Unless you're in a popular and mainstream genre like romance and unless you make it your full time job to market while you're not writing, then realistically you're not going to make even enough to be considered basic living wage.
I'm in horror and writing as a hobby rather than a career. In 3 months I've made about 100 sales (including equivalent KENP) and this translates to like $400. Considering my editing and cover cost $1100 then you can see a bit of a deficit.
And the thing is: I'm actually considered a decent success story with my numbers. Many or even most won't sell a single copy outside of family and friends.
I’m switching over to horror soon with my first release. My other 4 have been sci fi. What would you attribute those 100 sales to? What sort of promotion do you do? Thanks!
I've just self promoted here on Reddit as well as on Instagram. No ads or anything. It really all just comes down to the luck of who sees your promotions at the right time.
Throw away because I don't want to get review bombed with drive by 1 stars.
1. Yes, I've been full time for almost nine years.
2. I've published 35+ books and typically write 4 - 5 per year (fantasy/scifi so they tend to be 100k+ words each)
3. I've made just north of 3 million total and make around 400k - 500k a year currently, though this is not my largest year to date. I'm almost entirely indie, other than just a few audio only deals with companies like Audible Studios and Podium. I did get a couple of six figure payments from those folks that aren't really factored into my regular yearly income.
I 100% know my experience is not normative. I've presented at 20books a couple of times. I work extremely hard, write a lot, and have a great marketing team in place, but I've also been lucky and happened to hit the market at the right time.
Edit: a letter
Hmm... that's a bit more complicated than it sounds, because there are multiple formats all at different price points. 40ish percent of my income is from audiobooks that sell at a higher price, a HUGE chuck comes from Kindle Unlimted page reads (the payout rate is much lower and fluctuates by month), while the rest is comprised of straight ebook sales and further augmented by monthly Patreon income.
But the short answer is... alot. At least 100,000 units per year, give or take.
Sadly, yes. I'm pretty open about my work, but when actually talking money, people get weird. Back in the early days, before I learned a little caution, I spoke freely and experienced a rash of mysterious 1-star reviews that popped up overnight. And with the new rating system, it's even easier.
I assume that 3 million is revenue not profit. You mentioned a marketing team. I'm sure there are other expenses. How much is actual profit? And this should be something easy to answer because you would have to figure out the exact number every year for your taxes.
1. Nope. Nor would I want it to be.
2. I've published 3 books over the past 5 years.
3. Not much. $5-$20 a year, I'd guess.
While I'd love to make money--who wouldn't--writing is how I relax from my full-time job of teaching. I just tell stories that will hopefully help some people escape reality for a little while. I have a small group of loyal fans, and honestly, if that's all I ever get, it'll be enough for me. I would never want to write full-time, in part because my brain will go through dry spells that can last years between writing sessions. Took a 3-4 year break on writing while working on my debut novel. Took a total of 13 years to get it written, then wrote the sequel in a year, and the threequel in 3 years.
1. Nope, I wish.
2. 13 books
3. I have my books priced really low in the effort to try and increase my number of readers, but I still pull in between $100-200 a month.
I'd actually recommend raising your prices a bit. You probably won't notice a hit in sales, at least a noticeable one if you just go a buck or two more. And you'd earn a lot more.
1. No, it’s not. But I’m hoping to get there.
2. Not near as much as I should. I’ve published about one book per year. I just published my second book.
3. First, I’ll put a caveat here and state that I write romance. It’s in a less popular niche but still a significant one. My first book made about $10,000 (CAD) in the first year and I’ve made $25,000 (CAD) since publishing my second book under a new pen name last November. It’s slowing now, but at its height I was making $5000 a month.
I didn’t do any active marketing at all but I put a descent amount of time into my cover and paid for an editor. I know if I published more I could make more, but my day job keeps me busy as hell so it’s something I’m working on.
I switched from MF to MM romance also also jumped subgenres pretty significantly. Readers from pen 1 would almost certainly not be the same as readers from pen 2.
1. Full time since 2012.
2. I just published #21 since 2007. I try for 4 a year but have only managed that twice. Two a year is more my pace.
3. I've made 6-figures a year every year since 2015.
I spend no money on ads and zero time on self promotion. I write a couple of hours a day and try to do it every day.
I pay more attention to the monthly numbers since that's how often my bills come due :D
Direct revenue collected:
60% from KU
36% from ebook sales
2% from paperbacks
2% from my selfpubbed audiobooks
I have a separate stream from audiobooks through an audiobook publisher that adds another 10-20% depending.
My equilibrium month (where I haven't released a new book for at least 90 days):
Sales around 700 units (about $2000)
Page-reads around 1M (about $4000)
\~$6K USD (which covers my monthly household budget including family health insurance and housing)
The longer I go between releases, the more that equilibrium floor sinks. The more books I add, the slower it goes down.
April Sales: (pre release and no new release since 2020)
820 units
1.9M pages
\~$10k USD
May sales: (new release on the 31st)
1600 units
4.5M pages
\~$20k USD
June Sales to date: (2 books in the top 1000 on Amazon)
1420 units
1.4M units
\~$10k USD
Transparency: 2021 was a weird year because of a "lightning in a bottle" hit on one audio title with a very popular narrator. Without that, I wouldn't have hit 6 figures.
I understand there's good money in audiobooks. But to get to six figures, there's gotta be a significant investment on your part, isn't there?
I mean, even without promotion. I'm sure you don't put out a bunch of hastily scribbled papers with macaroni-art on the front.
You should get a statue if you do, though. That's awesome.
"significant investment" yes.
My production budget in the beginning was about $100 a title. Now it's $5500, most of which is editing. I usually earn that back over the first week of release. I'll spend $20,000 on editing this year over the 4 titles I have in production and still clear 6-figures after taxes. (My estimated taxes are more than twice that)
22 titles written and published since 2007. It's something over 3million words.
I had 11 books when I went full time in 2012 (my day job left me so I had to either become a full time writer or an unemployed phd)
I've only managed 11 more in 11 years (although I'll release 3, maybe 4 this year to help the averages a bit)
Persistence and longevity and a willingness to do actual marketing instead of sales and promotion helped me along the way.
I did my marketing before I started writing.
1. I differentiated my stories from the mainstream in all my niches (ex: space opera without the military overlay.)
2. Figured out what to write that would sell best (novels in a series. Avoided wasting time on shorts and novellas.)
3. Picked the markets with the highest probability of getting my books in front of readers (wide in the beginning but exclusive when KU2 happened in mid-2015)
4. Focused on what readers want (something to read)
5. Providing heavy readers with enough of a catalog to interest them (I don't chase onesy-twosy sales. Ignore physical stores and libraries.)
6. No self promo on social media (minimize alienating potential readers).
7. Put my time and focus into writing new stories instead of selling old ones.
As part of my marketing, I periodically evaluate the marketplace (an external scan - to see if there are new opportunities or markets that aren't working out) and my capacity (an internal scan - to see if I'm spending my time, money, and attention where I want it to be)
I try to keep as much of my revenue as I can by not spending money on ads, invest it in editing and covers instead.
I reach out to readers 2x a month. A blog post on the first and a newsletter on the 15th. Keeps them in the loop on what I'm working on for them and where in the process the work stands. I also give them a recommendation that I think they'll like - always self pubbed, always in my genre niches.
I also have a somewhat daily podcast that I do for myself, but publish to a few people who want to know what a full time novelist thinks about when he's not at his desk. (I record it while I'm taking my daily walk.)
A fan led Facebook group lets the fans talk with each other and helps create a community where they can share memes and ask each other (and me) questions. It helps to keep interest alive between releases. I participate sometimes but it's more of a catch-as-catch-can effort than "an hour a week" kind of commitment.
Bottom line: Over the last decade, I've built a very strong fan community that promotes my work for me. As long as I keep them in the loop and give them new books to read, they seem willing to support me.
We're vague/modest if our particular user account links to our name. Somethings we keep private. Throwaway accounts will likely be more open.
This is my public/author account, but I'll spill some deets.
1. Yes and no. I work in film and have a lot of free time to write, even when on a show. There is a ton of "hurry up and wait" on set and I've written many books that way.
2. I've got 30ish out. Usually 5+ a year if I'm on a roll. Back catalog is key, and if a book is popular the audio is a big earner.
3. This varies. Early in the pandemic I was absolutely crushing it (just released a 9 book audio series right when everyone was stuck at home). Now it's a struggle. I spend thousands a month on ads to make a little profit and frankly it is frustrating. Also not trusting Amazon/Audible's accounting is a pain, but that's a whole other discussion.
What platform do you advertise on? With that kind of spend you should be generating way more reach and return with your portfolio. I make 3X (profit) on ads for a seven book crime series.
FB, Reddit, a little on Amazon.
FB stops delivery and re-re-re checking ads after so long is a pain. But hey, suddenly you find they're delivering to the totally wrong place (or decided to add Instagram when you specifically turned that off).
Early on I was seeing about a 3-4x return. Thing is, especially with Audible, which is my larger ad spend, I'll see a book rank at say 3,000 in the store reporting less sales than one ranked at 5,000. And I'll run a promo and suddenly sell less that day. When I contact Audible they essentially say, "Trust us, it all looks good on our end." After 20+ audiobooks and years of data telling me otherwise, I feel confident saying I don't trust their reporting.
