It has officially been 1 year since the release of my debut novel, Motus. To celebrate, Motus is on sale for $0.99 across all ebook retailers until the 14^th of October, 2026!

To acknowledge this milestone, I wanted to discuss sales numbers and reviews.

Year One Expectations.

It’s hard to say what I expected from my debut. I comfortably straddled the line between pessimist and optimist, with wholly unrealistic dream and nightmare scenarios taking up roughly equal parts of my brain. But somewhere between these extremes, I had a comfortable range of expectations that would neither make me cry nor throw a massive celebration.

For book sales, I read once that a debut novel averages a total of 200 sales in its first year. The range, however, is huge, with the average self-published book never selling more than a 100 in its lifetime, and the average traditionally published book selling 500-1000 in a year. Genre also plays a major role, with sci-fi selling ~7x fewer books than romance, and hard sci-if being one of the least popular genres of sci-fi. A book sales goal of 200 in the first year, therefore, would place Motus solidly in the range of successful debut for an indie sci-fi author.

For reviews, I really wanted to pass the 20 review milestone on Goodreads, which is the threshold at which Amazon will begin to show the Goodreads rating beside the Amazon rating on the book’s sales page. This, as many of you know, is rather difficult, as only about 1-5% or readers will leave a rating or review. Beyond that, I was hoping for >4.5 stars, for no other reason than this is the rating I prefer when buying a book.

I also had no intention of sinking any money into advertisements or other promotions. That money, I reasoned, would be far more effective once I had a larger backlist of books to sell. My marketing team was just going to be me on social media. As someone who generally dislikes social media, I planned to rely heavily on word of mouth.

Year One Reality.

I worked hard to arrange the release of Motus in all formats (ebook, print, and audio) on the same day (October 9^th, 2025). These formats were also open to pre-order. I even ran a small preorder campaign to encourage orders in exchange for book swag. Before release day, I had a total of 22 preorders.

The first week of release saw another 59 books sold across all formats. From then on, things slowed down significantly.

Over the course of the next 12 months, I only averaged 10 sales per month. By sales channel, I sold a total of 73 books on Amazon, 70 audiobooks on Audible, and 42 on Draft2Digital (i.e., all other retailers), and 14 at an in-person event (Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem, NC), for a grand total of 199 books. That means I wrapped up my first year just 1 book away from my goal. Granted about 25 of these were sold at a discount or as a free book promotion. I’m also not counting the 10 or so books I gave away during a preorder campaign or donating to libraries and independent bookstores.

Still, these sales consistently placed Motus under a million for Amazon best seller rank, with rankings reaching in the top 50-500 of the colonization, dystopian, space exploration, and hard science fiction categories at one point or another.

Amazon was my best sales channel, but I’m not quite ready to go KU exclusive and lose out on the quarter of my sales coming from distributors outside of Amazon. I might reassess this in the future, however, as I did go several months without a single sale outside of Amazon or Audible.

By far my most profitable sales channel was a single in-person event. I would normally only receive about $2 for a print book sale through Draft2Digital, but that increases to about $12 per print book sold in person, and that’s if you don’t mark up the price a bit. It’s no wonder so many authors are scrambling to attend as many book events as possible. At the Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem, I was able to recover all table, book, and shipping costs just by selling 20 books.

I likely had a boost of about 5 book sales from my release day post and collaboration with Isaac Author, the Youtuber and president of the National Space Society. His video, which plugged my book at the end, earned over 31k views over the course of the year. Motus was also mentioned by a science colleague of mine on CNBC, which earned me another 5-10 sales or so in April. Other than that, most of my sales came by word of mouth and my sporadic activity on Threads (@p.a.kramer) and Facebook.

Am I in the black on Motus? Not even close. I spent nearly $4,500 on an editor, cover, and audiobook narrator. I’ll need over 1000 more sales before I break even. Indie publishing is certainly an investment. While there are certainly ways to publish without these costs, I wanted my debut to stand out for its quality. The only way I will turn a profit is by continuing to write, grow my backlist, and pull in more readers.

But did people like it?

YES! It currently sits at 4.8 stars on both Goodreads and Amazon, with 21 and 15 reviews, respectively. This far exceeded my expectations and hopes. Here’s a handful of truncated reviews:

Reviews.

P.A.’s strength comes through in his science. It’s obvious he’s probably some sort of genius just out here flinging science around like all of our little brains will simply absorb it. And hey, maybe he’s right. It was slightly overwhelming at points but I do feel a bit smarter after reading this book, and a lot more curious.

~Penelope_Dawn on Amazon

This book has everything I want in science fiction. It is hard sci-fi in the best way possible: the science is completely real, interesting, and never made me suspend my disbelief, but the characters and story get just as much attention and are even more compelling. There is growth, humor, strong female characters, reflection, even a little romance…it’s pretty rare for a book to hit all the marks.

~Laney on Amazon

Well thought out, unique and plausible hard science fiction. One of the best I’ve read this year.

~William L. on Amazon

I really enjoyed reading this book. It has a fascinating and well-realized setting with just the right amount of attention to the technological and scientific details. It has a people long stratified into castes, while their own pasts are lost in a swirling mystery. The story is political as much as it is adventurous, as the protagonists willingly or not end up heading up a fight for justice for the downtrodden. The characters and relationships are well-realized, the plot and pacing are addictive, and the writing itself is great.

~Zach Hewitt on Goodreads

I’ve got to be honest, I cannot believe that this is a debut novel. I’m probably one of the few readers who has picked up and put down Wool multiple times. I’ve even started and stopped the Silo TV series. But along comes Motus which has a similar vibe and it just hits in such a different way…

…This is a novel that not only delivers character chemistry, but it explores political greed and tackles the loss of origin through a cutoff society. I like how Kramer shows how those in power can easily hide the past. It’s a dystopian trope that feels all too real in our world today.

I also really liked that the scientific side doesn’t overtake the story. It’s delivered in a well articulated manner throughout the novel in fitting areas. No info dump that drags.

~Permanently_Booked on Goodreads

This is a contender for my favourite book of the year. The idea of humans living underground until they forgot their origins was really inventive, and the world building was excellent.

The characters are so good. I loved Corun and Cassi, the main protagonists, as well as Corun’s mum. Everyone is very realistic and I enjoyed how they were unmistakably humans – despite the adaptations they’ve made to live underground and the technologies they have, nothing is unrecognisably advanced and so the reader is constantly questioning why they ended up retreating underground. All questions are answered in a very satisfying way and there is an absolutely excellent plot twist towards the end. Looking back I think you could guess it from hints, but that makes things even more fun in my opinion.

The story is complete in itself but I think there’s room for more if the author chooses. I’d love to spend more time with these characters, so I hope another book will be forthcoming

~Amelia on Goodreads

Will there be a sequel?

Motus was written to be a standalone with series potential. But with so many reviewers mentioning they want a sequel, I find myself eager to oblige. I have already outlined the bulk of Book 2 and started writing a few scenes. I’m very pleased with how it’s coming together, though it will likely be another 1-2 years before it’s released.

Year Two Goals.

For Motus’ second year, I aspire to reach 50 reviews. This means I’ll have to sell just as many books if not more, but with new releases coming out and more in-person events planned, I’m hoping to draw in far more readers.

If you’re interested in a free copy of Motus in exchange for an honest review, let me know.

eBook Promotion.

To celebrate Motus’ birthday, I am running a promotion across all digital ebook retailers, including Amazon. Between now and October 14^th, Motus will only be $0.99. With any luck, I will get another sale before the end of the day and reach my 200-book sales goal!

Until next time, write well and science hard.