Nerdology 101: Growth and Progress
Hi, how are you today, my beloved nerds? Welcome back to Nerdology 101, the official blog on the official website of indie author Maria Levato. Yup, that’s right, I’m kinds of official and stuff. Lol.
This week, I wanted to provide my readers (and any other inquiring minds) with a transparent update regarding my growth and progress as an indie author with specific regards to my newest release, The Fate of Angels and Demons, a dark romantasy book about a priestess who falls in love with the demon king fated to kill her family. So, let’s get into some Nerdology!
In this post, you’ll find the following sections:
Influencer Request Program and Reviews
Social Media
Events & Bookstores
Sales
Influencer Request Program and Reviews
For those who follow me on Instagram (@malevato6), TikTok (@authormarialevato), or Bluesky (@marialevato.com), you’ve probably seen me talk about my influencer request program. If not, though, here’s a brief recap: Back in April 2026 when The Fate of Angels and Demons came out, I decided to throw an open-ended line out for physical promotional/review copies. As an indie author, doing an ARC program with physical copies was too expensive because I couldn’t afford to print and ship physicals in bulk. So, I ran an e-ARC program. This did give me some yield, but not nearly enough to get the sort of momentum I needed. Knowing this, I decided to play the long game. Each month since, I’ve sent out 2-3 physical copies (usually 1 or 2 paperbacks and 1 special edition) to influencers who expressed their interest via the form I set up for responses.
So far, this program has been an overwhelming success. To date, I’ve sent 10 copies total. Of those 10, 4 have posted on their social media accounts, 1 has posted a review on Goodreads, and 2 have both posted on socials and reviewed on Goodreads (these 2 aren’t included in the count for those who did one or the other). This makes for a 7 out of 10 outright yield. Of the 3 leftover copies that haven’t yielded a response, 1 just got delivered yesterday, one is still shipping, and one has been with the person long enough that I’ve marked it no yield.
Ultimately, even if the 2 people who just got their copies or are still waiting on them don’t post, a 70% yield is above and beyond my goals for this program. It will be continuing for The Fate of Angels and Demons, as well as for future releases, if these numbers remain the way they are. Naturally, I’m also considering a mini-ARC program for physical copies, specifically for those who both posted and reviewed the book they got into the influencer request program (in addition to my normal e-ARC program, not in place of) because the upfront investment is likely to have a high return. It’s something I can afford since it won’t be a massive number of physical books and it’ll keep momentum building long-term if these influencers recieve, post about, read, and review more than one of my books.
Social Media
As for my personal social media accounts, I’ve seen some growth there lately. As expected, my recent announcement posts for my solo in-store signing at The New Romantics, as well as my attending author posts for multi-author book conventions like Love Among the Pages and Smoke & Embers, have a lot to do with that. On top of those, I’ve been trying to post more reels (anxious introvert, it’s hard for me), which gets me more reach. Finally, there’s the boost I get from the influencers participating in the request program tagging me in posts. All in all, I’m around 975 followers on Bluesky, 449 on Instagram, and 61 on TikTok—which makes sense since I created that account in April when my career goals finally started to outweigh my fear of the clock app. Point being, this is an increase in following. Views and engagement are also way up. My IG is at 5300 views in the last 30 days and 122 engagements, which is a massive increase from the 30 days prior. 80.3% of those views are coming from non-followers, most likely due to the collaboration posts I did for the event announcements I mentioned.
Events and Bookstores
Now, onto the part that actually covers my events and space in physical bookstores. This year, 4 events total have or will happened. In April, I have a local author fair called Bound & Bottled. In August, I have the in-store signing at The New Romantics in Orlando, FL. For September, I have Love Among the Pages in London, ON, CA. In October, I have Smoke & Embers in Thunder Bay, ON, CA. Prior to this year, I’ve only ever done one convention (it was one of the ones that turned out to be a disaster on the part of the event coordinators). I have done several other signings, author fairs, and other solo or small events though. Needless to say, getting some more substantial events like this is a big thing. The New Romantics, while still a solo signing, is a popular bookstore with a massive following that really helps my visibility. Love Among the Pages has some major names attending it, like the SmashCast and a ton of popular voice actors who played some of the most beloved characters in wide world of audiobooks. These are great associations for me to have on the visibility front.
Further, The Fate of Angels and Demons is in a number of online and physical bookstores. Libreria Books in North Carolina, The Tipsy Bookmark (online and physical pop-up), Bethany Beach Books in Delaware, and obviously, The New Romantics in Flordia have all picked it up. This gives me a pretty good range of locations and a lot of traction. Then, of course, to add to it, I distribute wide through Ingram so most major online retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, etc. also have it on their websites. It’s also on Hoopla and Libby for the library readers. More recently, it’s also become available on BookVault Shop and Beventi Wholesale.
Sales
So far, I have sold $205 USD (retail price accumulated) worth of books with $126 being profit that goes to me (the royalties) (Note: Proportions this high are unusual. I would NOT have made over half of the total in “royalties” if the majority of my sales weren’t directly purchased from me. I make about $2 on retailer sales. Event and direct sales have a much higher profit margin). These are just my most up-to-date numbers. Sales reports are SLOW to update (anywhere from 7 to 30 days depending on the sales avenue) and of course bookstores that are getting copies from me directly don’t let me know every time they sell a book, they just tell me when the stock is low, it’s time to pay me (quarterly, usually), or when asked for the occassional status report. Even so, I’d consider this pretty good for this book. It came out April 1st, so it’s only been about 3.5 months, which averages me at roughly $58 per month for in retail price and $36 per month in profit. In terms of number of copies sold, that’s a little over 10 copies per month (total 36 copies sold). This puts me on track to beat the infamous “most self-published books don’t sell more than 100 copies” stat in 10 months and get into the “above average for an indie author” zone by month 11, which should be followed by another new release shortly thereafter (that’s not an official release announcement. Let’s call it foreshadowing).
The hope is that between the events, influencer posts and reviews, continued reinvestment in growth, and new projects, I’ll be able to continue growing and that $36 per month will one day have a zero or two on the end of it. I have other streams of income to sustain me until then, though.
In summary, I think this book is doing pretty well. I have several more projects in the work too. In fact, I’m about to go work on one of them now. So, check back next Friday for another segement of Nerdology 101. Until then, have a nerdy week!
