Can you make money indie publishing? Is the question new authors want to know. The answer is half yes and half no. Confusing? It isn’t really all that confusing. Self-published authors don’t get an advance, but they do get about 60% of their royalties from the start. Instead of getting paid $1.79 per copy on that book listed for $17.99, you’re getting paid closer to $11 a copy from the start.
How many books on average does an author sell?
The average self-published book sells 250 copies. The average self-published author makes $1,000 per year from their books. 33% of self-published authors make less than $500 per year. 90% of self-published books sell less than 100 copies.
HOWEVER, just like anything , you have to put work into it. Look at this author’s complaint on Trustpilot for Smashwords:
Raederelle on Trustpilot for Smashwords wrote the following, Low Sales for lots of effort. Authors should avoid: As an author with an account on several ebook retailers, I would rate Smashwords as the most difficult platform to use. Their ebook file creation process is clunky and their review process is overzealous. Looking at time spent vrs amount of sales you can make, it’s simply not a good option. See below for some numbers. Sales are very low on the platform. (6 million reported revenue with 250k authors = $24 average per author, yearly) For context, Kobo, a very small ebook retailer, does 97 million in sales. Amazon and B&N are in the billions of dollars of sales. From those numbers, taken from a quick google search, the book-purchasing public is clearly not at Smashwords.- October 2022.
The author has a valid complaint and as an author and publisher myself, you would think it was easy as baking pie for selling books. However, selling eBooks is like selling your crap on ebay – too many people are on there and you have to do a magic trick to get noticed, in this case, have your own blog, ask other bloggers for reviews, Salty Vixen Stories & More, we do book reviews and have a featured article, although we charge $1.00 for that. Only because we do a truthful review and spend time reading your eBooks. We, at Salty Vixen Stories & More believe in the authors.
How much have I made as an author, Salty Vixen? My first year was- $1,000 (since then the amount I have made has changed- and I have been publishing for five years. I enjoy writing, that is why I continue). Yeah, not a lot but it was something. The reason was I had everything on Amazon KDP Kindle Select Unlimited – and as a result, just like thousands of authors, my account was part of the ‘KDP Massive Account Termination of Feb/March 2023 for ‘manipulation of services’ meaning, people liked my books and were reading it, AI Bot for KDP flagged it and someone at KDP didn’t look into it, they automatically terminated accounts- bottom line: Don’t put your books on Kindle Select Unlimited.- you do make money; it looks good but seeing what myself and others have gone though, we don’t want your account to be randomly terminated.
The reality is, making money as an indie author can happen, but like I said earlier, you have to put your work into it. The more eBook stores you publish your eBooks- you have more chance of your book being noticed and purchased somewhere. You can publish your eBooks on Salty Vixen Stories & More EBook store (we publish Romance and Erotica books) in addition to to other book stores across the digital world. (the eBook store as of 2023 is new, and it is ran by one person, me, Salty Vixen- I go through each book, to make sure they follow standard guidelines (we have a wonderful ‘writing resources’ section),and after notify you about your book being published, with direct link as well as a featured article promoting your book(s). We hope that your book will sell on our bookstore or any bookstore you have your book published. We believe in the authors. But just like anything, you have to put your work into it – meaning, promoting on Salty Vixen Stories & More as well as other places, including a blog (you can make a free blog )
Here are some awesome states to consider as an Indie Author:
Number of ebooks sold per year
- 191 million ebooks were sold in 2020, up 12.35% from 2019.
- The number of ebooks sold is down 21.07% from its peak in 2013.
- The number of ebooks sold in the first half of 2021 is down 8% from the first half of 2020 but still 8% higher than they were prior to the pandemic in 2019.
- The last decade saw the number of ebooks sold per year nearly triple, from 69 million in 2010 to 191 in 2020.
- Adult fiction accounts for 41% of all ebook sales in 2021.
How much do self-published authors earn per book?
- Self-publishing platforms pay up to 70% of each book sold to authors (fantasy authors get between 40% and 60%).
- Self-published authors do not receive an advance and have to put up the costs of publishing and advertising themselves.
- Independent authors who sell their books on their own websites receive up to 96%.
- The average self-published book sells 250 copies.
- The average self-published author makes $1,000 per year from their books.
- 33% of self-published authors make less than $500 per year.
- 90% of self-published books sell less than 100 copies.
- 20% of self-published authors report making no income from their books.
- More than 1,000 self-published authors made $100,000 last year from Amazon.
- Of authors who have published their first book in the last 10 years:
- 1,200 traditionally published authors have earned $25,000+ a year
- 1,600 self-published authors have earned $25,000+ a year
Self-published ebook statistics
- 30-34% of all ebooks sold are self-published.
- Amazon pays $250 million in royalties to self-published authors each year.
- 85% of Kindle Unlimited books are self-published.
- Self-published books account for 31% of Amazon’s ebook sales.
Do self-published authors own the rights to their books if they are published on Amazon?
- When selling an ebook on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, an author licenses the right to sell an ebook to Amazon.
- This means Amazon and only Amazon has the right to sell the digital version of the book.
- An author cannot sell the ebook version of their book elsewhere — not even on their own website.
- The only way to do so is to cancel the contract by written notice.
- The book can be sold in other formats (e.g. print or audio) in other places.
