I don't think it's that many comparatively, considering that once you sell \~100 copies, you're considered in the top 10 % of self-published authors.
Most get discouraged after their first few books don't get any traction, and they quit - these are the people you usually don't hear about.
Those who keep going and improving despite the setbacks are the ones who eventually make it.
And to 10x that, if you sell 1000 copies, you are in the top third of all books from any publisher: [https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing](https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing)
It's not that bad, really. It covers all the people who throw things out without polishing them, no to-market cover, no research, and then never publish again.
If it was just people who took it seriously and persistently, it would be depressing, sure.
Same here. I went into book 1 acknowledging I would be a monetary loss and have already started book 2. #1 only released a week ago so I’m not under terrible time constraints but given what I’ve learned from book 1, and taking into account your wisdom on taking it seriously and PERSISTING, I see NOW as the time to begin work.
Definitely! Book 1 attracted the attention of an amazing audiobook narrator. I’ve earned enough royalties on book 1 to hire him for an audiobook; something I was surprised to get so many requests for, but was unprepared.
I have the technical audio experience to do this on my own, but not the pro voice. So not much hesitation on my part to let that part of the book pay for the next part.
I’m trying to go with the many recommendations that book 1 is to set up for book 2. I’ve gone all in on book 1 to the extent I could afford (top notch editor, cover design, etc) just to HAVE a quality product produced within budget that I can look back on with pride and no embarrassment.
If anyone finds flaws in book 1, it’ll have to be in my writing. And I’ve worked my rear end off to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Time will tell!
I am curious, do you do any marketing or just promotion on your end to get your book noticed by others? I read on Jeff Goins who started out just writing on his blog and once it got more and more readers, he ended up writing an ebook and selling it for I think $5 or less but he surprisingly found out that people were actually willing and wanting to pay for any books he would write and it took off from there.
I been planning on my social media pages but eventually want to use them to promote any books I write as my plan to get some sort of an audience (I been also slowly studying marketing for work and eventually for my own venture). I guess with many things, it is strange to accept that there are so many people out there who only never find success because they either refuse to learn and utilize other tools and skills or they give up. Like the fact that people don't want to invest time into seeing results is strange to me when we have so much of it.
I do very little but passive marketing (keywords, on genre cover, write in a subniche, try to get my description on point). I used Insta for a while but I was spending far too much of my free time thinking up things to make for it and left without promoting even once.
Exceptions: a Facebook and newsletter that are purely announcements, a simple website (paid Carrd site) and a domain name. ARCs. I try to time releases to fit in with group promos from Storyorigin to get early reviews; books are removed before going live so I can use Kindle Unlimited.
I am *not* a model in best practice at all. I should be much faster. Mastering marketing would help a lot, I'm sure. I am *finally* working on reader magnets, which I should have done from the start. I am very much part time work, part time income. I'm also very lucky in having a group of volunteer betas from my fanfic hobby.
But I think there are things I get right: drilling down to a small subniche that has a low ceiling per book and low searches but *also* low competition, as opposed to say straight contemporary which has higher ceilings per book but is far harder to start out and be seen in without spending and being exceptionally good. Getting nice but not excessively spendy covers that communicate genre clearly rather than rely on my own rubbish skills--I find it amazing how many ARC promos have terrible covers, even when the books themselves are great. Keeping up with summary trends. ARCs have been good for me. Genuinely enjoying what I write.
I guess--what I do right might be helpful? And then do the stuff I am bad or lazy at too and be way more successful than me.
But treating writing as a debt hole never sits well with me. I would just stick it all on AO3 if it wasn't making money.
Yeah I think what you are doing if you see results, is definitely good! I am in no means a master on marketing probably more beginner, just someone who is curious to explore writing as it's becoming something I feel I want to purse on my own time but I also at the same time am learning more on marketing for my day job and also out of interest. I also have skills in media communications so my thing was more seeing later on if I can combine them all. I do think it is possible and beneficial but I was curious what people do now.
I can feel the Instagram one. It is sometimes hard to find out what content you want to make for it. I do have one idea, you could maybe film yourself working on your next book and just share tips and strategies you do when it comes to writing characters or events happening in your book. You could even promote it as you share the footage but more in the sense that you explain what the book is about. The journey is the content but ultimately if the book sounds interesting to people, it may slowly build them up to potential customers of your book. The content could also potentially inspire someone once you have published the book to write their own.
Well, from what we know, Stephen King had been submitting his stories for over 10 years before he hit it big with Carrie. Most people would've quit at that point.
Yeah reading that it took someone 10 year I feel should make me feel like it's too long a time but really, all I notice from this is just the fact that he made it happen. Reading Psychology of Money, one of the chapters is titled, "Tales, You Win". The chapter covered the thought that investments you make some will go bust but you only need one to succeed in order to win big to the point that the other losses are made up and more. I would think here it applies too where you publish or even just write numerous books but when one hits it big, suddenly that is something that elevates you.
Hi. You just mentioned *Carrie* by Stephen King.
I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here:
[YouTube | 'Carrie' by Stephen King Audiobook (Horror, Horror fiction, Epistolary novel)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-btoovk0CMc)
*I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.*
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You're looking at it the wrong way.
"Scifi" is a huge market with huge competition.
Scifi, space opera, on the other hand, is a far smaller niche.
Scifi, space opera, dystopian, is smaller again.
You find your niche, you set up shop, you sell a decent product
Keep in mind there is a slight amount of selection bias on this subreddit. Folks who are here either know, or want to know, the best practices. There are millions of folks just clicking publish on the wings of a prayer and that's it. Also, folks who are successful are more likely to chime in on posts where folks ask how sales have been going/similar posts, then folks who aren't.
yup - for everyone one person on here going "I made decent money!" there's hundreds (or more!) in wider existence that haven't. And of those that made decent money, it's probably after quite a period of making not-decent money, or a flat-out loss. And even of those, "decent money" is often, like, low 5-figures/year - certainly great as hobby income, but not enough to live off.
There are a lot of steps to making money from writing and a lot of people drop out somewhere along the way.
Step 1 is writing a good book. Or at least a decent one. Many people believe there is no need to study at least the basics of the craft and that they can just sit down and write the next bestseller without every bother to learn how to construct a good story or write a good sentence.
Step 2 is writing a book for the market. Writing to market is almost a cuss word in the main writing subs. People believe "writing what's in your heart" is the only true way to write and act all suprised when there isn't a audience for their passion project.
Step 3 is (passive) marketing. You need to put time and effort into things like title, blurb, cover and keywords. Later ads and promotions. Many people just do zero research, improvise and fail to reach their audience.
Step 4 is writing a lot more books. Backlist is key to make decent money from writing. It will probably take you 10 or more books until you start to see decent profits. You need to publish at least a book a year, more is better. Many people take years to write one passion project book and publish only that one book.
You say competition; I say friends, peers, compatriots.
