Inspired by others on the web who have done so, I’m going to do a numbers post. Mainly for reference, but also to show people what the income of a no-name self-publishing writer with moderate success looks like. Just to give some datapoints other than the millions reportedly made by others.
Newsflash: I’m not making millions!
So here are my earnings from self-publishing Sept 2012 – Sept 2013.
Books published:
Shifting Reality
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
The Shattered World Within
This seems like a lot, but Shifting Reality was almost finished in September, Trader’s Honour was easy because I knew the story so well (it was essentially a retelling of an existing–unpublished–story with a different POV), Shattered World Within was already published elsewhere, so that leaves only Soldier’s Duty written from scratch.
Books sold:
2693 across all platforms.
Broken up:
1549 on Kobo
691 Amazon US
61 Amazon UK
3 Amazon DE
5 Amazon CA
243 B&N
67 Apple
15 Smashwords
10 Sony
4 Diesel
45 print
Bestselling titles:
1. Fire & Ice
2. Dust & Rain
3. Blood & Tears
4. Watcher’s Web
5. Trader’s Honour
Important note: only one of these title was published in the past year. It often takes a long time for a book to gain traction, and series will often only start selling reasonably well after the publication of book 3.
Income:
Total income for this year: $7050
Which roughly breaks up into:
$5200 Kobo
$850 Smashwords
$2500 Amazon
$750 direct sales (mostly hand-sold print)
Now this is not going to break anyone’s bank, but I’m quite happy.
A few notes:
I didn’t enter my freebie give-aways, of which there would have been several tens of thousands.
I now have two three-book series (although the Aghyrians series will probably have a fourth book). Series definitely rule.
My books are quite high-priced in comparison with some, who sell all their books for 99c. I believe that my books are worth more than that. Moreover, I consider genre books my main “competitors”, and am not interested in the latest top 100 flavour of the month.
I don’t do a lot of paid advertising. Sales are all driven through perma-free books, my blog and Twitter.
While it would be nice to improve on my income next year, I am not treating that possibility as a given. This is hard work and you need to work for your sales. Even then, books might never take off.
