385 copies sold. That's not counting personal orders and private walk-in purchases.
So in reality I have around 30 copies left.
I still have 10 copies for people who paid but have not picked up locally.
I don’t understand, people would just give money and not care about the goods.
Retail therapy is real.

Books for Cooks are happy to take my books.
They don't do consignments, so they will just buy the books at $21-22 outright from me to cover their side of costs. So I'm making like .. $3-4 per book? I mean, that's the reality of having your books in a real shop. It’s not hard, you just need to print them.

And it’s good for exposure… I guess? I actually don't need it since 60% of my sale are international and I’m nearing the end of the race. Having said that, always good to support local businesses. I’ll stock 5 with them.

So ok, I have 25+ copies left.

Talking about international sales, here's what I've learned from Sendle so far.

They don't just come and pick everything up from you as I fantasized.
They have separate pick-ups for International and domestic parcels so you need to sort them out yourself.
And within domestic pick-ups, there's Couriers Please (usually metro) and Fastway (usually regional).

During my first wave of 200+ orders I had to stay home and wait for 3 pickups.
It was like stage 4 lockdown all over again.

Nowadays, whenever I see a Fastway label I would simply cancel the order, and use Auspost instead.
That's how much I distrust Fastway. They never showed up and pulled the ‘no one was at home’ trick. I hope the folks at Sendle actually realise Fastway is destroying their brand.

When the Couriers Please orders aren't that many, I would simply input the orders myself and drop off the parcels at the nearest newsagent.

I now have a 'texting' relationship with the international pick up guy. So whenever possible he'd give me a time frame rather than me waiting at home the whole day. If I can't make it, I leave the stash in a secret place.

I have a packing system now.
Print labels, stick them on the envelopes.
Sign the book, spray the book, confirm order number to the labels, pack and seal the envelopes. Internationals to the right; domestic to the left.
Chika was impressed.

What Chika was not impressed with, was how I screwed up the shipping fees.

I made the book to weigh under 250g, tier-one limit for shipping. What I didn’t factor in, was the weight of the padded envelopes. So all my international shipping has gone over the limit by 50g or something and Sendle has been sending me these ‘adjustment charges’ and I’ve been losing $5-6 per international sale because of … incompetence.

Self-publishing is liberating.
Being creative is so cool.
Woo. (sobs)

Upside, photos of my first pick up session is back.
It’s great to be shooting film again and to put faces on all the digital orders.
I have definitely missed some people, what’s worse, some I had forgotten their names.
So I’m also awkwardly sending emails asking ‘ did you remember I took a photo of you and were you wearing glasses ..? ‘
12 months ago that would’ve been creepy but hey, I’m a good-selling author now remember?
(sobs)

Double Upside:
Reviews have been great.
And they’re not even from my mum.