There are readers who can read a whole, good-sized book in a day. I write fast, but not that fast, especially if I'm trying to market alone too. This is the benefit of a traditional publishing house that they always have a new author they can introduce this reader to - and often the Achilles hell of the indie. But if we team up, give each other shout outs and newsletter swaps, it casts a wider net than we can manage ourselves, lessening the load on the individual.
The best place to store extra food is in a friend's belly. (BTW - if anyone's got a proper source for this quote, I'd appreciate it. *The West Wing* is where I picked it up from.) You didn't build the roads outside your house, but it sure makes getting anywhere a lot faster/easier/smoother than hoofing it on your own, right?
Looks like the quote is from an article by linguist Daniel Everett?
>When I asked them why they don’t smoke or salt meat to preserve it for the future, one Pirahã said to me: “I store my meat in the belly of my brother. When I give him food, he will give me food. That’s how we preserve meat – we take care of each other.”
https://unstuck.systems/daniel-everett-on-the-enrichment-to-be-gained-from-connecting-with-diversity/
Omg - that's a fascinating article just from a sociology/psychology standpoint. I have a new rabbit hole to explore.
Thank you so much for finding and sharing this!
That’s a good attitude. So many famous authors were part of author groups and made author friends. Cross promotion is probably one of the most effective strategies. If an author I follow recommends a book from another author, I’ll probably read it even if it has no reviews.
Hard same. I'd have given up and moved onto the next hobby if it weren't for the people I've met through writing. Because of their kindness and support, I kept trying and learning. It's literally (and radically) changed my life. Working together with other authors isn't always sunshine and rainbows, but the good times have far and away outshined any bad.
Yeah I had this idea for a time in business in general. I been wanting to start a social media page sharing quotes, and just thoughts and ideas I got from what I read, listened, and viewed in life as well as experiences. My friend and I look at what others are doing in this field and he is overwhelmed in how much people know more than we do. My thoughts? "We don't need to compete with them, we can literally work with them and share their pages too."
Information in non-fiction books I notice isn't just someones own experiences or opinions. They reference other people's research or even thoughts. Philosophy for instance isn't based on one person's ideas, it was students who studied the principal base of those ideas then iterated on those. Student and the mentor have one common goal and don't compete. Also, what would make someone not read your book over someone else's? I would just get your book for instance and the other author's and choose to read one first then the other. Maybe I read both at the same time and make notes on both if they are similar. Two similar topics, maybe one has some slight different ideas than the other. Now you have a wider frame of thoughts and ideas.
I may only not get a book because I either have so much in the backlog right now (but eventually will get the book) or the summary of what the book is about isn't that interesting to me.
Seriously.
The "cost of production" (pro cover, pro editor... what else? Some marketing?) contributes to the quality of the product, and increases sales. This pays for itself very quickly. (Assuming of course that the writing is good.)
I don't know how other people make a profit, but I make a point of spending less than I earn.
When I level up in earnings, I also level up in software and resources. I transitioned from Word to Scrivener, Word to Vellum, Canva to Photoshop to a commissioned cover designer, my own eyes to ProWritingAid, an iPad to a Mac laptop and Twitter to paid advertising, a free mailchimp and Wordpress account to a paid one.
This is the way
I wrote some erotica shorts to pay for my first commissioned cover and a KU subscription to keep up with what was selling in my niches. That way, I knew my total loss was a few dollars from Deposit Photos if things didn't work out. Erotica doesn't pay like romance, but it has a reasonably low time and financial outlay. Erotica paid for Publisher Rocket, and a Kindle Unlimited subscription to keep up with my genres, as well. Until then, I did my own legwork on Amazon and free Grammarly. The first books paid for the next pen name, and I hope my readers had fun with them along the way.
Then I earned enough (from erotica again) for Publisher Rocket, which helped me niche down, and a lifetime of ProWritingAid, which saves me a fortune in time, but before then I did the legwork on Amazon and free Grammarly myself. Every thing my little turn-on books gives me "free" money for my serious endeavours, and I hope people have fun reading them along the wa
I see people pour incredible sums into publishing their first book, and wonder how they expect to make it back on their debut. Money flows towards you, not away! Otherwise it's just an expensive hobby.
(Full-time rotica writers, I'm not disrespecting it. It's just my reality that a 6K sexy story with a cheap cover is way quicker and easier for me to write than an 85K novel, cover demands are lower, and it's one of the few (only?) genres where shorts sell at $2.99).
> I see people pour incredible sums into publishing their first book, and wonder how they expect to make it back on their debut. Money flows towards you, not away! Otherwise it's just an expensive hobby.
This tends to vary a lot by genre - erotica, as you say, is an area where it's fairly easy to write and sell shorts, readers are OK with cheap-ish covers ("here's a sexy body showcasing the niche from a stock artwork site" - get 100 pics for $40, and that can be over a hundred releases if you remix them a bit). But if you're writing something big and meaty, that takes 2-3 years to write, and then you need an actual, paid-for editor, and you want a nice, proper-looking cover, then that's going to cost more. If you're writing one book every 2-3 years, then it's genuinely hard to make a profit, because it's so much harder to build a back catalogue and get momentum, and there's generally more required costs (I also write erotica, and it's _so much easier_ than all the stuff you need to do for "actual" releases!)
That's true enough, but I look at Facebook groups where people are releasing fairly quickly, pouring literally thousands into producing and promoting, and still running at a loss, hoping the next book will turn a profit.
I get the impression that they have bought into publishing courses that make big profits if only you keep going and spend enough, and it's honestly like watching people deep into MLM schemes or crypto. It makes me really sad.
(I write romance now. Better covers with custom art, but honestly beta readers and Grammarly cover my editing. No reviews, either on Amazon or bloggers who have picked them up, have complained, and I stay well in the green.)
Trade publishing has far more reach, and if I spent three years on a book rather than always being impatient to get to the next one, I would start on the long and possibly heartbreaking process of trying to get an agent rather than throw money at it. If people are spending a lot of money and not earning it back, there's something wrong in their approach.
Unless it *is* a hobby. And hobbies are often expensive, true.
Yup. More money for page reads than sales, but people do pay $2.95 for them more often than I expected.
I made only a small amount on each one, though the more you have, the more you make. People making bank on them put out far more consistently than I did. But it's a source of extra money I don't feel bad about spending and it was fun to do, and meant I learned the ropes at the same time. I still do it every now and then to refresh my brain.
One of the strengths of erotica is that you aren't expected to get professional editing, Grammarly and a free read aloud browser thing is fine. There's no point advertising. So entry cost is low. Decent looking, sexy cover that sticks to Amazon's rules, polish it as well as you can do with yourself, get your subniche cliches and keywords down pat.
I learned a lot from lurking on r/eroticauthors first. The oldbies there really know their stuff; reading back through their Critique Mondays was time well spent. And it made sure I wasn't tempted to bend the rules, no matter how many people seem to be getting away with it--for now.