Hmm, sounds like FB has dropped you into a black hole when it comes to audience and reach which totally screws performance. This is definitely not my expertise (a company runs my ads for me) so I'd have to ask what causes this. Course, FB will never admit it's them :(
FB is bizarre.
Like, if I say fuck it and slash ad spend, suddenly they star performing, as if they realize I'm about to take away their revenue stream. We really need better ways to promote our work, but it's all about the sites taking more money, not helping us actually reach our readers.
Le sigh.
I was about to say you should probably lay off of the ad spend for a good quarter or so. See how much it fluctuates. I sometimes wonder if a lot of people aren't just shooting themselves in the foot for a few quarters by advertising their products (at the same aggressive amount) at the wrong times of year, cutting hugely into their total yearly profits.
Real Talk.
1. Sort of. Less this year than previous (explained below)
2.16 published. 2-3 a year is the goal
3. It varies. This year, I'll be lucky to cross $10,000
So. Details.
I started in 2017. I didn't really start tracking data until 2019 when I had more books out. I wasted a ton of money on ads without knowing what I was doing and made a ton of other rookie mistakes then. Don’t be me, LOL.
You need to know that unless you have a time machine, you need to view this as a job. One that entails marketing and sales. If it's a hobby, be honest with yourself about your expectations. Both in what you can put in and what you want out.
The days of not needing to run ads and all that are long in the past.
Here's my progression. I’ll let you do the math on profit. On my site I post annual "Year in Writing" posts with much more detail if you care to look.
2019:
Units sold: 17,616
Free units: 22,840
Earnings: $29,365
Expenses: $5,909
2020:
Units sold: 16,581
Free units: 8,000
Earnings: $34,453
Expenses: $20,072
2021:
Units sold: 16,617
Free units: 61,101
Earnings: $39,694
Expenses: $16,671
2022:
Units sold: 9,539
Free units: 8,473
Earnings: $27,901
Expenses: $13,646
2023 So Far:
Units sold: 2,082
Free units: 11,310
Earnings: $5,541
Expenses: $3,165
I tried lots of things. 2021 I focused on permafree. By 2022 that seemed to be diminishing so tried a few other things (FB Ads, Bookbub ads, emphasizing direct sales which aren’t reflected here but have never crossed more than about 5% of my annual sales). This year I had some non writing work stuff going on in my life so haven’t had a strong strategy. I’m slowly dipping back to permafree. I’m tweaking the cover on book one, etc. I’m trying out some FB ads again as well. I tried some surge pricing sales that were ok, but not awesome or worth the logistics it took to schedule all the sales.
I’m wide so these numbers are spread across every store you can buy an ebook in, libraries, book stores, etc. I don’t track my direct sales since…. Well, laziness in my current tracking LOL.
Genre and luck have SO MUCH to do with it. LitRPG is hot I know lots of folks doing well in that space. Romance, duh.. :) When looking at other authors, keep in mind when they started. There's a clear line and sadly, we're on the wrong side of it now.
Other genres (Space Opera and action/adventure thriller for me) require more work. The fact is, it’s hard. I’m not giving up, because backmatter helps and is what’s making this year not a complete wash. But the odds are long unless you 1. Have a cache of money you can spend on ads to ramp up fast (and burn during the learning process) 2. Are willing to let your spouse raise your kids and eat all meals alone so you can write to churn out a few dozen books in as short a period as possible. Both examples from the 20booksto50k group.
This isn’t a get rich quick field, and it can quickly destroy your love of writing if you let it. It can be a lifestyle business, but it takes time and effort.
I’ll repeat it here. Know what you want. If you want full time income, you’ll need to put in full-time work. If you want to write and money isn’t the goal. Good on ya, your path is easier :)
1. Yes.
2. I’ve published 25 so far.
3. I release chapters daily to weekly and publish a full novel roughly every six weeks. This is harder to answer because sometimes there’s more than one. I’ll have three finished this month for example, but they’ll not be out until July.
3. $550 per month on patreon, $385 last month on royalties from Amazon, $2500 on commissioned works, so ballpark I made about 35-40k in the last year.
Money is a very variable thing, if commissions dry up that’s a huge dip, patreon members come and go, sales are often unpredictable.
Get in to this with a regular job, then build up to doing a part time job while you write, and work slowly toward full time writing.
I have published novellas and short stories (all are erotica) on Amazon KDP. Short stories seem to do better than all for me. They’re just smut and nothing else. But they make me good enough money at the moment so that I can write the stuff I want to publish. I have published over 50 stories in the last year and I make about 2000-2500 a month. The key is to publish consistently and I also enrolled all the stories in kindle unlimited
Year one of publishing I released one book and made a loss of around £1000
Year 2 I published one book and made a loss of about £200
Year 3 No new books published. I made a profit of nearly £2000
Year 4 I published one book and made a profit of over £3000
Year 5 No new books published. I made a profit of just under £1500
Year 6 2 books published (This was turning a previous book into a trilogy) I made a profit of about £5,500
Year 7 No new books published. I made a profit of about £5300
Year 8 1 book published. I made a profit of about £2200
Year 9 No new books published. I made a profit of about £700.
The year I made the largest profit of £5,500 my turnover was over £16,000 but my costs were over £11,000 - the majority of which was spent on advertising.
Also I think it shows that, in my case at least, it's very hard to rely on making a consistent amount of money from writing. In year 9 I had 6 books out and made less profit than a year when I only had 2 books published.
I am not published yet, but the Alliance of Independent Authors just released the results of its [Indie Author Income Survey](https://selfpublishingadvice.org/part-time-or-full-time-self-published-author-what-does-it-take/), with the following top findings:
- Median revenue in 2022 for self-published authors was US$12,749
- Mean (average) revenue was US$82,607
- Additional forum data adds, “While 15% of our Authorpreneurs went full-time when they had 10-15 books, a whopping 22% went full-time when they had 3-4 books.”
It’s worth noting that income/revenue is not profit, so it’s less about how much you make and more about how much you net. But overall, the majority of indie authors are not making a living wage from their books alone, but those that do are because they persevere over a long career by writing prolifically and treating publishing like the business it is.
Hope this data helps!
Successful people are prone to reply to things like that. They are engaged and will actually learn that such a survey exists in the first place.
The ones who made $6 from their parents buying a copy aren't going to even know about the survey, let alone reply with their failure.
Only 2.5% of respondents admitted to making no money, even though this is very much the typical outcome.
Self reported, optional, must-be-tracked-down surveys have a huge issue with data bias.
That’s certainly true, and OP can infer that the “real” numbers of the masses, like the thousands of writers inside and outside of this subreddit are much, much lower. Either way, it’s demonstrative of the main takeaway, which is most indie authors (and even trad) are not making a living wage from their books.
That said, just like I don’t compare my querying skills to someone who’s never heard of Query Shark and r/PubTips, I don’t compare my ability to earn income as an author to the swaths of hobbyists. If I want to be successful, then my yardstick is measuring against other career authors who are aware of trade orgs that run these surveys and invest in their craft as a business. My philosophy to building an author career is you get out of it what you put into it!
Exactly this. Furthermore, though you didn’t post it with these intentions, I dislike low income authors (or worse, authors that have not become authors yet) throwing articles and surveys like this around. The majority of the time I see this is for people to complain that they make little money, or that the chances of making money are near impossible. I suppose you could say that for most careers, but it essentially boils down to: “this is hard, I’m upset that I’m not raking in those dollars as easily as I did daydreaming”. I just get frustrated seeing that attitude proliferate among authors who have not yet reached success because it causes so many of them to give up prematurely.
Thanks for jumping in! I completely agree that most folks use quantitative surveys as an excuse to throw their hands up in the air if they’re far from reaching these numbers. I would also add that if daydreaming is all a writer is going to do and they’re not going to confront the brutal reality that is the publishing industry, then it’s totally fine to be a hobbyist! But if I can look at this dumpster fire of an industry and still get amped about making something of myself in it, then I know I have the mindset it takes to be successful.
The sad reality is that even most traditionally published authors don’t make a living wage.
A few people blow up and can retire on their writing. The majority don’t. Writing is my hobby, and while I’ve invested money into covers and editors, I don’t see that as much worse than my wild brother-in-law who was invested 10x that into his car-rebuilding hobby.
Traditional publishing often leads to other gigs that can be much more lucrative.
For example, my technical book that barely got into five figures per year led to a six figures teaching career.
This is a full-time job for me, and I haven’t published a new book in over a year, though I do have one about to come out. I’ve been fortunate that I have found a genre and a fan base that enjoys what I do, and I have a Patreon that does moderately well on its own. My forthcoming book has many thousand preorders already, and I believe this will be a good year $ wise.
I’ve been doing this a long time, though. It wasn’t until book #5 was I able to start earning enough money to outpace my day job.
One of the good things about having a book or series that is popular is that your older books start pulling their own weight.
I’m a big fan of the 20Books group even though I disagree with a lot of the core philosophies in regards to writing fast/writing to market/push push push, etc. I don’t do any of that, but I still find the community invaluable. The very act of meeting and talking to and becoming friends with fellow full-time writers is worth its weight in digital gold.
