Indie book sales analysis: Q1 report 2026

Look at me, giving it all the Q1 malarkey. Sounds like a proper business report from a pin-stripe suit wearing finance guru. Rest assured, it isn’t and I’m not.

I’m just a humble author keeping close tabs on book sales and freebie giveaways, hoping I can uncover some nuggets that can help boost sales and indie author visibility for me and anyone else who’s interested. And I’m actually waiting to put the winter wardrobe away and get into the short and t-shirt combo until October. Why is it still so cold here in the UK?

Manual, no AI

I’m doing all this book sales analysis stuff manually using my brain and a calculator, which should come as no surprise when you see the anti-AI nature of a few of my most recent books. And I’ve only been gathering info and stats since Jan 2025, so I’ve a fairly small sample size to draw from, but it’s growing all the time.

My indie book sales in 2026 are up

And this post is about general sales levels in 2026 so far, to see if indie book sales are on the rise or the slide.

When compared to Q1 (January, February and March) 2025, the news is that SALES ARE UP!!!

That’s good news for my wallet, of course. And hopefully, this is a trend that’s reflected in sales for other indie authors.

My sales are up by a whopping 120% vs this time last year.

Not bragging about book sales BY THE WAY

But hold on. Before you all go thinking that this is arrogance coming from an indie author, my advertising budget on Amazon and BookBub is significantly up as well. And I’m sad to report that BookBub – once such a reliable source of advertising related sales - is not performing at all well. Don’t know why. Is anyone else experiencing a drop off in Book Bub effectiveness?

More indie book sales info to come

Coming up, I’ll be looking at which days of the week, dates of the month, and months of the year 2026 have been the best (and the worst) for book sales so far…

In the meantime, why not join the growing number of people giving a Jon Lymon novel a try!