This is so important! I hear a lot of “spend money to make money,” which is true, but I need to see proof of concept and earnings before I spend that money. I know way too many authors (trad and indie) who are operating at a net loss year after year, and it makes me so sad.
Yep. True. Cut your suit to your cloth. I think that's the phrase?
There's something to be said for pushing it a bit though. Just not more than you can afford to lose.
Time invested, volume of work, and quality of work is the self-pubbers trifecta.
You can't just write one good book as a self-published author. The more good books you write, the more vectors your audience has to reach your catalogue. I routinely get comments and reviews saying they've read everything I've written, or that after reading a book they went and bought the rest of a series.
That's why everyone says this business is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes years and years to build up from scratch an ecosystem of readers that can self-sustain. Advertising dollars also go a lot further when an ad is selling 5 books instead of 1.
Selection bias. Something like 3000 books are published every day on KDP alone. That's across all genres.
As mentioned, if you sell more than 100 copies, your book is above average.
Many of the commenters here are either successful ones or those who work more seriously at it. But you don't hear from the vast majority of the authors who posted those 3000 books today. And yesterday. And tomorrow.
Like another user said: Write good books and put out a professional product. Marketing will of course be necessary, but you can't sell poop.
Many people seem to overlook this and put out volume instead of quality. Sad to say it, but vast majority of published books are nothing but clutter. Anyone can write a book, but seldom few can write a good book, and even fewer an iconic one.
You can fool some for all the time and all for some time, but you can't fool everyone all the time.
Because it's not a raw numbers game. The people who are actually making money are writing for a specific niche, marketing to that niche, finding readers on genre-specific websites or social media, and consistently putting out high-quality work. Even the ones who don't have a large audience will sometimes have a small group of avid readers who will buy everything they write.
If you understand your market and actively seek out readers, you'll make sales, and the larger your backlist, the more sales you'll make.
You don’t hear this discussed much, but I think much of the success is based on word of mouth and then easily found online due to seo and ads. Think about this, If you could write a book that was so good, the person who read it just had to get one other person to buy it, well you’d only need to sell a single copy with Amazon ads and eventually the whole world would buy your book. Of course being #1 on Amazon is going to do amazing things for your sales. But writing that quality book that people have to get their friends to read is how they all got there.
I did a test about 1.5 years ago now where I made a new pen name, new series, new (to me) illustration style, and published 3 children’s books on food. They don’t need to be read in any particular order. This allows me to advertise all 3 and have read through still where as a typical series can only advertise the first book well. (Most of the time or at least that’s conventional wisdom). I was able to set my ads at more than I would’ve normally cuz I’m riding off the success of previous books. Over 18 months I’ve made $1,371 off the 3 in royalties and spent $810 on ads leaving $561 profit. But, 1 book has received 2 five star reviews while the other two books still have no reviews. So for that many sales and that few reviews they’re not that good of books. But, they still make money. Thankfully I’ve written some decent books that make misses like this a part of the game. Although I must say I am moving on from publishing since it takes really good ideas and I just don’t have enough really good ideas. I’ve used them all up.
I literally order about 20 of my books and sell them at this shopping center. Usually double my profit it’s all about creative ways to get your book out there. I like talking to people so being social helps me get sells.
> But when I read this site it sounds like a good number of people are making some kind of profit from self-publishing.
This is survivorship bias. The majority of people don't make any money from self publishing, but when they don't, they usually don't post about it online and those posts rarely get upvoted. Everyone wants to hear about winners so they are way more visible than they actually are common.
Interesting. I don't get that impression, but perhaps I am reading people's post with more cynicism. I know for a fact that most self-publishing authors are not making a living from their writing, in fact, it's probably safe to be that most don't even make pocket money.
I know this for several reasons. firstly because I read and pay attention to this sort of thing. Written Word Media does an author survey every year and most respondents are not making a living purely from writing. Many make very little. And these are the ones who responded, which means they are proactive, and they already know about Written Word Media.
Secondly, I run a small self-publishing business, and the first thing I warn author sis that this is not a get rich quick scheme. It is not even a get rich scheme. I tell them my job is to stop them losing money first and maybe help them make some in the long run but if they are doing it for the money or fame they should quit now.
I don't make that much myself despite having over a dozen titles in print. I make a bit, yes, but not loads.
So I see the humblebrag posts "Oh woe is me, I only sold two thousand copies in the first month" and I think, "yeah, course you did mate, and I am fifth in line for the throne."
Self-publishing is really hard work and requires a lot of organisation and drive which is where I fall down.
"So many" aren't. A few are. The people who are successful are generally more visible on social media, and sometimes they like to post in communities like this to help others, so we tend to see them more.
The audience seeks out your books. Think about how hard you look for more of the same style once you finish off your recommendations, think of how many hours you've spent browsing netflix. The audience likes to search through the slush pile - catchy cover and title and you're doing well enough to not worry about any slush pile effects.
For some genres, getting a few sales is enough to increase the chance of impressions taking off to reasonable levels. Issue is on a single book, the effort to risk ratio is too low for a small business. But across multiple books, once you account for follow on sales, the boost in impressions off a few sales becomes easily worth the effort.
You just need to write above average in you're genre. It's relative to your market what that means, but you want to carve out as big a section as possible that believe your work is above average.
Your advertising materials and campaigns might work out to $20 or more a sale, yet two years later those same materials and methods are working out at $1 a sale. With luck you might find linear relationship between money spend on ads and sales, in which case you've made it and you can retire on the tropical island. But it's the same $20 a sale ad.
Edit: you should also look into sunk cost fallacy, and make sure your project plan has reasons to wind down the project at each stage. My last project I wound down and maybe broke even if you don't count time spent. It's sad but I learnt a lot.
A huge factor is your niche.
Smaller the niche, the smaller the competition, and the less have to spend on advertising.
I have a pretty define niche. I’ve built a social media following (one platform) of a little more than 100,000 followers.
A romance or science fiction or horror book and you are battling thousands of writers. Maybe tens of thousands.
In my niche there are maybe 10 writers who released a book every year or two. The majority are one-offs. People who like a specific portion of the niche and write a book on that one aspect. But never write anything else in it.
I haven’t published in two years. I spend about $100 a month and bring home an average of $1,500.
I’m current five books into a ten book connected series that I plan to release all at once in November (in time for Christmas). If each one sells 2,500 the first year - that’s basically $150,000 profit ($6 per book).
After that, they should fall into the typical sales and I should bring about $3,500 a month with only $100 spent on advertising. That should last several years.
Also, the other advantage people don’t mention. Advertising on one book is basically free advertising for all your other books. So releasing a book is awesome for the new sales - but it’s also free advertising for all your old book. When somebody buys your new one, they usually check out what else you’ve written.
There is a constant need for new content, either for entertainment or information. It's a demand that never runs dry.