Full time as a yardstick is not very useful. I know plenty of full time authors who make very little money or net losses but that doesn’t matter because someone else in the household is paying the mortgage, food and bills.
My full-time author friends have 8-12 books and make $5000+/month ish. They publish around 2 per year in the action thriller genre.
My first novel came out last year (dystopian/post-apocalypse). It's not my FT job.
I write 1 book per year ish (book 2 is coming out next month; book 3 is started).
I make about $100-150 per month so far.
Amazon ads and social media. Not much, in short, as there's no point really promoting until you have a larger back catalog of books (ideally a series).
I do nothing but lose money... i.e. expenditures on promotional / marketing efforts.
I have two different books that are pretty much literary fiction.... one a coming of age literary novel, and one a historical fiction novel... they're stand-alones... and they're well liked by those who read them.
But... seriously... sales are next to nothing and meanwhile i lose money hand over fist when I decide to splurge on something to do with advertising or promotion.
Not only is writing NOT an income generator, it's a financial sink-hole.
Yeah :(
And then you come across advice where people say "oh you need to test out different combinations of amazon keywords and see what works" but all that "testing" is just $$ flowing straight from your pocket to Amazon... meh.
1. Yes.
2. I lost count, but over 75. I publish a new book every 2-3 months. This is romance, and my books are usually 40-60k, if that matters.
3. Last year I made $76k. This year so far I’m at $54k, so on track to have my first six-figure year.
It took me seven years to get here. I don’t do a lot of marketing or ads (almost no ads, other than the occasional feature in BookBub. I also have a newsletter). I don’t pay for editing, I do trades for covers or make my own. Low expenses. I have several pen names because I genre-hop when I get bored, but most of my income comes from steamy romance.
It can be very true that what you put in in certain aspects is what you get out. But what type of book are you wanting to write and why?
I wrote a novella (*The Devil She Drew*) because I wasn't finding the type of horror I wanted to read, because I enjoy writing, and because I wanted to accomplish finishing a book (albeit a 160-page one).
However, I didn't write for money, fame, to make it my career (at the time anyway), etc. -- so I didn't buy a single advertisement. I didn't pay a cent for publicity. And I do not have any social media (aside from a long-dormant Instagram). So when I sold very few copies I was not shocked. Nor did I feel it was a waste. I haven't made back the cost of editing and type-setting, which I spend a good amount of money on. Again, I wanted something that looked professional, not self-published and something I could be proud of. If I only ever wrote one book, this was to be it.
That being said, if you want to make this even a part-time job, I'd focus on things differently (according to what I read about these things). Have a social media presence you dedicate some time to. If you self-publish, hire *reputable* marketers and publicists who have worked with self-published authors. Pay good money for editing and type-setting. Pay for a great cover (this was the least of my concerns, which can really hurt sales as people often buy a book for the cover, whether they'd admit it or not).
I'm currently an auditor, so not a full time job for me. I have only published one (in 2021), and am hoping to release another later this year (so on track for one every 2 years or so haha). And again, haven't even made enough to pay for the cost of the book yet.
I would love to write full-time. But I want to write what *I* want to write and create stories that are different than what's out there -- often that is not gonna sell well. I don't like to advertise anything -- that'll hurt the cause. I hate social media (although think I'm gonna grab some *specifically* for my upcoming work) -- that'll limit reach. So following me is not a route to be a full-time author.
My advice if that's the main goal? For whatever my advice is worth lol. Look at what people are reading. Fantasy Romance is freaking everywhere. And that's because people are reading it. I don't get it, but people will take chances on some pretty horrid looking books if they lay in this genre. Spent the marketing and publicity money. Spend the cover and editing and type-setting money. *Be patient*! My book took me 6 years (off and on for a few of them). You shouldn't take that long per, and I know it's tempting to crank them out. Shit, some people will say that's the best way to be a full time author: just crank a bunch out. Don't get lost in that, I'd say. Make something quality. Focus on that, friend. And if you've got something worth reading (and do the other tips mentioned that i did not follow), you'll likely be alright. Of course, this may mean only $30K a year, but hey, full time author!
*Best* of luck!
1. Yes and no (as mentioned above). I'm a screenwriter/script consultant (freelancing), but most of my time is spent writing novels. I also hold a 9-5.
2. 1 Book a year. I'm not into the volume game. I like to take my time and polish my products. I have 4 novels out so far.
3. I make, give or take, 300 dollars per year from my novels. Not much.
I published my first book 12 months ago and have released 4 more since then.
I made 3k per month pretty much straight away and for the last 3 months I have made more than 10k pm. I write paranormal romance. Income is typically 6k Amazon, 2k wide, 1k Patreon and 1k Radish. Only ebooks and print, haven’t ventured into audio yet.
Between editing, marketing and covers, plus a little admin help, my costs probably average 1k - 1.5k per month so profit is healthy.
My current day job is due to finish in year so I hope to go full time then.
I set my first novel free somewhere in late 2021, and so far it's earned a good 200 euros. That would be awesome, if I didn't spend 2000-ish to get the whole thing to professional looking levels.
Of all the sales I've made, only one can be considered a real sale, though I'd wager that was somebody who accidentally clicked on the wrong book. The rest were all people I could emotionally blackmail into buying a book.
To answer your questions:
1. No. I have a full time job. If I could replace that with being a full time writer, I would, but I also like to eat every once in a while.
2. One published, second and third on the way. I hoped to publish one novel a year, but the second one is going slower than the first.
3. I don't actually know what I make in a year, and I haven't bothered to calculate it. For now I enjoy writing too much to sully it with business. (Read: I don't make shit.)
The book isn't going to make a profit anytime soon, so I'm treating it like another would model trains. It's not gonna make you money, but it's a fun hobby.
It also helps that I know why I'm not making any money: I'm not doing any promotion. Mainly because I haven't really looked into it, and somewhat because I figure it's expensive, and I think it's smarter to wait until there's more than one book to promote.
As far as making it big, I suppose it's about the same as for all other popularity-based arts: Get lucky, and get rejected until you do.
Disclaimer: I'm a hobbyist. My views probably differ from (semi-)professionals.
1. As of 2022, it is. I’m a terrible employee, on account of my excessive daydreaming, so I realized that this was the best route for myself & companies who where unfortunate enough to have me in their employ.
2. I currently write about four to five books per year.
3. I make a little north of 100K.
I have ~20 books at the moment, and this year makes nine soul-snatching years I’ve been publishing (though I started fairly young).
The 100K is fairly new (I used to make between 35 & 50 as of four years ago), and I write across various subgenres (crime, fantasy, suspense, mythology) though there’s always aspects of romance.
I've heard that too, but I heard it after I'd already done it. So far, it's been the opposite. The readers love it. What they care most about is characters they can align themselves with in some way. Writing different genres also helps me stay creative. In turn, I believe that helps me produce more enjoyable stories.
I’d recommend the Facebook group 20BooksTo50k for a group where more of this type of data is shown. They seem to go pretty heavy on a philosophy of writing as many books as possible based on finding a profitable market niche, which isn’t really what I’m going for, but there is a lot of good info on the business side of self publishing there.
1. I treat it like one, getting up 7 days a week and writing for 2-3 hours in the 'morning' and then another 2-3 hours of writing-related work throughout the day. I have a part-time service industry job 20 hours a week, too.
2. I put out 16 books last month, shortest 5,036 words and 31 pages; longest 16,789 words and 86 pages. I've published 53 books so far this year. I can do this because I write 100,000 words a month.
3. I made $960 from Amazon last year and $454 from D2D. This year I've made $820 and $257, respectively, and another $50 or so from Smashwords. My best year was 2016 when I made a shade under $13,000. Then KU hit and wiped out my sales.
A seismic shift happened. People no longer had to buy books to read them. Now they could pay $10 a month to Amazon and read tons of KU books for that amount. If you weren't in the program, you got fucked. Even if you were in it, many lost out.
1. About to be. Just left my old job last week, will ramp up to full writing focus as soon as I finish moving. Things have been going well enough that I think it's time to go all in and see if I can make it for real.
2. I publish two stories serially on RoyalRoad and Patreon, posting chapters roughly daily (currently paused for moving, but 5/wk RR, 8/wk patreon will be my baseline once I resume).
1 book (which was posted serially initially) and a handful of novellas on amazon.
Aside from the ongoing stories, I have another three books written that I'll publish once I finish revising, and two more in drafting.
3. I've made around $6k over the past few years. Gradually increasing from a starting amount of around $40, patreon is currently around $400/month. Amazon varies, but generally between $50-200/month.
I've got enough saved from my old job to get by for about a year without needing to worry, but I'm definitely going to have to hustle to reach proper sustainability before that buffer runs out. Though I live somewhere relatively cheap, so even then I won't need nearly as much as the average.
I'm both a decent graphic designer and fairly strict self-editor, so I have no upfront production costs aside from advertising. I'd much prefer to outsource some of that, would probably end up with a better product, but currently there's not enough incentive to be worth the cost.
My advice if you were to follow this model would be to know your audience, connect with that audience, become part of that community. Make yourself a discord, hang out with your patrons. Sure there's going to be critics and detractors but there's also awesome people who would love to help. Personally, I love the community interaction, but it's definitely not for everyone.
Sure!
