making money in self-publishing

Looking Back: Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago I was 61. My wife had given me the okay to retire at 62 if I wished. And boy was I ever looking to retire and get out of the toxic county work environment that I’d endured for 30 years.

What I Wrote

In February 2014, I completed my massively sprawling post-apocalyptic epic The Rocheport Saga. A novel over 2200 handwritten pages long. The published seven volumes comprise about a third of the original manuscript. So there is lots more to add, if I decide to continue the saga.

In the spring and early summer of that year, I wrote Trio in Death-Sharp Minor and Festival of Death. The first two books in the Justinia Wright Private Investigator Mystery series.

During the summer, I wrote the first Lady Dru Drummond decopunk action-adventure novel: The Moscow Affair. And I edited Do One Thing For Me (a horror novelette) for publication.

Then I published the entire shooting match in November and December.

Dreamin’ of Riches

And like most writers, I immediately started dreaming about what I’d do with all the royalty money I’d be getting.

However, reality is a harsh mistress. And the money… Well, I quickly discovered that I was in the same league as the vast majority of fiction writers: we make very little to no money from our books. A sad tale, but true.

Although, I can say I am better off than many of my peers. Because, without any significant advertising, I have made at least $200 every year I’ve been at this indie writing/publishing gig. The operative phrase being without any significant advertising.

And last year, again without any significant advertising, I had my best year ever: pulling in around $630. Not a king’s ransom by any means. But I spent less than $30 in advertising and expended very little time hawking my books. The major “cost” was in writing, editing, and formatting — all which I did myself.

My hope is that one of these years before I die I’ll break that $1000 mark in income from my books. So stay tuned.

How to Make a Buck

One key to making a buck writing fiction these days is to orchestrate a massive advertising campaign, often to the tune of thousands of dollars. And hoping you sell enough books to break even. Few do. Even so, this is what almost all the gurus advise. Advertise, advertise, advertise.

Another tried-and-true method is direct sales. Man a booth at a fair, book festival, or convention.

I know authors who have actually sold many thousands of copies of their books doing so. The downside is that your weekends are tied up and you have to lug around curtains of your books. But you can make a living by selling direct. Just too busy and too much traveling for my liking.

Social Media

Generally speaking, social media is a bust. I haven’t gotten any book sale traction via social media for a few years now. In fact, I’ve pulled back severely on my social media involvement. The results aren’t worth the time investment.

Social media’s value, IMO, is in meeting other authors.

Kickstarter?

A venue not often mentioned by the gurus is Kickstarter. However, the platform is drawing name authors who are trying to generate sales and getting followers.

The success of Brandon Sanderson on the platform has kickstarted quite a few writers to give it a try. And when even unknown or little known writers pull in tens of thousands of dollars on their campaigns, it gives one something to think about.

Of course, there is work to organizing and conducting a Kickstarter campaign, but then there is work with everything. Except if you choose to do nothing. No work involved in that.

And this year…

So what’s on my docket for this year? Writing, of course. I’m also planning on giving Kickstarter a try. I’ll use the platform for the launch of my ninth Pierce Mostyn book. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But you won’t find me going to book fairs, conventions, and what not. I’m retired. I don’t need to make a buck at this venture. As one writer friend says, “I’m just writing for the larks.”

If you join my mailing list

All genres, but especially mystery:

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Horror:

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you’ll find out the latest and greatest, maybe get some free stuff, and get curated content.

That’s all for now folks!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright; award-winning poet; and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

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How Much Money?

How much money would you need to earn in royalties in order for you to quit your day job? That would be your salary plus benefits. How much?

Back in the 90s, when Clinton was president and the Democrats controlled Congress, there was talk of redefining income as your salary plus benefits — for tax purposes. In other words, you’d be taxed on your income + benefits.

My employer gave us a printout of what our salary plus benefits would be for tax purposes. Mine would’ve double. About $100,000 back then.

As a self-employed writer, to quit the day job, you need to replicate your salary and your benefits package. So how much would that be? We’re talking your wages, vacation and sick leave pay, health insurance, and retirement. In addition, self-employment tax is roughly double social security and Medicare withholdings. You may also have to add in your employer’s portion of health insurance and retirement.

I bet we’re talking a lot of money for some of you.

If I was still working, the amount would be roughly $150,000.

If you are selling your ebooks for $3.99, and you get a 70% royalty, the amount you earn per book is about $2.70. Which means, in my case, I’d have to sell 55,556 ebooks each year in order for me to quit my day job — and make roughly the same salary plus benefits.

That is one heck of a lot of ebooks.

Now that number can be reduced to some degree with paperback sales, audiobook sales, and KU page reads. But I’d have to have a lot of paperback and audiobook sales and page reads to significantly alter that number of ebook sales. And that isn’t going to happen without a deep back list of titles.

So to quit your day job, depending on how much your salary plus benefits equal, it is conceivable that you’ll have to sell about 152 ebooks every day. Give or take.

However, we haven’t figured in the cost of production to produce those ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks. Which means that you will probably have to sell more than 152 ebooks every day.

Is it any wonder most writers don’t earn a living from selling books? They end up doing other things; such as, offering courses, or becoming ghost writers, or becoming editors. Writing their own books becomes a side thing they do so that they can still call themselves writers.

If we define writing success as making money, it seems to me we’re setting ourselves up for failure. Not that it can’t be done, because it is possible. And so is winning the lottery.