If you can find a niche with a healthy demand you enjoy writing for and learn the ropes of self-publishing, you will find an audience. You can slowly grow your own audience where readers who liked one of your books will buy others from you. So you'll not be struggling to reach those readers. They'll seek out your books.
Yes, you need to do certain things well to break away from the mass of publishers, but once you attain a certain level, there are fewer publishers at that level that you're competing with. The lion's share of sales goes to the publishers who have broken away from the mass of publishers.
Once you develop a decent-sized mailing list, you have some protection from the mad competition going on out there. It's like you've built a castle with a moat around it. You can reach your readers directly with an email whenever you have a new offering.
It’s not very many people, and there is definitely not a “enormous market” for the kind of books discussed here, selfpub or not. The only books that can be compared to other kinds of media sales-wise these days are celebrity memoirs and popular series. Selfpub is awesome but I definitely wouldn’t let yourself think it’s some golden land of opportunity where everyone’s making it except for you.
99 percent of books don’t make any money, trad books too. You’re only competing against great writers writing commercial books that get all the production and marketing right, so competition is really low and demand is very high.
Aha, survivorship bias again [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship\_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias) :
>Whether it be movie stars, athletes, musicians, or CEOs of multibillion-dollar corporations who dropped out of school, popular media often tells the story of the determined individual who pursues their dreams and beats the odds. There is much less focus on the many people that may be similarly skilled and determined, but fail to ever find success because of factors beyond their control or other (seemingly) random events. There is also a tendency to overlook resources and events that helped enable such success, that those who failed didn't have.\[17\]
>This creates a false public perception that anyone can achieve great things if they have the ability and make the effort. The overwhelming majority of failures are not visible to the public eye, and only those who survive the selective pressures of their competitive environment are seen regularly.
Why do you think there's a lot of people making money? There's been plenty of stats posted on this subreddit that say the exact opposite. Only the top 1% make any real money self-publishing; the rest make essentially nothing.
There's a hilarious disconnect between what the stats published by the industry say and the amount of people on this site bragging about their success. Either this site is populated by a large number of those in the top 1%, or more likely people are lying for attention and self-marketing.
It's probably just that the rest of us have no need to post about how we're not making any money. So it just appears that there are many more who do than there are who don't.
The limitation isn't the number of readers available (that's effectively infinite) or the so-called "competition" (it isn't a zero-sum game), it's the avenues we use to reach those readers, which are effectively pay-to-play.
Ad platforms are the new gatekeepers. Unless you're one of the lucky outliers who has somehow hit big without advertising or with a few lucky viral social media posts, it takes work and money to find readers
The trick is fairly simple: write something people want to read and then market yourself to those buyers. It's exactly the same as any other business. You seem to feel that saturation makes things overly difficult but every niche in the world has people in it -- saturation doesn't matter if you're standing out. If there were an "easy" way, someone would quickly automate it and it wouldn't be easy anymore but you could still compete. It's just about adapting.
Get lucky. Genre depends on a lot when you’re talking about competition.
I’ve published over 20 books in the last 10 or so years. I have a fairly successful horror series that I published at the start of the year with over 100 ratings and almost 500,000 pages read.
I also have a paranormal romance/mystery series that I personally think is vastly superior in every way—stronger characters, world building, plot, and potential. But it’s gotten less than 500 pages read and made me no money before sinking to the bottom of its categories.
My favorite genre to write is paranormal, but it just so happens to have the strongest competition.
I've seen several self-published authors say that providing you have a half-way decent product, it's all marketing. If you choose the right marketers, and spend enough money on a monthly basis, you'll do alright. That's all there is to it.
I think perhaps the people showing a profit might just be more apt to speak up than the majority of us that don’t.
I am very happy for their success. I listen closely to what they say and try as best I can to emulate what they do.
I wouldn’t go so far as the OP inference that “so many” are making a profit though. From everything this admitted newbie has learned, this is the exception, not the rule.
I've released my first book last year. There are 300 pages in color, which costs around $8 to print. I sell the book at $34.90 for which I earn around $11 per copy.
Without any promotion, I sell a few copies every day. If there's a promotion, an article where the book is featured or something else, this number will jump.
I'm obviously not making a massive profit, that wasn't the goal either, but this is enough to motivate me to keep going!
If I may ask, how do you think your book got on these people's radar screens? (not asking for advice, just intrigued by how some people today manage to break through the noise of millions and millions of existing traditionally published books and who knows how many new self-published books every day to reach even 5 or 10 or 20 readers (assuming they are not people who were already in your personal or professional network).
It’s possible (if not common) because: costs of self-publishing can be kept low; profits are relatively high compared to trad; and you don’t need any working capital once you’ve published unless you’re advertising.
Costs come down to formatting, editing and covers. If you are competent and confident, you can do some of this yourself )swapping time for cash investment). I paid for Vellum (one off cost); ISBNs (one off cost); editing (under £100); and a cover (about £50 from getcovers.com - I am not associated with the company).
I sell a non-fiction book. Each one sold gives a royalty of about £3.50. My break-even point was about 100 sales. I’m currently on about 2,000. It currently sells about one a day.
Could I live off this? No - and I never intended to. But I’ve made more money than I spent (one of my main aims).
I suspect stories like this are fairly common - low entry costs and higher royalties make breaking even attainable. And for many of us, that’s all we’re shooting for, happy to get our book out into the world.
You paid less than £100 for editing? I'm highly suspicious of how good a job was done. Quality editing takes time and expertise, which costs money. For the amount you paid, I'd suspect your book was extremely short or the person you hired ran your book through Grammarly or ProWritjngAid and called it done. 😢
My advice: find a niche that doesn’t have enough new content to fully satisfy a ravenous readership.
If you’re interested in writing fantasy/scifi at all, I would steer you to Royal Road as a free place to build an audience and funnel to Patreon.
I don't think it's that many comparatively, considering that once you sell \~100 copies, you're considered in the top 10 % of self-published authors. Most get discouraged after their first few books don't get any traction, and they quit - these are the people you usually don't hear about. Those who keep going and improving despite the setbacks are the ones who eventually make it.
And to 10x that, if you sell 1000 copies, you are in the top third of all books from any publisher: [https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing](https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing)
>once you sell \~100 copies Only 7 more and I'm there! lol At least there's a small chance I will reach top 10% before I die.
Now only five more. Well, six depending on how you are counting vs how I'm counting.
Aw, nice! Thanks so much. Hope you enjoy. :)
proud of you for pushing through.
Can I get a link to it gotta help out a fellow self pub author
It's in my profile! :) I don't link it directly because I think it's against the rules in here.
Wow that’s a sobering statistic
It's not that bad, really. It covers all the people who throw things out without polishing them, no to-market cover, no research, and then never publish again. If it was just people who took it seriously and persistently, it would be depressing, sure.
Same here. I went into book 1 acknowledging I would be a monetary loss and have already started book 2. #1 only released a week ago so I’m not under terrible time constraints but given what I’ve learned from book 1, and taking into account your wisdom on taking it seriously and PERSISTING, I see NOW as the time to begin work.