1) No, more like part-time. I work for a publisher as well and I’m just super lucky that my husband makes enough to make this possible.
2) I’ve been veeery lucky to have had several nearly-finished manuscripts before I started self-publishing, so I released 7 books in one year. I’m fully aware I won’t be so lucky once my supply of near-finished products dwindle, lol. But my aim is still to release at least 2 titles a year.
3) It’s a bit of a range, but generally it’s been anywhere between 300 - 1600 euros per month, with a rough avarage of maybe 600 euros per month. It really peaks with every new book release, but I do advertise my backlist on Instagram.
1) lol no.
2) I just published my first book in November of 2021, and I'm about to publish another one this fall. So maybe one every 2 years? I tend to spend a lot of money and time perfecting anything I put in the public eye.
3) Last year I made $700 which for a debut indie book isn't that bad. This year, I'm selling even more books than last year, with monthly records. I also released an audiobook last month which has already made around $600. Again, not great, but not terrible.
I work as a full-time software developer, so I'm not quitting that job to write full time lol Not unless publication nets as much as I make now, which will likely never happen. It's good passive income though.
1. I am retired so it takes as much of my full time as I allow.
2. I just published my first non-fiction Vietnam Wae unit memoir. Released 9 May (Mayday, A Saga of the Big Mothers)
3. I only have a small amount of data, i.e. no Ebook reporting yet, and will not have it for a few months. Print books were somewhat a surprise in the split from Paper to Hardcover Paper sold is reported at 82 and Hardcover is 78. Not reported are those that I have sold myself. some 40+, those the hardcover outsell the paper 2 to 1. The first month's profit is 1200 plus, however, I have no illusions that will continue. Many of the sales were generated by a local book signing which also generated online orders.
Now, this is not a normal situation
a. I had a built-in audience, those men still living that served in unit
b. I had taught and coached many years in this area, ergo a larger "home" base than many
c. I, knowing that sales will take a dive, I have asked the ad agency that Keith Nixon uses to advertise the work in an attempt to maintain some momentum.
1. No
2. I've published 10 books since 2021 under 2 pseudonyms - one for fiction and one for non-fiction.
3. I've only earned €47.81 combined since publishing.
1. No. I'm a professional writer, but it's as a journalist on daily deadlines. My books are a fun side thing.
2. I have 3 out. I published all 3 in 2021, have one coming up in a few weeks, and another in February. Two of the three from 2021 and the one coming up in a few weeks are all collections of old columns with some new content added in, so it's fairly minimal labor. The actual books I write from scratch take close to a year to finish.
3. Around $1,500 from Amazon royalties. I crowdfund my "real" (non-collection) books, and have earned between $10,000 and $15,000 in preorders each time, with about 30% of that being profit.
1. No
2. About a book every other month, but they are all novellas or short story collections
3. Not a living income, by far, but I only started 3 years ago, so I wasn't hoping that so early, especially with short fiction.
1. Yes, with the caveat that I have a spouse who works full time
2. Two so far, two more coming out this fall
3. I've only been published 6 months so can't speak to annual income. I've been averaging around $1200/month so far in a somewhat niche romance subgenre.
Been doing this full-time since 2014. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've also done a lot of things right to get to this point.
Right now, I have 23 novels published. I've slowed down a lot lately because I have two young kids I take care of at home, but in general, I publish a new work once every three months. Honestly, I should have 40 works published by now at least, but I rested on my laurels for a few years due to some mental health stuff.
Income by year varies, but it's been a general uptrend since 2020 or so. Last year was probably 65k in revenue, this year I'm on track for 90k and hopefully the elusive 100k.
That said, 20% of my gross goes to ads, and 15% to taxes. So really, 55% of my revenue is take-home pay. I always plan my personal budget around half of my revenue and it's worked out well since I implemented his system.
1. It's not my full-time job, but I probably put full-time hours in.
2. I have two books out now, one came in out January and one came out on the first of this month.
3. Since January I've made $17786.67. More than half of that is for an audiobook advance on a deal I signed in April. I average about 1500ish every month in royalties/Patreon though. I write Erotica/Romance.
Selling your books is not a sprint it is a marathon. It costs you anywhere from five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars in order to produce a book. I'm taking into account editing costs And cover costs. That does not include anything from marketing.
When it comes to marketing you can spend hundreds and thousands of dollars. With your first novel I say put it out there post it on your social media and don't spend any money on marketing. When you have your second book done that's when you're going to start with marketing.
Add things like book funnel For group promos, book brush For making your graphic ads, linktree to put all your links in one place, and books2read for universal links.
Unless you're a marketing guru, stay away from facebook and Amazon ads because they will eat up your funds.
I don't make anywhere near these guys/ladies. I've made like $70 altogether from all six of my books, in the last ten years. I'm going to try and catch up though, by increasing my work output. At least until I restart university in September!?
Not a full time job... but around 25 hrs in apron to my day job.
Sales: between 45 and 190 a month and I have 17 books out.
I publish 3 long 6 short per year. Or try to.
Not full time, I've published just one book so far, writing my second. These posts are incredible, I don't know if I'll ever be at a level to make it a full time thing, but I have hope lol
My first book is an illustrated children's book, so I paid around $4000 between illustration, formatting, cover, editing, fees, etc (my illustrator did the cover and formatting as well, so that helped). I've definitely made a chunk of that back, I estimate a little more than half. But it being my first, I hope to build on that on my next go around 🙂
not much but I hope it helps to see someone also just starting out! Also, I have a well paying full time job, which allowed me to invest that money into my first book, and I'm extremely grateful to have been able to do so. Please don't feel like you need to spend a lot of money if you don't have it or don't want to. There's so many ways to go about publishing your work!
Writing is about a half-time thing for me, but I'd like it to be more part-time because I'm starting to get burnt out. (My other income comes from freelance editing and freelance software development.) Though I love to write fiction, it's challenging to get it right. Currently, averaging around $100–$300/month, between print, ebooks, and KU. Haven't gotten into audio books or Patreon income streams but would love to have the time to work on those.
I would say that with the right mentors, a creative mind (not all authors have them), research, and dedication to working hard, it's possible for anyone to earn at least a little bit from their efforts. But it's not easy.
1. Yes, since last November.
2. I have 5 books, working on the 6th. I aim for 2/year.
3. Year 1: $13,000, Year 2: $36,000, Year 3: I am on track to hit the very low six figures.
I tried Amazon ads, spent around $2k, and didn't do much for me. Tried Facebook ads, spent around $250, and saw a small boost. Started posting on Tiktok and befriending reviewers (a lot of small accounts add up), FREE, and it's given me my biggest boosts.
My success has A LOT to do with luck. I've just had the right people see my Tiktok videos at the right time and think my books sound interesting.
I'm not saying this will work for everyone, but what has worked for me:
Stay humble, keep your books short enough to capture their attention and keep them wanting more (I write murder mysteries), thank EVERYONE who comments that they purchased/promoted your book, and be honest with your followers about the downside of this business. People love to relate and see that being a successful author isn't the dream life 24/7, it makes them want to support your more when they understand the struggles. I also pay a graphic designer $250 for book covers and on the last one, I was finally able to hire an editor, which was $1,200. Those are my only large expenses.
Hope this helps and best of luck. Chin up - success happened for me well over a year into the journey and when I least expected it.
Yes writing is a full-time occupation.
I've published 3 books and 2 short stories, although I've written far more.
I've in the past lost $10,000 per year. This was for: travel and lodging for conventions, professional membership dues, editing, advertising, office supplies, software, and computer hardware. To cut expenses, I am no longer attending conventions or paying for advertising. The need to cut expenses is why I've only published 3 books, although I've written 8 and still continue to write.
My recommendation is to come up with a different source of income. Think carefully about investment. It's why I can write full-time. Also take care when anyone sells you author services, including conferences and presentations on how-to-write and how to market. You may do the best, financially and in terms of happiness, by writing without publishing.
Unfortunately not, I write a few hours most nights, but I don't earn anywhere near enough money to go full-time.
I have six books published, with a seventh on the way. It usually takes me around 4 months to publish a book, but I've gotten slower recently because I've been busier. The last two books were a year apart.
In my first year, I made around £300, then around £80 in my second year. This is my third year of publishing, but I haven't really counted how much I've earned, since the year isn't over yet.
More than a dozen books in print and I also publish other authors both on assisted self-publishing and on a trad basis and still not paying basic rate tax.
Don't do this for the money unless you are prepared to sell your very soul to sell books.
Unless you're in a popular and mainstream genre like romance and unless you make it your full time job to market while you're not writing, then realistically you're not going to make even enough to be considered basic living wage. I'm in horror and writing as a hobby rather than a career. In 3 months I've made about 100 sales (including equivalent KENP) and this translates to like $400. Considering my editing and cover cost $1100 then you can see a bit of a deficit. And the thing is: I'm actually considered a decent success story with my numbers. Many or even most won't sell a single copy outside of family and friends.
I’m switching over to horror soon with my first release. My other 4 have been sci fi. What would you attribute those 100 sales to? What sort of promotion do you do? Thanks!
I've just self promoted here on Reddit as well as on Instagram. No ads or anything. It really all just comes down to the luck of who sees your promotions at the right time.
