I looked through my sales reports for 2022 the other day, and I found good news and bad news. Because human nature, let’s look at the bad news first: Five of my 22 books did not sell a single copy last year, including Full: Rockets, Bells & Poetry, which was my top seller in 2021, the year of its release. Yeeps!
In case you’d like to help them start 2023 on a more positive note, my big losers of 2022 are:
Full: A short book that’s really three teeny-tiny books in one — thoughts about creativity, encouraging thoughts, and thoughts about freedom and overcoming tyranny. You know, thoughts like you find here daily, because those are my three main themes. Published in 2021, so maybe it was the proverbial flash in the pan.
Gladness is Infectious: Published on the last day of 2020, this is subtitled “A Book of Celebrations,” my attempt to lift spirits in dreary times. Maybe nobody wanted a book with “Infectious” in its title after 2020.
A Scream of Consciousness: My little tome about living in the moment and staying alive and awake and aware. Published in 2011, so maybe it has faded away.
Men in War (Roger Mifflin Collection #2): This semi-autobiographical novel by Andreas Latzko, based on his experiences in The Great War, is one of the most chilling antiwar books I’ve ever read. When I decided to create editions of the great books mentioned in The Haunted Bookshop, this was the first one I wanted to share. “… so damned true that the government suppressed it.”
Letters to the Citizens of the United States by Thomas Paine, written by the great patriot during the first decade of the 19th century and featuring some themes that still divide Americans today. I have sold a handful of these books every year since 2010, so I’m hoping 2022 was an anomaly.
Are you curious how the books that DID sell fared? I’m glad you asked; here’s my personal Top 10 for 2022:
1. Echoes of Freedom Past
2. It’s Going to Be All Right
3. The Demi-Gods, by James Stephens (Mifflin #5)
4t. The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesteron (Mifflin #4)
4t. The Story of My Heart, by Richard Jefferies (Mifflin #6)
6t. Air Monster, by Edwin Green
6t. The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley (Mifflin #1)
8t. Resistance to Civil Government, by Henry David Thoreau
8t. Refuse to Be Afraid (10th Anniversary Edition)
10t. Make Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes
10t. 24 flashes
10t. How to Play A Blue Guitar
10t. A Bridge at Crossroads
10t. The Imaginary Bomb
10t. The Imaginary Revolution
10t. Trivia, by Logan Pearsall Smith (Mifflin #3)
10t. A Little Volume of Secrets
If you clicked on more than one of the links, you’ve noticed they’re mostly from Walmart. For whatever reason, Walmart.com is the only e-tailer that actually gives you nearly every one of the books I’ve written or edited all in one place. That’s one nifty search engine!