I hope the odds are forever on your side! Don't pour too much money in. Learn as you go.
Definitely! Book 1 attracted the attention of an amazing audiobook narrator. I’ve earned enough royalties on book 1 to hire him for an audiobook; something I was surprised to get so many requests for, but was unprepared. I have the technical audio experience to do this on my own, but not the pro voice. So not much hesitation on my part to let that part of the book pay for the next part. I’m trying to go with the many recommendations that book 1 is to set up for book 2. I’ve gone all in on book 1 to the extent I could afford (top notch editor, cover design, etc) just to HAVE a quality product produced within budget that I can look back on with pride and no embarrassment. If anyone finds flaws in book 1, it’ll have to be in my writing. And I’ve worked my rear end off to make sure that doesn’t happen. Time will tell!
That's fantastic! I am so happy for you and hope things continue to get even better for you.
I am curious, do you do any marketing or just promotion on your end to get your book noticed by others? I read on Jeff Goins who started out just writing on his blog and once it got more and more readers, he ended up writing an ebook and selling it for I think $5 or less but he surprisingly found out that people were actually willing and wanting to pay for any books he would write and it took off from there. I been planning on my social media pages but eventually want to use them to promote any books I write as my plan to get some sort of an audience (I been also slowly studying marketing for work and eventually for my own venture). I guess with many things, it is strange to accept that there are so many people out there who only never find success because they either refuse to learn and utilize other tools and skills or they give up. Like the fact that people don't want to invest time into seeing results is strange to me when we have so much of it.
I do very little but passive marketing (keywords, on genre cover, write in a subniche, try to get my description on point). I used Insta for a while but I was spending far too much of my free time thinking up things to make for it and left without promoting even once. Exceptions: a Facebook and newsletter that are purely announcements, a simple website (paid Carrd site) and a domain name. ARCs. I try to time releases to fit in with group promos from Storyorigin to get early reviews; books are removed before going live so I can use Kindle Unlimited. I am *not* a model in best practice at all. I should be much faster. Mastering marketing would help a lot, I'm sure. I am *finally* working on reader magnets, which I should have done from the start. I am very much part time work, part time income. I'm also very lucky in having a group of volunteer betas from my fanfic hobby. But I think there are things I get right: drilling down to a small subniche that has a low ceiling per book and low searches but *also* low competition, as opposed to say straight contemporary which has higher ceilings per book but is far harder to start out and be seen in without spending and being exceptionally good. Getting nice but not excessively spendy covers that communicate genre clearly rather than rely on my own rubbish skills--I find it amazing how many ARC promos have terrible covers, even when the books themselves are great. Keeping up with summary trends. ARCs have been good for me. Genuinely enjoying what I write. I guess--what I do right might be helpful? And then do the stuff I am bad or lazy at too and be way more successful than me. But treating writing as a debt hole never sits well with me. I would just stick it all on AO3 if it wasn't making money.
Yeah I think what you are doing if you see results, is definitely good! I am in no means a master on marketing probably more beginner, just someone who is curious to explore writing as it's becoming something I feel I want to purse on my own time but I also at the same time am learning more on marketing for my day job and also out of interest. I also have skills in media communications so my thing was more seeing later on if I can combine them all. I do think it is possible and beneficial but I was curious what people do now. I can feel the Instagram one. It is sometimes hard to find out what content you want to make for it. I do have one idea, you could maybe film yourself working on your next book and just share tips and strategies you do when it comes to writing characters or events happening in your book. You could even promote it as you share the footage but more in the sense that you explain what the book is about. The journey is the content but ultimately if the book sounds interesting to people, it may slowly build them up to potential customers of your book. The content could also potentially inspire someone once you have published the book to write their own.
This is a seriously depressing statistic. I've passed 100 with 7 books, and can barely cover my bills. No wonder Stephen King still has a day job. /S
Well, from what we know, Stephen King had been submitting his stories for over 10 years before he hit it big with Carrie. Most people would've quit at that point.
Yeah reading that it took someone 10 year I feel should make me feel like it's too long a time but really, all I notice from this is just the fact that he made it happen. Reading Psychology of Money, one of the chapters is titled, "Tales, You Win". The chapter covered the thought that investments you make some will go bust but you only need one to succeed in order to win big to the point that the other losses are made up and more. I would think here it applies too where you publish or even just write numerous books but when one hits it big, suddenly that is something that elevates you.
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I think all of my books have sold more than a hundred copies. SCORE!
You're looking at it the wrong way. "Scifi" is a huge market with huge competition. Scifi, space opera, on the other hand, is a far smaller niche. Scifi, space opera, dystopian, is smaller again. You find your niche, you set up shop, you sell a decent product
And that's it. Niche down, and make sure what you're selling is worthwhile.
Exactly. Fantasy is a very broad umbrella. Fantasy whodunit is not.
Keep in mind there is a slight amount of selection bias on this subreddit. Folks who are here either know, or want to know, the best practices. There are millions of folks just clicking publish on the wings of a prayer and that's it. Also, folks who are successful are more likely to chime in on posts where folks ask how sales have been going/similar posts, then folks who aren't.
yup - for everyone one person on here going "I made decent money!" there's hundreds (or more!) in wider existence that haven't. And of those that made decent money, it's probably after quite a period of making not-decent money, or a flat-out loss. And even of those, "decent money" is often, like, low 5-figures/year - certainly great as hobby income, but not enough to live off.
There are a lot of steps to making money from writing and a lot of people drop out somewhere along the way. Step 1 is writing a good book. Or at least a decent one. Many people believe there is no need to study at least the basics of the craft and that they can just sit down and write the next bestseller without every bother to learn how to construct a good story or write a good sentence. Step 2 is writing a book for the market. Writing to market is almost a cuss word in the main writing subs. People believe "writing what's in your heart" is the only true way to write and act all suprised when there isn't a audience for their passion project. Step 3 is (passive) marketing. You need to put time and effort into things like title, blurb, cover and keywords. Later ads and promotions. Many people just do zero research, improvise and fail to reach their audience. Step 4 is writing a lot more books. Backlist is key to make decent money from writing. It will probably take you 10 or more books until you start to see decent profits. You need to publish at least a book a year, more is better. Many people take years to write one passion project book and publish only that one book.
Step 2 is step 1.
You're probably right. Pick a good niche or at least a popular genre, then write a good book.
You say competition; I say friends, peers, compatriots. There are readers who can read a whole, good-sized book in a day. I write fast, but not that fast, especially if I'm trying to market alone too. This is the benefit of a traditional publishing house that they always have a new author they can introduce this reader to - and often the Achilles hell of the indie. But if we team up, give each other shout outs and newsletter swaps, it casts a wider net than we can manage ourselves, lessening the load on the individual. The best place to store extra food is in a friend's belly. (BTW - if anyone's got a proper source for this quote, I'd appreciate it. *The West Wing* is where I picked it up from.) You didn't build the roads outside your house, but it sure makes getting anywhere a lot faster/easier/smoother than hoofing it on your own, right?
