On Self-Publishing: Ebook Sales versus Print Sales

One of my dear writer friends, Megan, asked me a question about self-publishing and income. She wanted to know if ebook or print sales were more profitable when publishing through Amazon.

I have no data beyond my own, so please consider this as anecdotal information. I am one individual. I do not have access to sales like a publisher does. All I can share with you is the performance of my novels.

In order for this post to work, I must first discuss the differences between print and e-book copies, particularly in the royalty department.

Ebooks are far, far more profitable. There is no contest between the two formats. Here is a list of my ebooks and their royalty rates for Amazon.com:

Winter Wolf: $4.13
Inquisitor: $2.74
Storm Without End: $2.74
The Eye of God: $2.74

Here is a list of my print versions and their royalty rates for Amazon.com:

Winter Wolf: $1.74
Inquisitor: $0.61
Storm Without End: $0.56
The Eye of God: $1.04

Here is a convenient list showing how many print copies I need to sell to stay on par with ebook sales:

Winter Wolf: 2.3 Print Copies
Inquisitor: 4.49 Print Copies
Storm Without End: 4.89 Print Copies
The Eye of God: 2.6 Print Copies

I tried to price the print copies to make them somewhat affordable for their length for those who want print versions of my titles.

Most people want ebook copies.

Here is a list of all of my print sales through Amazon.com:

Winter Wolf: 0 Sales. $0.00 Royalties.
Inquisitor: 41 Sales. $24.62 Royalties.
Storm Without End: 17 Sales. $13.22 Royalties.
The Eye of God: 3 Sales. $3.12 Royalties.

Here is the data for the past six weeks of ebook sales for Amazon.com, including number of sales and royalty figures:

Winter Wolf: 102 Copies. $404.04 Royalties.
Inquisitor: 53 Copies. 213.53 Royalties.
Storm Without End: 0 Copies. $0.00 Royalties.
The Eye of God: 0 Copies. $0.00 Royalties.

Now, something that did factor into these sales (and in some cases, the lack thereof) is the fact I did a free promotion on three of the four novels. Here’s the number of free copies given away by title:

Inquisitor: 6,332 Copies.
Storm Without End: 1,555 Copies.
The Eye of God: 388 Copies.

For my final presentation of numbers, the current week’s royalties. (No number of copies sold data, sorry–Amazon’s reporting system can be mean sometimes.)

Winter Wolf: $299.15
Inquisitor: $98.76
Storm Without End: $10.92
The Eye of God: $1.40

Because I’m unwilling to jack the price of my print novels up by $5.00+ a copy for expanded distribution, I do not have a presence in bookstores. As a self-published indie with limited budget, this is just something I have to live with. I think I’m in the same situation with many others.

I won’t stop doing print copies because I like having them–and I know fans enjoy print copies as well. However, I write my investment into formatting and print costs as a loss with no expectation to get it back. It is a luxury I can afford, because it makes me happy and it makes some of my fans happy.

That alone makes the hassle of producing a print version worthwhile for me.

Your mileage will vary.