I’ve run across a number of good writers who were daunted by the magnitude of these numbers. They realized that they were not going to make money anytime soon. They realized that earning money from writing is a long game proposition. And when they made that discovery, they became discouraged and quit. Which is sad, because they were good writers and now we don’t get to read their books.

I’m lucky. I’m retired. I have an income and don’t have to work 8 to 5 to get it. For me, I’d simply like to cover the expenses that this writing gig incurs. Because otherwise, it is a doggone expensive hobby.

But if you have the dream of paying for your bread-and-butter peddling stories, go ahead and give it a try. But please do understand that you’re playing the long game. And plan accordingly.

How much money do you need to replace your day job? It’s more than just your paycheck.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading (and writing)!

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Goldrush

We’re familiar with the California Gold Rush of 1848, or the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, or the Victorian Gold Rush of 1851 in Australia, or the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886 in South Africa.

Today we are in the middle of another gold rush. It’s called self-publishing.

Every gold rush has a life-cycle that moves from low investment, high return to high investment, low return. The key to success is to get in big at the beginning of the cycle. When panning and placer mining are effective. Simple tools and big returns.

Amazon introduced the first Kindle on November 19, 2007. It sold for $399 US and sold out in 5 1/2 hours. On April 2, 2010 Apple released the iPad and sold 300,000 on the first day. These two devices were the game changer that spawned the self-publishing gold rush.

Authors such as Amanda Hocking, John Locke, JA Konrath proved self-publishing was a viable money making enterprise. Now the ability to become a millionaire was for the first time in the hands of the self-published author. No need for agents and no need to battle publishers over draconian contracts. The gold rush had begun.

All one needed in those early and heady days of self-publishing was to offer your book permafree or for 99¢. And write your series as fast as possible.

By the time I got involved with self-publishing, in late 2014, the easy money was gone. Now, like the old Smith-Barney commercials, if you want to make money writing books, you have to earn it.

As with any gold rush, once the easy money is gone, the people who begin to profit are the ones who do so at the miner’s expense. These are the people who sell things to the miners. The infamous middleman.

We see it in the self-publishing world. Writers, hungry for virtual shelf space and recognition, are making loads of money for the middlemen. Everywhere I read about this, I read figures such as $500 or $600 (or more) for editing, $500 for a cover, a couple hundred for formatting. And the list can go on.

That’s a lot of pressure to put one’s self under coming out of the gate. To date (2 years of receiving royalties), I’ve made $533 with virtually no advertising. I made back my investment in initial website cost and copyright fees. If I had editing and cover fees for 20 books to add to my expenses, I’d have to seriously consider becoming a middleman to “help” writers instead of being a writer.

The people who are getting the “easy” money today are:

Editors (often self-proclaimed)
Cover Artists (many using nothing more than stock photos and Photoshop or Gimp)
Review Services (like Kirkus and Reader’s Favorite)
Other authors “selling” the secret of their success so you can be successful (usually by means of high-priced courses)

And success hungry writers, dying to leave their day jobs, are shelling out big bucks for all of the above.

So let’s be honest, shall we? The easy money is gone. We now have to earn it.

How We Earn The Money

The path to self-publishing’s success in 2017 is not unlike trying to drop the ring into Mount Doom. It’s simple, but not easy.

I am obviously not making big bucks writing. But I’m retired. I’ve already dumped the day job. My monetary goal is a bit more humble. Nevertheless, the path is the same for all of us.

Mindset. The first thing we author-publishers must remember is that we are writers and publishers. We must think business. And the first thing we must realize is that self-employment ventures generally take 3 to 5 years to get established — if they even survive.

The second thing is we are direct mail marketers. The mailing list has now replaced permafree and 99¢ books as the building block of our business.

Mail order businesses can’t survive without their mailing lists. And we author-publishers are at base mail order businesses.

Once we have that mindset, we can start to go places. There is no quick money anymore. But there is money to be made. Mark Dawson makes around half a million from Amazon. A nice bit of pocket change that.

My Plan For Success

Plan your work and work your plan. Based on my observation of what universally works for authors, coupled with sage advice from the greats, this is my plan to work:

Write well. This should go without saying and yet needs to be said. Write a good story. Many writers forget to do so.
Write lots. Prolificity is key. No backlist = no sales over the long haul. All successful writers, traditionally published and self-published, say this.
Publish frequently. The reading public that buys indie books tends to be voracious readers. Feed their habit. Frequent publishing also helps to keep you in the forefront of the reader’s mind.
Follow Heinlein’s Writing Advice. The master said it best. In a nutshell — persevere.
Build your mailing list. We are essentially mail order marketers. I wish someone had told me this 3 to 5 years ago. It makes sense, but the reality was obscured by the early success of writers in the Gold Rush. Now that the easy money is gone, the mailing list is the direct marketer’s — and indie author’s — best friend.
Don’t resort to gimmicks. Today there so many authors I never heard of who claim to be New York Times, USA Today, or Amazon bestsellers that the claim is virtually meaningless. There are so many authors winning so many awards, the words “award winning” are equally meaningless. I’ve read plenty of crappy best-selling and award-winning books. And some that are really good that made nobody’s list and have received no award.

That’s my roadmap to success. Which for me is pretty modest. I don’t need beaucoup bucks. Anything from $25K to $50K a year will be just jim dandy. Those of you who need more than that to quit your day job — well, it’s just going to take a bit more work. But you’ll get there.

As always, comments are welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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