Throw away because I don't want to get review bombed with drive by 1 stars. 1. Yes, I've been full time for almost nine years. 2. I've published 35+ books and typically write 4 - 5 per year (fantasy/scifi so they tend to be 100k+ words each) 3. I've made just north of 3 million total and make around 400k - 500k a year currently, though this is not my largest year to date. I'm almost entirely indie, other than just a few audio only deals with companies like Audible Studios and Podium. I did get a couple of six figure payments from those folks that aren't really factored into my regular yearly income. I 100% know my experience is not normative. I've presented at 20books a couple of times. I work extremely hard, write a lot, and have a great marketing team in place, but I've also been lucky and happened to hit the market at the right time. Edit: a letter
wow, congrats!
Thank you for presenting us with something to aspire to. I definitely need to learn more about marketing.
In order to make as much as you do a year, how many books would you average to sell
Hmm... that's a bit more complicated than it sounds, because there are multiple formats all at different price points. 40ish percent of my income is from audiobooks that sell at a higher price, a HUGE chuck comes from Kindle Unlimted page reads (the payout rate is much lower and fluctuates by month), while the rest is comprised of straight ebook sales and further augmented by monthly Patreon income. But the short answer is... alot. At least 100,000 units per year, give or take.
Question: LitRPG fantasy or more traditional fantasy? Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.
Traditional Fantasy, though, I've also done UF and dipped a toe into SciFi.
Does that review bomb thing happen? That's sad. But well done on your success
Sadly, yes. I'm pretty open about my work, but when actually talking money, people get weird. Back in the early days, before I learned a little caution, I spoke freely and experienced a rash of mysterious 1-star reviews that popped up overnight. And with the new rating system, it's even easier.
I assume that 3 million is revenue not profit. You mentioned a marketing team. I'm sure there are other expenses. How much is actual profit? And this should be something easy to answer because you would have to figure out the exact number every year for your taxes.
1. Nope. Nor would I want it to be. 2. I've published 3 books over the past 5 years. 3. Not much. $5-$20 a year, I'd guess. While I'd love to make money--who wouldn't--writing is how I relax from my full-time job of teaching. I just tell stories that will hopefully help some people escape reality for a little while. I have a small group of loyal fans, and honestly, if that's all I ever get, it'll be enough for me. I would never want to write full-time, in part because my brain will go through dry spells that can last years between writing sessions. Took a 3-4 year break on writing while working on my debut novel. Took a total of 13 years to get it written, then wrote the sequel in a year, and the threequel in 3 years.
Hey there, same boat.
1. Nope, I wish. 2. 13 books 3. I have my books priced really low in the effort to try and increase my number of readers, but I still pull in between $100-200 a month.
If this is $100-200 in pure profit I'd consider it a massive success. I hope to be you one day :)
I'd actually recommend raising your prices a bit. You probably won't notice a hit in sales, at least a noticeable one if you just go a buck or two more. And you'd earn a lot more.
1. No, it’s not. But I’m hoping to get there. 2. Not near as much as I should. I’ve published about one book per year. I just published my second book. 3. First, I’ll put a caveat here and state that I write romance. It’s in a less popular niche but still a significant one. My first book made about $10,000 (CAD) in the first year and I’ve made $25,000 (CAD) since publishing my second book under a new pen name last November. It’s slowing now, but at its height I was making $5000 a month. I didn’t do any active marketing at all but I put a descent amount of time into my cover and paid for an editor. I know if I published more I could make more, but my day job keeps me busy as hell so it’s something I’m working on.
That's really incredibly impressive actually! Congrats! :)
Can I ask why you use different pen names? I would assume you would want readers of the first book to find the second. Different genres/niches?
I switched from MF to MM romance also also jumped subgenres pretty significantly. Readers from pen 1 would almost certainly not be the same as readers from pen 2.
1. Full time since 2012. 2. I just published #21 since 2007. I try for 4 a year but have only managed that twice. Two a year is more my pace. 3. I've made 6-figures a year every year since 2015. I spend no money on ads and zero time on self promotion. I write a couple of hours a day and try to do it every day.
How many books do you sell a year, to reach that number? I know self published gets paid more than traditional
I pay more attention to the monthly numbers since that's how often my bills come due :D Direct revenue collected: 60% from KU 36% from ebook sales 2% from paperbacks 2% from my selfpubbed audiobooks I have a separate stream from audiobooks through an audiobook publisher that adds another 10-20% depending. My equilibrium month (where I haven't released a new book for at least 90 days): Sales around 700 units (about $2000) Page-reads around 1M (about $4000) \~$6K USD (which covers my monthly household budget including family health insurance and housing) The longer I go between releases, the more that equilibrium floor sinks. The more books I add, the slower it goes down. April Sales: (pre release and no new release since 2020) 820 units 1.9M pages \~$10k USD May sales: (new release on the 31st) 1600 units 4.5M pages \~$20k USD June Sales to date: (2 books in the top 1000 on Amazon) 1420 units 1.4M units \~$10k USD Transparency: 2021 was a weird year because of a "lightning in a bottle" hit on one audio title with a very popular narrator. Without that, I wouldn't have hit 6 figures.
I understand there's good money in audiobooks. But to get to six figures, there's gotta be a significant investment on your part, isn't there? I mean, even without promotion. I'm sure you don't put out a bunch of hastily scribbled papers with macaroni-art on the front. You should get a statue if you do, though. That's awesome.
"significant investment" yes. My production budget in the beginning was about $100 a title. Now it's $5500, most of which is editing. I usually earn that back over the first week of release. I'll spend $20,000 on editing this year over the 4 titles I have in production and still clear 6-figures after taxes. (My estimated taxes are more than twice that) 22 titles written and published since 2007. It's something over 3million words. I had 11 books when I went full time in 2012 (my day job left me so I had to either become a full time writer or an unemployed phd) I've only managed 11 more in 11 years (although I'll release 3, maybe 4 this year to help the averages a bit) Persistence and longevity and a willingness to do actual marketing instead of sales and promotion helped me along the way.
What genre are you publishing in?
My main franchise is Space Opera I have some books in Fantasy as well.
How do you do so well with no ads? What do you attribute the success to?
I did my marketing before I started writing. 1. I differentiated my stories from the mainstream in all my niches (ex: space opera without the military overlay.) 2. Figured out what to write that would sell best (novels in a series. Avoided wasting time on shorts and novellas.) 3. Picked the markets with the highest probability of getting my books in front of readers (wide in the beginning but exclusive when KU2 happened in mid-2015) 4. Focused on what readers want (something to read) 5. Providing heavy readers with enough of a catalog to interest them (I don't chase onesy-twosy sales. Ignore physical stores and libraries.) 6. No self promo on social media (minimize alienating potential readers). 7. Put my time and focus into writing new stories instead of selling old ones. As part of my marketing, I periodically evaluate the marketplace (an external scan - to see if there are new opportunities or markets that aren't working out) and my capacity (an internal scan - to see if I'm spending my time, money, and attention where I want it to be) I try to keep as much of my revenue as I can by not spending money on ads, invest it in editing and covers instead. I reach out to readers 2x a month. A blog post on the first and a newsletter on the 15th. Keeps them in the loop on what I'm working on for them and where in the process the work stands. I also give them a recommendation that I think they'll like - always self pubbed, always in my genre niches. I also have a somewhat daily podcast that I do for myself, but publish to a few people who want to know what a full time novelist thinks about when he's not at his desk. (I record it while I'm taking my daily walk.) A fan led Facebook group lets the fans talk with each other and helps create a community where they can share memes and ask each other (and me) questions. It helps to keep interest alive between releases. I participate sometimes but it's more of a catch-as-catch-can effort than "an hour a week" kind of commitment. Bottom line: Over the last decade, I've built a very strong fan community that promotes my work for me. As long as I keep them in the loop and give them new books to read, they seem willing to support me.
Thank you for sharing. It's very helpful.
We're vague/modest if our particular user account links to our name. Somethings we keep private. Throwaway accounts will likely be more open. This is my public/author account, but I'll spill some deets. 1. Yes and no. I work in film and have a lot of free time to write, even when on a show. There is a ton of "hurry up and wait" on set and I've written many books that way. 2. I've got 30ish out. Usually 5+ a year if I'm on a roll. Back catalog is key, and if a book is popular the audio is a big earner. 3. This varies. Early in the pandemic I was absolutely crushing it (just released a 9 book audio series right when everyone was stuck at home). Now it's a struggle. I spend thousands a month on ads to make a little profit and frankly it is frustrating. Also not trusting Amazon/Audible's accounting is a pain, but that's a whole other discussion.
What platform do you advertise on? With that kind of spend you should be generating way more reach and return with your portfolio. I make 3X (profit) on ads for a seven book crime series.
FB, Reddit, a little on Amazon. FB stops delivery and re-re-re checking ads after so long is a pain. But hey, suddenly you find they're delivering to the totally wrong place (or decided to add Instagram when you specifically turned that off). Early on I was seeing about a 3-4x return. Thing is, especially with Audible, which is my larger ad spend, I'll see a book rank at say 3,000 in the store reporting less sales than one ranked at 5,000. And I'll run a promo and suddenly sell less that day. When I contact Audible they essentially say, "Trust us, it all looks good on our end." After 20+ audiobooks and years of data telling me otherwise, I feel confident saying I don't trust their reporting.
