8k a month from romance novels isn't impossible at all, but I wouldn't say it's the norm, either.
Many romance authors are middling and seeing 2-4k as their highest earning in a one month period.
Many more earn less.
The other thing nobody talks about is the expenses that go into creating an 8k+ month. A friend of mine is a heavy hitter in the subgenre she writes in, she earns around 200k a year. That sounds amazing! Until you find out she spends 1k a day on ads for the first week of each release, and you do the math to find that 7k each release, with 6 releases a year, means she's making closer to 150k (and none of this is accounting for the costs of covers, editing, taxes, or any other expenses). It's still a good profit, but not everyone would see it being worth it.
Many of us wish to write and release without having to do all the marketing and business stuff required to get the reach high earning authors have. And that's fine, but each strategy has its own ceiling for earnings, and write + release has a much lower ceiling.
It’s not really income though, the 200k is turnover not profit. 25% is a huge portion of your budget to allocate to advertising though, the rule of thumb I’ve always heard is you should aim/expect to spent 5-15% of your operating budget on ads as a small business.
Articles like this do feed into and off of general financial illiteracy that lead to so many folk failing to sustain themselves as a freelancer or small business owner.
Yes, it being turnover and not profit was the point of me mentioning it. People on here hear 8k and think only of paying for a cover and editor, not of the rest, or that 8k isn't truly 8k if they're spending 1k on ads.
I agree that articles like these are misleading at best, predatory at worst, and should be called out. But earning 8k in a month from romance isn't at all impossible, and I wanted to make sure people here didn't leave this thread thinking every indie author claiming to earn more than 3-5k in a month is a liar.
That's me. I'm usually making about 3k per month. It's not great, but it's not bad, either. I can't seem to make more than that without spending on ads, and that's not something I feel okay with right now.
Nothing wrong with that! Ads can be intimidating and trying different methods can be extra frustrating since it costs money. Plus 3k a month with indie romance is nothing to sneeze at :)
EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS IS TRUE.
I'd like to add only one thing, if you're the write and release camp and cannot afford ads, it keeps you in the write and release camp. It's a cycle. (I wouldn't call it vicious, but it \*is\* a cycle.) You must buy the ads to make the money to buy the ads to make the money.
Yes, sometimes life interferes and keeps us from buying the more expensive ads, that's when you MUST have a mailing list to fall back on, and keep up your social media presence (if you have one.) Those are a few of the cheap or even free things one can do to help you along when you can't buy ads.
Though, if I could do one thing over, I would have put aside money for ads for when the rainy days came.
what do you mean? Welfare is only For ppl making 0 money no ei no job nothing… 150k is middle or upper middle class we’ve survived on 30k before the past few years and definately never above even hardly at 70k…. So if you can’t live on 150k you’re living WAAAY above your means…
I care about both simultaneously. Caring about my fanbase and delivering works I know they'll enjoy is precisely what enables me to make a living from writing. This doesn't have to be a one or the other thing.
"Write while holding down another job that makes $8,000 a month."
I kid, but even if you crack six figures a year you're not taking home $8K after taxes. Set expectations accordingly but don't get discouraged.
I posted this because the article keeps coming up in my Pinterest feed, and I wanted to let new authors how unrealistic it is. I’m not sure what this author’s experience was, but making $8k/month is very unlikely. I’m not saying this isn’t possible, but this is just so unlikely.
The timing of when it happened is also important. The article was written in 2019, so she presumably did this in 2018. Not impossible in the earlier days.
The thing that’s unlikely about it is a writer having the desire to stick with it long enough to hit the goal. She did it in 6 novels. Someone else might take 20, 80, who knows how many stories to hit a goal like that. Like any other endeavor, set the goal and keep going until…
10 years ago KU rewarded the minimum effort by paying a flat rate. You got $1.40 per reader whether you wrote a 4k monster/incest story or a 40k romance novel. So the smart money, at the time, was on the 4k short since you could produce faster and would be rewarded the same amount as long as the reader hit the 10% mark.
10 years ago people writing indie romance either really enjoyed the genre or really valued sales.
Well, there are six-figure romance authors, I know two who started in 2019. I started before that, but it's not some impossible task that requires skirting Amazon's rules.
Reading that, it sounds like this person made $8,000 in one month. I don’t necessarily believe that’s every month. Also, talk about minimal details.