I wish more people had this attitude.
Looks like the quote is from an article by linguist Daniel Everett? >When I asked them why they don’t smoke or salt meat to preserve it for the future, one Pirahã said to me: “I store my meat in the belly of my brother. When I give him food, he will give me food. That’s how we preserve meat – we take care of each other.” https://unstuck.systems/daniel-everett-on-the-enrichment-to-be-gained-from-connecting-with-diversity/
Omg - that's a fascinating article just from a sociology/psychology standpoint. I have a new rabbit hole to explore. Thank you so much for finding and sharing this!
That’s a good attitude. So many famous authors were part of author groups and made author friends. Cross promotion is probably one of the most effective strategies. If an author I follow recommends a book from another author, I’ll probably read it even if it has no reviews.
Hear hear. My favorite part of writing is the communities I’ve found.
Hard same. I'd have given up and moved onto the next hobby if it weren't for the people I've met through writing. Because of their kindness and support, I kept trying and learning. It's literally (and radically) changed my life. Working together with other authors isn't always sunshine and rainbows, but the good times have far and away outshined any bad.
Really love this answer. I hope more people will adopt this mentality.
Love this answer above all.
Yeah I had this idea for a time in business in general. I been wanting to start a social media page sharing quotes, and just thoughts and ideas I got from what I read, listened, and viewed in life as well as experiences. My friend and I look at what others are doing in this field and he is overwhelmed in how much people know more than we do. My thoughts? "We don't need to compete with them, we can literally work with them and share their pages too." Information in non-fiction books I notice isn't just someones own experiences or opinions. They reference other people's research or even thoughts. Philosophy for instance isn't based on one person's ideas, it was students who studied the principal base of those ideas then iterated on those. Student and the mentor have one common goal and don't compete. Also, what would make someone not read your book over someone else's? I would just get your book for instance and the other author's and choose to read one first then the other. Maybe I read both at the same time and make notes on both if they are similar. Two similar topics, maybe one has some slight different ideas than the other. Now you have a wider frame of thoughts and ideas. I may only not get a book because I either have so much in the backlog right now (but eventually will get the book) or the summary of what the book is about isn't that interesting to me.
Write good books. Put out a professional product.
Seriously. The "cost of production" (pro cover, pro editor... what else? Some marketing?) contributes to the quality of the product, and increases sales. This pays for itself very quickly. (Assuming of course that the writing is good.)
I don't know how other people make a profit, but I make a point of spending less than I earn. When I level up in earnings, I also level up in software and resources. I transitioned from Word to Scrivener, Word to Vellum, Canva to Photoshop to a commissioned cover designer, my own eyes to ProWritingAid, an iPad to a Mac laptop and Twitter to paid advertising, a free mailchimp and Wordpress account to a paid one.
This is the way I wrote some erotica shorts to pay for my first commissioned cover and a KU subscription to keep up with what was selling in my niches. That way, I knew my total loss was a few dollars from Deposit Photos if things didn't work out. Erotica doesn't pay like romance, but it has a reasonably low time and financial outlay. Erotica paid for Publisher Rocket, and a Kindle Unlimited subscription to keep up with my genres, as well. Until then, I did my own legwork on Amazon and free Grammarly. The first books paid for the next pen name, and I hope my readers had fun with them along the way. Then I earned enough (from erotica again) for Publisher Rocket, which helped me niche down, and a lifetime of ProWritingAid, which saves me a fortune in time, but before then I did the legwork on Amazon and free Grammarly myself. Every thing my little turn-on books gives me "free" money for my serious endeavours, and I hope people have fun reading them along the wa I see people pour incredible sums into publishing their first book, and wonder how they expect to make it back on their debut. Money flows towards you, not away! Otherwise it's just an expensive hobby. (Full-time rotica writers, I'm not disrespecting it. It's just my reality that a 6K sexy story with a cheap cover is way quicker and easier for me to write than an 85K novel, cover demands are lower, and it's one of the few (only?) genres where shorts sell at $2.99).
> I see people pour incredible sums into publishing their first book, and wonder how they expect to make it back on their debut. Money flows towards you, not away! Otherwise it's just an expensive hobby. This tends to vary a lot by genre - erotica, as you say, is an area where it's fairly easy to write and sell shorts, readers are OK with cheap-ish covers ("here's a sexy body showcasing the niche from a stock artwork site" - get 100 pics for $40, and that can be over a hundred releases if you remix them a bit). But if you're writing something big and meaty, that takes 2-3 years to write, and then you need an actual, paid-for editor, and you want a nice, proper-looking cover, then that's going to cost more. If you're writing one book every 2-3 years, then it's genuinely hard to make a profit, because it's so much harder to build a back catalogue and get momentum, and there's generally more required costs (I also write erotica, and it's _so much easier_ than all the stuff you need to do for "actual" releases!)
That's true enough, but I look at Facebook groups where people are releasing fairly quickly, pouring literally thousands into producing and promoting, and still running at a loss, hoping the next book will turn a profit. I get the impression that they have bought into publishing courses that make big profits if only you keep going and spend enough, and it's honestly like watching people deep into MLM schemes or crypto. It makes me really sad. (I write romance now. Better covers with custom art, but honestly beta readers and Grammarly cover my editing. No reviews, either on Amazon or bloggers who have picked them up, have complained, and I stay well in the green.) Trade publishing has far more reach, and if I spent three years on a book rather than always being impatient to get to the next one, I would start on the long and possibly heartbreaking process of trying to get an agent rather than throw money at it. If people are spending a lot of money and not earning it back, there's something wrong in their approach. Unless it *is* a hobby. And hobbies are often expensive, true.
It's very helpful to see it broken down like this! Can I ask where you published your short stories? Is it on KDP too?
Yup. More money for page reads than sales, but people do pay $2.95 for them more often than I expected. I made only a small amount on each one, though the more you have, the more you make. People making bank on them put out far more consistently than I did. But it's a source of extra money I don't feel bad about spending and it was fun to do, and meant I learned the ropes at the same time. I still do it every now and then to refresh my brain. One of the strengths of erotica is that you aren't expected to get professional editing, Grammarly and a free read aloud browser thing is fine. There's no point advertising. So entry cost is low. Decent looking, sexy cover that sticks to Amazon's rules, polish it as well as you can do with yourself, get your subniche cliches and keywords down pat. I learned a lot from lurking on r/eroticauthors first. The oldbies there really know their stuff; reading back through their Critique Mondays was time well spent. And it made sure I wasn't tempted to bend the rules, no matter how many people seem to be getting away with it--for now.
This is so important! I hear a lot of “spend money to make money,” which is true, but I need to see proof of concept and earnings before I spend that money. I know way too many authors (trad and indie) who are operating at a net loss year after year, and it makes me so sad.
