A quick check of the website of any author services company's website will find examples of highly successful self-published authors who used the company's services. The mainstream media has stories touting indie authors who bucked the establishment and self-published. Other success stories can be found involving sales with e-books and the fact some mid-list authors are now able to earn a living self-publishing on the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook. I enjoy reading J.A. Konrath's blog for new authors. Amanda Hocking's success has been covered in USA Today and the story focuses on her use of e-books as her medium to publish. Based on the story it looks like Ms. Hocking will be able to earn a living as a genre writer and a self-published author.
But what does the typical self-published author experience in REAL sales? The real numbers appear to be a bit grim as this story indicates: http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/2009/03/sales-statistics.html . I recall reading in a post by Morris Rosenthal, one of the founding fathers of modern self-publishing, stating if a self-published title sells 200 copies, the author has done well. I e-mailed Mr. Rosenthal and asked him where he got this figure and he politely e-mailed back and replied he did not recall but stated based on his years of experience and communicating with self-publishing authors, the number is probably a bit high. In the linked article some grim figures are provided. It appears for many authors the actual number is about 150 sales for a title.
How have my own self-published titles fared? I haven't quit my day job. But, I have recouped the money invested in my website (I probably spent too much), covered my monthly e-newsletter cost, web hosting, bank charges and production costs for my books. The wife and CFO of our tiny publishing empire said we were a few dollars short of breaking even on our enterprise after three years.
I can honestly say some titles in terms of sales are total duds (but have served their purpose well as give-a-ways at coaching clinics). Some sell OK seasonally. Some sell well by my standards as paperbacks and one sells really well as a Kindle book. I have two titles that have sold over one thousand copies in just under two years and I am pretty happy about those titles. I am not getting rich, but at least I have reached the break even point and new titles are paid for out of revenue from earlier titles.
I fully realize as a non-fiction author who writes to a potential audience with a fixed total number of potential readers I will never be a "best-selling author." Nor will I make millions. I do not think it is unrealistic to expect my efforts to result in a decent extra source of income.
In the mean time, I have learned a great deal. I have more to learn, and as it has been said so many times, hope springs eternal.
Thanks for sharing this... I self-published in the traditional way in 1994 - had 2000 copies printed and their boxes held up my spare bed... well, they still do, but only about 300 are left. I think the break-even point was about 800 sales.
ReplyDeleteThen, last month was my second self-publishing venture, this time via POD and e-pub. I don't expect to be on any best seller lists, but thanks to POD I only have to sell 67 to recover my investment, and in one month 56 have sold (not counting to relatives) so I'm not too worried about it. Now I'm marketing with the goal of earning beer money. POD was clearly the way to go for me (another factor was timeliness - I didn't want to wait 2 years or more for traditional publishing).
I think a lot of new authors get sucked into the myth that they'll earn thousands of dollars because of distortions and misleading statements from self-publishing companies. I admit that I was sucked into this myth as well before reading Aaron Shepard's books on self-publishing.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I haven't quit my day job. The revenue for my publishing business is nice supplemental income, but it can't support financially....yet.