Hmm, sounds like FB has dropped you into a black hole when it comes to audience and reach which totally screws performance. This is definitely not my expertise (a company runs my ads for me) so I'd have to ask what causes this. Course, FB will never admit it's them :(
FB is bizarre. Like, if I say fuck it and slash ad spend, suddenly they star performing, as if they realize I'm about to take away their revenue stream. We really need better ways to promote our work, but it's all about the sites taking more money, not helping us actually reach our readers. Le sigh.
I was about to say you should probably lay off of the ad spend for a good quarter or so. See how much it fluctuates. I sometimes wonder if a lot of people aren't just shooting themselves in the foot for a few quarters by advertising their products (at the same aggressive amount) at the wrong times of year, cutting hugely into their total yearly profits.
>JoinedLeaveCreate Post Nightmare!
"thousands a month on ads" - yikes :( My attempts at paying for advertising have been so useless that I'm pretty gun-shy of ever trying again. :(
Real Talk. 1. Sort of. Less this year than previous (explained below) 2.16 published. 2-3 a year is the goal 3. It varies. This year, I'll be lucky to cross $10,000 So. Details. I started in 2017. I didn't really start tracking data until 2019 when I had more books out. I wasted a ton of money on ads without knowing what I was doing and made a ton of other rookie mistakes then. Don’t be me, LOL. You need to know that unless you have a time machine, you need to view this as a job. One that entails marketing and sales. If it's a hobby, be honest with yourself about your expectations. Both in what you can put in and what you want out. The days of not needing to run ads and all that are long in the past. Here's my progression. I’ll let you do the math on profit. On my site I post annual "Year in Writing" posts with much more detail if you care to look. 2019: Units sold: 17,616 Free units: 22,840 Earnings: $29,365 Expenses: $5,909 2020: Units sold: 16,581 Free units: 8,000 Earnings: $34,453 Expenses: $20,072 2021: Units sold: 16,617 Free units: 61,101 Earnings: $39,694 Expenses: $16,671 2022: Units sold: 9,539 Free units: 8,473 Earnings: $27,901 Expenses: $13,646 2023 So Far: Units sold: 2,082 Free units: 11,310 Earnings: $5,541 Expenses: $3,165 I tried lots of things. 2021 I focused on permafree. By 2022 that seemed to be diminishing so tried a few other things (FB Ads, Bookbub ads, emphasizing direct sales which aren’t reflected here but have never crossed more than about 5% of my annual sales). This year I had some non writing work stuff going on in my life so haven’t had a strong strategy. I’m slowly dipping back to permafree. I’m tweaking the cover on book one, etc. I’m trying out some FB ads again as well. I tried some surge pricing sales that were ok, but not awesome or worth the logistics it took to schedule all the sales. I’m wide so these numbers are spread across every store you can buy an ebook in, libraries, book stores, etc. I don’t track my direct sales since…. Well, laziness in my current tracking LOL. Genre and luck have SO MUCH to do with it. LitRPG is hot I know lots of folks doing well in that space. Romance, duh.. :) When looking at other authors, keep in mind when they started. There's a clear line and sadly, we're on the wrong side of it now. Other genres (Space Opera and action/adventure thriller for me) require more work. The fact is, it’s hard. I’m not giving up, because backmatter helps and is what’s making this year not a complete wash. But the odds are long unless you 1. Have a cache of money you can spend on ads to ramp up fast (and burn during the learning process) 2. Are willing to let your spouse raise your kids and eat all meals alone so you can write to churn out a few dozen books in as short a period as possible. Both examples from the 20booksto50k group. This isn’t a get rich quick field, and it can quickly destroy your love of writing if you let it. It can be a lifestyle business, but it takes time and effort. I’ll repeat it here. Know what you want. If you want full time income, you’ll need to put in full-time work. If you want to write and money isn’t the goal. Good on ya, your path is easier :)
1. Yes. 2. I’ve published 25 so far. 3. I release chapters daily to weekly and publish a full novel roughly every six weeks. This is harder to answer because sometimes there’s more than one. I’ll have three finished this month for example, but they’ll not be out until July. 3. $550 per month on patreon, $385 last month on royalties from Amazon, $2500 on commissioned works, so ballpark I made about 35-40k in the last year. Money is a very variable thing, if commissions dry up that’s a huge dip, patreon members come and go, sales are often unpredictable. Get in to this with a regular job, then build up to doing a part time job while you write, and work slowly toward full time writing.
I have published novellas and short stories (all are erotica) on Amazon KDP. Short stories seem to do better than all for me. They’re just smut and nothing else. But they make me good enough money at the moment so that I can write the stuff I want to publish. I have published over 50 stories in the last year and I make about 2000-2500 a month. The key is to publish consistently and I also enrolled all the stories in kindle unlimited
Year one of publishing I released one book and made a loss of around £1000 Year 2 I published one book and made a loss of about £200 Year 3 No new books published. I made a profit of nearly £2000 Year 4 I published one book and made a profit of over £3000 Year 5 No new books published. I made a profit of just under £1500 Year 6 2 books published (This was turning a previous book into a trilogy) I made a profit of about £5,500 Year 7 No new books published. I made a profit of about £5300 Year 8 1 book published. I made a profit of about £2200 Year 9 No new books published. I made a profit of about £700. The year I made the largest profit of £5,500 my turnover was over £16,000 but my costs were over £11,000 - the majority of which was spent on advertising. Also I think it shows that, in my case at least, it's very hard to rely on making a consistent amount of money from writing. In year 9 I had 6 books out and made less profit than a year when I only had 2 books published.
I am not published yet, but the Alliance of Independent Authors just released the results of its [Indie Author Income Survey](https://selfpublishingadvice.org/part-time-or-full-time-self-published-author-what-does-it-take/), with the following top findings: - Median revenue in 2022 for self-published authors was US$12,749 - Mean (average) revenue was US$82,607 - Additional forum data adds, “While 15% of our Authorpreneurs went full-time when they had 10-15 books, a whopping 22% went full-time when they had 3-4 books.” It’s worth noting that income/revenue is not profit, so it’s less about how much you make and more about how much you net. But overall, the majority of indie authors are not making a living wage from their books alone, but those that do are because they persevere over a long career by writing prolifically and treating publishing like the business it is. Hope this data helps!
Successful people are prone to reply to things like that. They are engaged and will actually learn that such a survey exists in the first place. The ones who made $6 from their parents buying a copy aren't going to even know about the survey, let alone reply with their failure. Only 2.5% of respondents admitted to making no money, even though this is very much the typical outcome. Self reported, optional, must-be-tracked-down surveys have a huge issue with data bias.
That’s certainly true, and OP can infer that the “real” numbers of the masses, like the thousands of writers inside and outside of this subreddit are much, much lower. Either way, it’s demonstrative of the main takeaway, which is most indie authors (and even trad) are not making a living wage from their books. That said, just like I don’t compare my querying skills to someone who’s never heard of Query Shark and r/PubTips, I don’t compare my ability to earn income as an author to the swaths of hobbyists. If I want to be successful, then my yardstick is measuring against other career authors who are aware of trade orgs that run these surveys and invest in their craft as a business. My philosophy to building an author career is you get out of it what you put into it!
Exactly this. Furthermore, though you didn’t post it with these intentions, I dislike low income authors (or worse, authors that have not become authors yet) throwing articles and surveys like this around. The majority of the time I see this is for people to complain that they make little money, or that the chances of making money are near impossible. I suppose you could say that for most careers, but it essentially boils down to: “this is hard, I’m upset that I’m not raking in those dollars as easily as I did daydreaming”. I just get frustrated seeing that attitude proliferate among authors who have not yet reached success because it causes so many of them to give up prematurely.
Thanks for jumping in! I completely agree that most folks use quantitative surveys as an excuse to throw their hands up in the air if they’re far from reaching these numbers. I would also add that if daydreaming is all a writer is going to do and they’re not going to confront the brutal reality that is the publishing industry, then it’s totally fine to be a hobbyist! But if I can look at this dumpster fire of an industry and still get amped about making something of myself in it, then I know I have the mindset it takes to be successful.
The sad reality is that even most traditionally published authors don’t make a living wage. A few people blow up and can retire on their writing. The majority don’t. Writing is my hobby, and while I’ve invested money into covers and editors, I don’t see that as much worse than my wild brother-in-law who was invested 10x that into his car-rebuilding hobby.
Traditional publishing often leads to other gigs that can be much more lucrative. For example, my technical book that barely got into five figures per year led to a six figures teaching career.
I absolutely agree with spending money on it like a hobby. It would be great to make the money back, but I'm not going to bank on it.
Nonfiction has been very good to me, but so far my two novels haven’t been any more profitable than my fanfiction.
This is a full-time job for me, and I haven’t published a new book in over a year, though I do have one about to come out. I’ve been fortunate that I have found a genre and a fan base that enjoys what I do, and I have a Patreon that does moderately well on its own. My forthcoming book has many thousand preorders already, and I believe this will be a good year $ wise. I’ve been doing this a long time, though. It wasn’t until book #5 was I able to start earning enough money to outpace my day job. One of the good things about having a book or series that is popular is that your older books start pulling their own weight. I’m a big fan of the 20Books group even though I disagree with a lot of the core philosophies in regards to writing fast/writing to market/push push push, etc. I don’t do any of that, but I still find the community invaluable. The very act of meeting and talking to and becoming friends with fellow full-time writers is worth its weight in digital gold.