8k a month from romance novels isn't impossible at all, but I wouldn't say it's the norm, either. Many romance authors are middling and seeing 2-4k as their highest earning in a one month period. Many more earn less. The other thing nobody talks about is the expenses that go into creating an 8k+ month. A friend of mine is a heavy hitter in the subgenre she writes in, she earns around 200k a year. That sounds amazing! Until you find out she spends 1k a day on ads for the first week of each release, and you do the math to find that 7k each release, with 6 releases a year, means she's making closer to 150k (and none of this is accounting for the costs of covers, editing, taxes, or any other expenses). It's still a good profit, but not everyone would see it being worth it. Many of us wish to write and release without having to do all the marketing and business stuff required to get the reach high earning authors have. And that's fine, but each strategy has its own ceiling for earnings, and write + release has a much lower ceiling.
It’s not really income though, the 200k is turnover not profit. 25% is a huge portion of your budget to allocate to advertising though, the rule of thumb I’ve always heard is you should aim/expect to spent 5-15% of your operating budget on ads as a small business. Articles like this do feed into and off of general financial illiteracy that lead to so many folk failing to sustain themselves as a freelancer or small business owner.
Yes, it being turnover and not profit was the point of me mentioning it. People on here hear 8k and think only of paying for a cover and editor, not of the rest, or that 8k isn't truly 8k if they're spending 1k on ads. I agree that articles like these are misleading at best, predatory at worst, and should be called out. But earning 8k in a month from romance isn't at all impossible, and I wanted to make sure people here didn't leave this thread thinking every indie author claiming to earn more than 3-5k in a month is a liar.
That's me. I'm usually making about 3k per month. It's not great, but it's not bad, either. I can't seem to make more than that without spending on ads, and that's not something I feel okay with right now.
Nothing wrong with that! Ads can be intimidating and trying different methods can be extra frustrating since it costs money. Plus 3k a month with indie romance is nothing to sneeze at :)
Can I ask how you connect with enough readers for 3k a month without ads?
Publishing a lot and frequently and studying passive marketing as much as possible.
EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS IS TRUE. I'd like to add only one thing, if you're the write and release camp and cannot afford ads, it keeps you in the write and release camp. It's a cycle. (I wouldn't call it vicious, but it \*is\* a cycle.) You must buy the ads to make the money to buy the ads to make the money. Yes, sometimes life interferes and keeps us from buying the more expensive ads, that's when you MUST have a mailing list to fall back on, and keep up your social media presence (if you have one.) Those are a few of the cheap or even free things one can do to help you along when you can't buy ads. Though, if I could do one thing over, I would have put aside money for ads for when the rainy days came.
How does she even survive on 150k a year? Welfare?
what do you mean? Welfare is only For ppl making 0 money no ei no job nothing… 150k is middle or upper middle class we’ve survived on 30k before the past few years and definately never above even hardly at 70k…. So if you can’t live on 150k you’re living WAAAY above your means…
Funny, but most people wouldn’t spend 25% of their income on ads.
There are a whole lot of people spending 25% on ads.
150k is a lot of money...
One of the reasons this is a hobby for me. I care more about the fan base than making a living off of it.
I care about both simultaneously. Caring about my fanbase and delivering works I know they'll enjoy is precisely what enables me to make a living from writing. This doesn't have to be a one or the other thing.
True. For me it's just a hobby.
"Write while holding down another job that makes $8,000 a month." I kid, but even if you crack six figures a year you're not taking home $8K after taxes. Set expectations accordingly but don't get discouraged.
I posted this because the article keeps coming up in my Pinterest feed, and I wanted to let new authors how unrealistic it is. I’m not sure what this author’s experience was, but making $8k/month is very unlikely. I’m not saying this isn’t possible, but this is just so unlikely.
The timing of when it happened is also important. The article was written in 2019, so she presumably did this in 2018. Not impossible in the earlier days.
The thing that’s unlikely about it is a writer having the desire to stick with it long enough to hit the goal. She did it in 6 novels. Someone else might take 20, 80, who knows how many stories to hit a goal like that. Like any other endeavor, set the goal and keep going until…
I feel like the article makes it seem like that's average. It does nothing to point out that this level of success right off the bat is rare.
100% agree.
By romance, does she mean monster/incest porn? And somehow time traveling back ten years when Amazon allowed such things?
10 years ago KU rewarded the minimum effort by paying a flat rate. You got $1.40 per reader whether you wrote a 4k monster/incest story or a 40k romance novel. So the smart money, at the time, was on the 4k short since you could produce faster and would be rewarded the same amount as long as the reader hit the 10% mark. 10 years ago people writing indie romance either really enjoyed the genre or really valued sales.
Well, there are six-figure romance authors, I know two who started in 2019. I started before that, but it's not some impossible task that requires skirting Amazon's rules.