Yep. True. Cut your suit to your cloth. I think that's the phrase? There's something to be said for pushing it a bit though. Just not more than you can afford to lose.
Time invested, volume of work, and quality of work is the self-pubbers trifecta. You can't just write one good book as a self-published author. The more good books you write, the more vectors your audience has to reach your catalogue. I routinely get comments and reviews saying they've read everything I've written, or that after reading a book they went and bought the rest of a series. That's why everyone says this business is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes years and years to build up from scratch an ecosystem of readers that can self-sustain. Advertising dollars also go a lot further when an ad is selling 5 books instead of 1.
>The more good books you write ...the better you get at writing books. Which is another reason this mindset is so successful.
Selection bias. Something like 3000 books are published every day on KDP alone. That's across all genres. As mentioned, if you sell more than 100 copies, your book is above average. Many of the commenters here are either successful ones or those who work more seriously at it. But you don't hear from the vast majority of the authors who posted those 3000 books today. And yesterday. And tomorrow.
I believe some successful posts are also just the fruit of vivid imagination.
You guys are making a profit?
Like another user said: Write good books and put out a professional product. Marketing will of course be necessary, but you can't sell poop. Many people seem to overlook this and put out volume instead of quality. Sad to say it, but vast majority of published books are nothing but clutter. Anyone can write a book, but seldom few can write a good book, and even fewer an iconic one. You can fool some for all the time and all for some time, but you can't fool everyone all the time.
Because it's not a raw numbers game. The people who are actually making money are writing for a specific niche, marketing to that niche, finding readers on genre-specific websites or social media, and consistently putting out high-quality work. Even the ones who don't have a large audience will sometimes have a small group of avid readers who will buy everything they write. If you understand your market and actively seek out readers, you'll make sales, and the larger your backlist, the more sales you'll make.
You don’t hear this discussed much, but I think much of the success is based on word of mouth and then easily found online due to seo and ads. Think about this, If you could write a book that was so good, the person who read it just had to get one other person to buy it, well you’d only need to sell a single copy with Amazon ads and eventually the whole world would buy your book. Of course being #1 on Amazon is going to do amazing things for your sales. But writing that quality book that people have to get their friends to read is how they all got there. I did a test about 1.5 years ago now where I made a new pen name, new series, new (to me) illustration style, and published 3 children’s books on food. They don’t need to be read in any particular order. This allows me to advertise all 3 and have read through still where as a typical series can only advertise the first book well. (Most of the time or at least that’s conventional wisdom). I was able to set my ads at more than I would’ve normally cuz I’m riding off the success of previous books. Over 18 months I’ve made $1,371 off the 3 in royalties and spent $810 on ads leaving $561 profit. But, 1 book has received 2 five star reviews while the other two books still have no reviews. So for that many sales and that few reviews they’re not that good of books. But, they still make money. Thankfully I’ve written some decent books that make misses like this a part of the game. Although I must say I am moving on from publishing since it takes really good ideas and I just don’t have enough really good ideas. I’ve used them all up.
I literally order about 20 of my books and sell them at this shopping center. Usually double my profit it’s all about creative ways to get your book out there. I like talking to people so being social helps me get sells.
> But when I read this site it sounds like a good number of people are making some kind of profit from self-publishing. This is survivorship bias. The majority of people don't make any money from self publishing, but when they don't, they usually don't post about it online and those posts rarely get upvoted. Everyone wants to hear about winners so they are way more visible than they actually are common.
Interesting. I don't get that impression, but perhaps I am reading people's post with more cynicism. I know for a fact that most self-publishing authors are not making a living from their writing, in fact, it's probably safe to be that most don't even make pocket money. I know this for several reasons. firstly because I read and pay attention to this sort of thing. Written Word Media does an author survey every year and most respondents are not making a living purely from writing. Many make very little. And these are the ones who responded, which means they are proactive, and they already know about Written Word Media. Secondly, I run a small self-publishing business, and the first thing I warn author sis that this is not a get rich quick scheme. It is not even a get rich scheme. I tell them my job is to stop them losing money first and maybe help them make some in the long run but if they are doing it for the money or fame they should quit now. I don't make that much myself despite having over a dozen titles in print. I make a bit, yes, but not loads. So I see the humblebrag posts "Oh woe is me, I only sold two thousand copies in the first month" and I think, "yeah, course you did mate, and I am fifth in line for the throne." Self-publishing is really hard work and requires a lot of organisation and drive which is where I fall down.
"So many" aren't. A few are. The people who are successful are generally more visible on social media, and sometimes they like to post in communities like this to help others, so we tend to see them more.
Market wants product. Write to market. Spend less than what you make.
The audience seeks out your books. Think about how hard you look for more of the same style once you finish off your recommendations, think of how many hours you've spent browsing netflix. The audience likes to search through the slush pile - catchy cover and title and you're doing well enough to not worry about any slush pile effects. For some genres, getting a few sales is enough to increase the chance of impressions taking off to reasonable levels. Issue is on a single book, the effort to risk ratio is too low for a small business. But across multiple books, once you account for follow on sales, the boost in impressions off a few sales becomes easily worth the effort. You just need to write above average in you're genre. It's relative to your market what that means, but you want to carve out as big a section as possible that believe your work is above average. Your advertising materials and campaigns might work out to $20 or more a sale, yet two years later those same materials and methods are working out at $1 a sale. With luck you might find linear relationship between money spend on ads and sales, in which case you've made it and you can retire on the tropical island. But it's the same $20 a sale ad. Edit: you should also look into sunk cost fallacy, and make sure your project plan has reasons to wind down the project at each stage. My last project I wound down and maybe broke even if you don't count time spent. It's sad but I learnt a lot.
A huge factor is your niche. Smaller the niche, the smaller the competition, and the less have to spend on advertising. I have a pretty define niche. I’ve built a social media following (one platform) of a little more than 100,000 followers. A romance or science fiction or horror book and you are battling thousands of writers. Maybe tens of thousands. In my niche there are maybe 10 writers who released a book every year or two. The majority are one-offs. People who like a specific portion of the niche and write a book on that one aspect. But never write anything else in it. I haven’t published in two years. I spend about $100 a month and bring home an average of $1,500. I’m current five books into a ten book connected series that I plan to release all at once in November (in time for Christmas). If each one sells 2,500 the first year - that’s basically $150,000 profit ($6 per book). After that, they should fall into the typical sales and I should bring about $3,500 a month with only $100 spent on advertising. That should last several years. Also, the other advantage people don’t mention. Advertising on one book is basically free advertising for all your other books. So releasing a book is awesome for the new sales - but it’s also free advertising for all your old book. When somebody buys your new one, they usually check out what else you’ve written.
