 8-14): 98

Week 6 (Dec. 15-21): 89

Week 7 (Dec. 22-28): 120

Week 8 (Dec. 29-Jan. 4, 2025): 95

Week 9 (Jan. 5-11): 55

Week 10 (Jan. 12-18): 42

Week 11 (Jan. 19-25): 46

Week 12 (Jan. 26-Feb. 1): 29

Here I don’t think it’s helpful to go into the nitty gritty of copies sold because they were basically the same each week, plus or minus a handful of copies. The average in this time was about 16 copies sold a week.

Sales continued to dip and the average per week sales in this time was 7.5 copies.

Here’s where we see an interesting blip that has nothing to do with the holidays. Barnes & Noble had a big sale during this time, and FLOPPING was included. I’m pretty sure it was a 50% off all hardcovers sale, or it might have been a 50% off select titles sale, but either way, it was well publicized online and in-store. The first four weeks of this chunk saw sales of 34, 52, 45, and 37 copies before jumping down to an average of 8.5 copies sold per week. Heck, maybe that 1 copy jump in the average sales over the previous chunk of time was people getting in their fall cozies and getting excited for the holidays coming up!

Here is where we do see a bit of a jump from the non-holiday time average, but it still doesn’t match the sales and excitement of a 50% off sale in late summer (interesting to note the price can get readers more pumped for a holiday book than whether the time of purchase is near the holiday itself).

Week 53 (Nov. 9-15, 2025): 21

Week 54 (Nov. 16-22): 32

Week 55 (Nov. 23-29): 21

Week 56 (Nov. 30-Dec. 6): 23

Week 57 (Dec. 7-13): 8

Week 58 (Dec. 14-20): 20

Week 59 (Dec. 21-27): 13

Week 60 (Dec. 28-Jan. 3, 2026): 19

Week 61 (Jan. 4-10): 12

Week 62 (Jan. 11-17): 5

So, was there an increase over how many copies FLOPPING was selling in the middle of the year? Yeah, about 2-3 times as many copies. But I wouldn’t say it was enough to be like, “Wow, I’m raking it in at Christmas every year!” When royalties come out in March, I’m going to pay close attention to seeing if those numbers seem different from what was reported to BookScan (if they are, I’ll be sure to let you know), but I have a feeling these are about the numbers I can expect (if not less) as each year goes by. It’s the same pattern I see with my Valentine’s Day picture book, PORCUPINE CUPID, where I always have more sales around Valentine’s, as would be expected, but those sales are still very modest. In fact, I just checked, and as of last week, PORCUPINE sold a whopping 3 copies, but that’s a huge increase over the average of 0 copies sold per week which goes as far back as October. Things are looking up!

So, do I think sales of a holiday book increase around the holiday your book is about? Yes. Does that mean those sales are runaway sales every year when that holiday rolls around? No. I think it all depends on author popularity/how big the reception of the book was at its initial release. This is not at all to persuade people not to write holiday fare. In fact, what will hopefully become my adult debut is another Christmas novel! I fucking love that holiday and that’s all there is to it, and writing should be about writing what we love. After all, how else am I going to become the Mariah Carey of the gay holiday novel without writing Christmas books?! Being in the holiday spirit is more than worth the smaller sales, and just because one book might be small now doesn’t mean another book can’t be a big hit in the future. I’ll be sure to ask Santa for bestseller status 🎅🏻

Feel free to put any questions you have in the comments!

Until next time!

JJ

A brief note: In fun news, I’m feeling so inspired lately and writing a lot, which feels great! This means that I’m going to have to put The Vent—where authors give us an inside look into their latest books—on hold for a bit, so you won’t be seeing those anymore. But I’m still definitely doing anonymous vents from folks who have anything publishing related they need to get off their chest in a safe and friendly environment. That’s how the Ventorship got started, and I’d love to keep that going. ❤️ So, with that said…

If you’d like to anonymously vent about anything author/writing related, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject: VENTORSHIP. I’ll give you my take in a post, and we’ll crowdsource author opinions in the comments. You’ll remain anonymous, and any haters will be thrown overboard. Ultimately, I think you’re going to be buoyed up by author love and support as we realize we really are all in the same boat 🛳️

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