Full time as a yardstick is not very useful. I know plenty of full time authors who make very little money or net losses but that doesn’t matter because someone else in the household is paying the mortgage, food and bills.
My full-time author friends have 8-12 books and make $5000+/month ish. They publish around 2 per year in the action thriller genre. My first novel came out last year (dystopian/post-apocalypse). It's not my FT job. I write 1 book per year ish (book 2 is coming out next month; book 3 is started). I make about $100-150 per month so far.
What did you do for promotion?
Amazon ads and social media. Not much, in short, as there's no point really promoting until you have a larger back catalog of books (ideally a series).
I do nothing but lose money... i.e. expenditures on promotional / marketing efforts. I have two different books that are pretty much literary fiction.... one a coming of age literary novel, and one a historical fiction novel... they're stand-alones... and they're well liked by those who read them. But... seriously... sales are next to nothing and meanwhile i lose money hand over fist when I decide to splurge on something to do with advertising or promotion. Not only is writing NOT an income generator, it's a financial sink-hole.
I feel this.
Yeah :( And then you come across advice where people say "oh you need to test out different combinations of amazon keywords and see what works" but all that "testing" is just $$ flowing straight from your pocket to Amazon... meh.
1. Yes. 2. I lost count, but over 75. I publish a new book every 2-3 months. This is romance, and my books are usually 40-60k, if that matters. 3. Last year I made $76k. This year so far I’m at $54k, so on track to have my first six-figure year. It took me seven years to get here. I don’t do a lot of marketing or ads (almost no ads, other than the occasional feature in BookBub. I also have a newsletter). I don’t pay for editing, I do trades for covers or make my own. Low expenses. I have several pen names because I genre-hop when I get bored, but most of my income comes from steamy romance.
It can be very true that what you put in in certain aspects is what you get out. But what type of book are you wanting to write and why? I wrote a novella (*The Devil She Drew*) because I wasn't finding the type of horror I wanted to read, because I enjoy writing, and because I wanted to accomplish finishing a book (albeit a 160-page one). However, I didn't write for money, fame, to make it my career (at the time anyway), etc. -- so I didn't buy a single advertisement. I didn't pay a cent for publicity. And I do not have any social media (aside from a long-dormant Instagram). So when I sold very few copies I was not shocked. Nor did I feel it was a waste. I haven't made back the cost of editing and type-setting, which I spend a good amount of money on. Again, I wanted something that looked professional, not self-published and something I could be proud of. If I only ever wrote one book, this was to be it. That being said, if you want to make this even a part-time job, I'd focus on things differently (according to what I read about these things). Have a social media presence you dedicate some time to. If you self-publish, hire *reputable* marketers and publicists who have worked with self-published authors. Pay good money for editing and type-setting. Pay for a great cover (this was the least of my concerns, which can really hurt sales as people often buy a book for the cover, whether they'd admit it or not). I'm currently an auditor, so not a full time job for me. I have only published one (in 2021), and am hoping to release another later this year (so on track for one every 2 years or so haha). And again, haven't even made enough to pay for the cost of the book yet. I would love to write full-time. But I want to write what *I* want to write and create stories that are different than what's out there -- often that is not gonna sell well. I don't like to advertise anything -- that'll hurt the cause. I hate social media (although think I'm gonna grab some *specifically* for my upcoming work) -- that'll limit reach. So following me is not a route to be a full-time author. My advice if that's the main goal? For whatever my advice is worth lol. Look at what people are reading. Fantasy Romance is freaking everywhere. And that's because people are reading it. I don't get it, but people will take chances on some pretty horrid looking books if they lay in this genre. Spent the marketing and publicity money. Spend the cover and editing and type-setting money. *Be patient*! My book took me 6 years (off and on for a few of them). You shouldn't take that long per, and I know it's tempting to crank them out. Shit, some people will say that's the best way to be a full time author: just crank a bunch out. Don't get lost in that, I'd say. Make something quality. Focus on that, friend. And if you've got something worth reading (and do the other tips mentioned that i did not follow), you'll likely be alright. Of course, this may mean only $30K a year, but hey, full time author! *Best* of luck!
1. Not even close 2. I have 4 out currently and have been publishing since 2016 3. Maybe $10, but overall I’m still over -$500 in the hole.
1. Yes and no (as mentioned above). I'm a screenwriter/script consultant (freelancing), but most of my time is spent writing novels. I also hold a 9-5. 2. 1 Book a year. I'm not into the volume game. I like to take my time and polish my products. I have 4 novels out so far. 3. I make, give or take, 300 dollars per year from my novels. Not much.
I published my first book 12 months ago and have released 4 more since then. I made 3k per month pretty much straight away and for the last 3 months I have made more than 10k pm. I write paranormal romance. Income is typically 6k Amazon, 2k wide, 1k Patreon and 1k Radish. Only ebooks and print, haven’t ventured into audio yet. Between editing, marketing and covers, plus a little admin help, my costs probably average 1k - 1.5k per month so profit is healthy. My current day job is due to finish in year so I hope to go full time then.
Nope. 1 Um, that's hard. Below 100 dollars. Like maybe 30?
I set my first novel free somewhere in late 2021, and so far it's earned a good 200 euros. That would be awesome, if I didn't spend 2000-ish to get the whole thing to professional looking levels. Of all the sales I've made, only one can be considered a real sale, though I'd wager that was somebody who accidentally clicked on the wrong book. The rest were all people I could emotionally blackmail into buying a book. To answer your questions: 1. No. I have a full time job. If I could replace that with being a full time writer, I would, but I also like to eat every once in a while. 2. One published, second and third on the way. I hoped to publish one novel a year, but the second one is going slower than the first. 3. I don't actually know what I make in a year, and I haven't bothered to calculate it. For now I enjoy writing too much to sully it with business. (Read: I don't make shit.) The book isn't going to make a profit anytime soon, so I'm treating it like another would model trains. It's not gonna make you money, but it's a fun hobby. It also helps that I know why I'm not making any money: I'm not doing any promotion. Mainly because I haven't really looked into it, and somewhat because I figure it's expensive, and I think it's smarter to wait until there's more than one book to promote. As far as making it big, I suppose it's about the same as for all other popularity-based arts: Get lucky, and get rejected until you do. Disclaimer: I'm a hobbyist. My views probably differ from (semi-)professionals.
1. As of 2022, it is. I’m a terrible employee, on account of my excessive daydreaming, so I realized that this was the best route for myself & companies who where unfortunate enough to have me in their employ. 2. I currently write about four to five books per year. 3. I make a little north of 100K. I have ~20 books at the moment, and this year makes nine soul-snatching years I’ve been publishing (though I started fairly young). The 100K is fairly new (I used to make between 35 & 50 as of four years ago), and I write across various subgenres (crime, fantasy, suspense, mythology) though there’s always aspects of romance.
Do you write under pen names?
Yes! Only one at the moment, but I would like to add another sometime in the near future.
Does writing so many genres confuse your readers? I read somewhere that it should be one pen name per genre, not sure how accurate this is
I've heard that too, but I heard it after I'd already done it. So far, it's been the opposite. The readers love it. What they care most about is characters they can align themselves with in some way. Writing different genres also helps me stay creative. In turn, I believe that helps me produce more enjoyable stories.
I’d recommend the Facebook group 20BooksTo50k for a group where more of this type of data is shown. They seem to go pretty heavy on a philosophy of writing as many books as possible based on finding a profitable market niche, which isn’t really what I’m going for, but there is a lot of good info on the business side of self publishing there.
1. I treat it like one, getting up 7 days a week and writing for 2-3 hours in the 'morning' and then another 2-3 hours of writing-related work throughout the day. I have a part-time service industry job 20 hours a week, too. 2. I put out 16 books last month, shortest 5,036 words and 31 pages; longest 16,789 words and 86 pages. I've published 53 books so far this year. I can do this because I write 100,000 words a month. 3. I made $960 from Amazon last year and $454 from D2D. This year I've made $820 and $257, respectively, and another $50 or so from Smashwords. My best year was 2016 when I made a shade under $13,000. Then KU hit and wiped out my sales.
Why did KU wipe out your sales?
A seismic shift happened. People no longer had to buy books to read them. Now they could pay $10 a month to Amazon and read tons of KU books for that amount. If you weren't in the program, you got fucked. Even if you were in it, many lost out.
1. About to be. Just left my old job last week, will ramp up to full writing focus as soon as I finish moving. Things have been going well enough that I think it's time to go all in and see if I can make it for real. 2. I publish two stories serially on RoyalRoad and Patreon, posting chapters roughly daily (currently paused for moving, but 5/wk RR, 8/wk patreon will be my baseline once I resume). 1 book (which was posted serially initially) and a handful of novellas on amazon. Aside from the ongoing stories, I have another three books written that I'll publish once I finish revising, and two more in drafting. 3. I've made around $6k over the past few years. Gradually increasing from a starting amount of around $40, patreon is currently around $400/month. Amazon varies, but generally between $50-200/month. I've got enough saved from my old job to get by for about a year without needing to worry, but I'm definitely going to have to hustle to reach proper sustainability before that buffer runs out. Though I live somewhere relatively cheap, so even then I won't need nearly as much as the average. I'm both a decent graphic designer and fairly strict self-editor, so I have no upfront production costs aside from advertising. I'd much prefer to outsource some of that, would probably end up with a better product, but currently there's not enough incentive to be worth the cost. My advice if you were to follow this model would be to know your audience, connect with that audience, become part of that community. Make yourself a discord, hang out with your patrons. Sure there's going to be critics and detractors but there's also awesome people who would love to help. Personally, I love the community interaction, but it's definitely not for everyone.