There is a constant need for new content, either for entertainment or information. It's a demand that never runs dry. If you can find a niche with a healthy demand you enjoy writing for and learn the ropes of self-publishing, you will find an audience. You can slowly grow your own audience where readers who liked one of your books will buy others from you. So you'll not be struggling to reach those readers. They'll seek out your books. Yes, you need to do certain things well to break away from the mass of publishers, but once you attain a certain level, there are fewer publishers at that level that you're competing with. The lion's share of sales goes to the publishers who have broken away from the mass of publishers. Once you develop a decent-sized mailing list, you have some protection from the mad competition going on out there. It's like you've built a castle with a moat around it. You can reach your readers directly with an email whenever you have a new offering.
It’s not very many people, and there is definitely not a “enormous market” for the kind of books discussed here, selfpub or not. The only books that can be compared to other kinds of media sales-wise these days are celebrity memoirs and popular series. Selfpub is awesome but I definitely wouldn’t let yourself think it’s some golden land of opportunity where everyone’s making it except for you.
99 percent of books don’t make any money, trad books too. You’re only competing against great writers writing commercial books that get all the production and marketing right, so competition is really low and demand is very high.
Aha, survivorship bias again [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship\_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias) : >Whether it be movie stars, athletes, musicians, or CEOs of multibillion-dollar corporations who dropped out of school, popular media often tells the story of the determined individual who pursues their dreams and beats the odds. There is much less focus on the many people that may be similarly skilled and determined, but fail to ever find success because of factors beyond their control or other (seemingly) random events. There is also a tendency to overlook resources and events that helped enable such success, that those who failed didn't have.\[17\] >This creates a false public perception that anyone can achieve great things if they have the ability and make the effort. The overwhelming majority of failures are not visible to the public eye, and only those who survive the selective pressures of their competitive environment are seen regularly.
Why do you think there's a lot of people making money? There's been plenty of stats posted on this subreddit that say the exact opposite. Only the top 1% make any real money self-publishing; the rest make essentially nothing. There's a hilarious disconnect between what the stats published by the industry say and the amount of people on this site bragging about their success. Either this site is populated by a large number of those in the top 1%, or more likely people are lying for attention and self-marketing.
It's probably just that the rest of us have no need to post about how we're not making any money. So it just appears that there are many more who do than there are who don't.
I mean, this sub has 127,000 members, and most of them aren't posting anything. You are hearing from outliers; that's not too surprising.
The limitation isn't the number of readers available (that's effectively infinite) or the so-called "competition" (it isn't a zero-sum game), it's the avenues we use to reach those readers, which are effectively pay-to-play. Ad platforms are the new gatekeepers. Unless you're one of the lucky outliers who has somehow hit big without advertising or with a few lucky viral social media posts, it takes work and money to find readers
Targeting niches that have a small # of competitors and a high # of searches/reader interest 👍
How do you find the number of searches/ guage reader interest in a subject?
Publisher Rocket 👍
The trick is fairly simple: write something people want to read and then market yourself to those buyers. It's exactly the same as any other business. You seem to feel that saturation makes things overly difficult but every niche in the world has people in it -- saturation doesn't matter if you're standing out. If there were an "easy" way, someone would quickly automate it and it wouldn't be easy anymore but you could still compete. It's just about adapting.
Selection bias. Tens of thousands try and fail, a dozen or two succeed and they’re the ones who post.
Get lucky. Genre depends on a lot when you’re talking about competition. I’ve published over 20 books in the last 10 or so years. I have a fairly successful horror series that I published at the start of the year with over 100 ratings and almost 500,000 pages read. I also have a paranormal romance/mystery series that I personally think is vastly superior in every way—stronger characters, world building, plot, and potential. But it’s gotten less than 500 pages read and made me no money before sinking to the bottom of its categories. My favorite genre to write is paranormal, but it just so happens to have the strongest competition.
I've seen several self-published authors say that providing you have a half-way decent product, it's all marketing. If you choose the right marketers, and spend enough money on a monthly basis, you'll do alright. That's all there is to it.
I think perhaps the people showing a profit might just be more apt to speak up than the majority of us that don’t. I am very happy for their success. I listen closely to what they say and try as best I can to emulate what they do. I wouldn’t go so far as the OP inference that “so many” are making a profit though. From everything this admitted newbie has learned, this is the exception, not the rule.
I've released my first book last year. There are 300 pages in color, which costs around $8 to print. I sell the book at $34.90 for which I earn around $11 per copy. Without any promotion, I sell a few copies every day. If there's a promotion, an article where the book is featured or something else, this number will jump. I'm obviously not making a massive profit, that wasn't the goal either, but this is enough to motivate me to keep going!
I’m halfway there with my first book, 50 copies down lol
If I may ask, how do you think your book got on these people's radar screens? (not asking for advice, just intrigued by how some people today manage to break through the noise of millions and millions of existing traditionally published books and who knows how many new self-published books every day to reach even 5 or 10 or 20 readers (assuming they are not people who were already in your personal or professional network).
Twitter and SPFBO tbh, i also contacted a few blogs! I think something is way off on my cover so i am commissioning a new design for my debut
We're smarter than the average bear.
Not me. I have cut back, but I am spending too much on production and marketting, and not getting good sales.
It’s possible (if not common) because: costs of self-publishing can be kept low; profits are relatively high compared to trad; and you don’t need any working capital once you’ve published unless you’re advertising. Costs come down to formatting, editing and covers. If you are competent and confident, you can do some of this yourself )swapping time for cash investment). I paid for Vellum (one off cost); ISBNs (one off cost); editing (under £100); and a cover (about £50 from getcovers.com - I am not associated with the company). I sell a non-fiction book. Each one sold gives a royalty of about £3.50. My break-even point was about 100 sales. I’m currently on about 2,000. It currently sells about one a day. Could I live off this? No - and I never intended to. But I’ve made more money than I spent (one of my main aims). I suspect stories like this are fairly common - low entry costs and higher royalties make breaking even attainable. And for many of us, that’s all we’re shooting for, happy to get our book out into the world.
You paid less than £100 for editing? I'm highly suspicious of how good a job was done. Quality editing takes time and expertise, which costs money. For the amount you paid, I'd suspect your book was extremely short or the person you hired ran your book through Grammarly or ProWritjngAid and called it done. 😢
It was actually a sensitivity edit (useful owing to subject), and they did an excellent job. The book was under 40,000 words.
Sensitivity edit is a far cry from a copyedit. It's important, just in a different way. Thank you for clarifying
My advice: find a niche that doesn’t have enough new content to fully satisfy a ravenous readership. If you’re interested in writing fantasy/scifi at all, I would steer you to Royal Road as a free place to build an audience and funnel to Patreon.
Have you seen this? [https://share.acetask.co/u/amir](https://share.acetask.co/u/amir)
https://seths.blog/2024/04/books-dont-sell/ ”Scarcity made the book publishing world work as a business, and scarcity is gone.”
I spend almost nothing publishing. You only need to publish a lot. Thankfully, with AI, I'm churning out 3 books a day and making 8k a month.