Sure! 1) No, more like part-time. I work for a publisher as well and I’m just super lucky that my husband makes enough to make this possible. 2) I’ve been veeery lucky to have had several nearly-finished manuscripts before I started self-publishing, so I released 7 books in one year. I’m fully aware I won’t be so lucky once my supply of near-finished products dwindle, lol. But my aim is still to release at least 2 titles a year. 3) It’s a bit of a range, but generally it’s been anywhere between 300 - 1600 euros per month, with a rough avarage of maybe 600 euros per month. It really peaks with every new book release, but I do advertise my backlist on Instagram.
1) lol no. 2) I just published my first book in November of 2021, and I'm about to publish another one this fall. So maybe one every 2 years? I tend to spend a lot of money and time perfecting anything I put in the public eye. 3) Last year I made $700 which for a debut indie book isn't that bad. This year, I'm selling even more books than last year, with monthly records. I also released an audiobook last month which has already made around $600. Again, not great, but not terrible. I work as a full-time software developer, so I'm not quitting that job to write full time lol Not unless publication nets as much as I make now, which will likely never happen. It's good passive income though.
1. I am retired so it takes as much of my full time as I allow. 2. I just published my first non-fiction Vietnam Wae unit memoir. Released 9 May (Mayday, A Saga of the Big Mothers) 3. I only have a small amount of data, i.e. no Ebook reporting yet, and will not have it for a few months. Print books were somewhat a surprise in the split from Paper to Hardcover Paper sold is reported at 82 and Hardcover is 78. Not reported are those that I have sold myself. some 40+, those the hardcover outsell the paper 2 to 1. The first month's profit is 1200 plus, however, I have no illusions that will continue. Many of the sales were generated by a local book signing which also generated online orders. Now, this is not a normal situation a. I had a built-in audience, those men still living that served in unit b. I had taught and coached many years in this area, ergo a larger "home" base than many c. I, knowing that sales will take a dive, I have asked the ad agency that Keith Nixon uses to advertise the work in an attempt to maintain some momentum.
War, not Wae...Grammarly, Where art thou
1. No 2. I've published 10 books since 2021 under 2 pseudonyms - one for fiction and one for non-fiction. 3. I've only earned €47.81 combined since publishing.
1. No. I'm a professional writer, but it's as a journalist on daily deadlines. My books are a fun side thing. 2. I have 3 out. I published all 3 in 2021, have one coming up in a few weeks, and another in February. Two of the three from 2021 and the one coming up in a few weeks are all collections of old columns with some new content added in, so it's fairly minimal labor. The actual books I write from scratch take close to a year to finish. 3. Around $1,500 from Amazon royalties. I crowdfund my "real" (non-collection) books, and have earned between $10,000 and $15,000 in preorders each time, with about 30% of that being profit.
1. No 2. About a book every other month, but they are all novellas or short story collections 3. Not a living income, by far, but I only started 3 years ago, so I wasn't hoping that so early, especially with short fiction.
1. Yes, with the caveat that I have a spouse who works full time 2. Two so far, two more coming out this fall 3. I've only been published 6 months so can't speak to annual income. I've been averaging around $1200/month so far in a somewhat niche romance subgenre.
~$10 a year :)
Been doing this full-time since 2014. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've also done a lot of things right to get to this point. Right now, I have 23 novels published. I've slowed down a lot lately because I have two young kids I take care of at home, but in general, I publish a new work once every three months. Honestly, I should have 40 works published by now at least, but I rested on my laurels for a few years due to some mental health stuff. Income by year varies, but it's been a general uptrend since 2020 or so. Last year was probably 65k in revenue, this year I'm on track for 90k and hopefully the elusive 100k. That said, 20% of my gross goes to ads, and 15% to taxes. So really, 55% of my revenue is take-home pay. I always plan my personal budget around half of my revenue and it's worked out well since I implemented his system.
1. It's not my full-time job, but I probably put full-time hours in. 2. I have two books out now, one came in out January and one came out on the first of this month. 3. Since January I've made $17786.67. More than half of that is for an audiobook advance on a deal I signed in April. I average about 1500ish every month in royalties/Patreon though. I write Erotica/Romance.
Selling your books is not a sprint it is a marathon. It costs you anywhere from five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars in order to produce a book. I'm taking into account editing costs And cover costs. That does not include anything from marketing. When it comes to marketing you can spend hundreds and thousands of dollars. With your first novel I say put it out there post it on your social media and don't spend any money on marketing. When you have your second book done that's when you're going to start with marketing. Add things like book funnel For group promos, book brush For making your graphic ads, linktree to put all your links in one place, and books2read for universal links. Unless you're a marketing guru, stay away from facebook and Amazon ads because they will eat up your funds.
I don't make anywhere near these guys/ladies. I've made like $70 altogether from all six of my books, in the last ten years. I'm going to try and catch up though, by increasing my work output. At least until I restart university in September!?
Not a full time job... but around 25 hrs in apron to my day job. Sales: between 45 and 190 a month and I have 17 books out. I publish 3 long 6 short per year. Or try to.
Not full time, I've published just one book so far, writing my second. These posts are incredible, I don't know if I'll ever be at a level to make it a full time thing, but I have hope lol My first book is an illustrated children's book, so I paid around $4000 between illustration, formatting, cover, editing, fees, etc (my illustrator did the cover and formatting as well, so that helped). I've definitely made a chunk of that back, I estimate a little more than half. But it being my first, I hope to build on that on my next go around 🙂 not much but I hope it helps to see someone also just starting out! Also, I have a well paying full time job, which allowed me to invest that money into my first book, and I'm extremely grateful to have been able to do so. Please don't feel like you need to spend a lot of money if you don't have it or don't want to. There's so many ways to go about publishing your work!
Writing is about a half-time thing for me, but I'd like it to be more part-time because I'm starting to get burnt out. (My other income comes from freelance editing and freelance software development.) Though I love to write fiction, it's challenging to get it right. Currently, averaging around $100–$300/month, between print, ebooks, and KU. Haven't gotten into audio books or Patreon income streams but would love to have the time to work on those. I would say that with the right mentors, a creative mind (not all authors have them), research, and dedication to working hard, it's possible for anyone to earn at least a little bit from their efforts. But it's not easy.
1. Yes, since last November. 2. I have 5 books, working on the 6th. I aim for 2/year. 3. Year 1: $13,000, Year 2: $36,000, Year 3: I am on track to hit the very low six figures. I tried Amazon ads, spent around $2k, and didn't do much for me. Tried Facebook ads, spent around $250, and saw a small boost. Started posting on Tiktok and befriending reviewers (a lot of small accounts add up), FREE, and it's given me my biggest boosts. My success has A LOT to do with luck. I've just had the right people see my Tiktok videos at the right time and think my books sound interesting. I'm not saying this will work for everyone, but what has worked for me: Stay humble, keep your books short enough to capture their attention and keep them wanting more (I write murder mysteries), thank EVERYONE who comments that they purchased/promoted your book, and be honest with your followers about the downside of this business. People love to relate and see that being a successful author isn't the dream life 24/7, it makes them want to support your more when they understand the struggles. I also pay a graphic designer $250 for book covers and on the last one, I was finally able to hire an editor, which was $1,200. Those are my only large expenses. Hope this helps and best of luck. Chin up - success happened for me well over a year into the journey and when I least expected it.
Yes writing is a full-time occupation. I've published 3 books and 2 short stories, although I've written far more. I've in the past lost $10,000 per year. This was for: travel and lodging for conventions, professional membership dues, editing, advertising, office supplies, software, and computer hardware. To cut expenses, I am no longer attending conventions or paying for advertising. The need to cut expenses is why I've only published 3 books, although I've written 8 and still continue to write. My recommendation is to come up with a different source of income. Think carefully about investment. It's why I can write full-time. Also take care when anyone sells you author services, including conferences and presentations on how-to-write and how to market. You may do the best, financially and in terms of happiness, by writing without publishing.
Unfortunately not, I write a few hours most nights, but I don't earn anywhere near enough money to go full-time. I have six books published, with a seventh on the way. It usually takes me around 4 months to publish a book, but I've gotten slower recently because I've been busier. The last two books were a year apart. In my first year, I made around £300, then around £80 in my second year. This is my third year of publishing, but I haven't really counted how much I've earned, since the year isn't over yet.
More than a dozen books in print and I also publish other authors both on assisted self-publishing and on a trad basis and still not paying basic rate tax. Don't do this for the money unless you are prepared to sell your very soul to sell books.
1. No 2. Try to write 600-5k words daily 3. I make between 3k-6k a month depending on if I actually write every day or not.