Anna’s Comments (group member since Mar 21, 2017)

Anna’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

The idea of Fibonacci murders sounds wonderful. So clever. Hope it does well.

I've used BookBub. Twice for my Historical Romance novel, both times I selected just the UK and the prices were very reasonable $30 and $70. But this was way back, possibly 2014.

Then I used it for a brand new genre category they'd just introduced and I was lucky to hear about it via Goodreads. I paid just over $200 for US and UK and the response was terrific. Well worth the money. I definitely got my money back and KU reads leapt up.

However, since then I have not been accepted and I notice that they lean towards trad published books now, and also those that sell in more than just Amazon outlets. As Canada doesn't seem to have Kindle Countdown Deals, I can't even get into that territory with any chance of a good roi.

The prices now seem to be horrendous and I suppose that is because authors are willing to pay - or their publishers are. It's the rules of supply and demand. Their newsletter can only contain so many books but the very high demand to be featured keeps the prices very high. Lucky BookBub.

As for their ads - I've tried lots of times but as I see no bump in sales or KU reads, I'm thinking I'm a mug to keep trying.

But if they accepted me for one of their features, I'd be tempted to cut down on food for a few years to make up the cost.

Very useful, thank you, Dale and definitely looks more like reality than the stats I'm quoting.

I'm now going to follow your link.

I've come across this:

"Self-Published Authors
If you’re self-published, you get much better royalties, but you also have to take on the costs and time of creating and marketing the book.

Let’s assume that your book is good and you’ve put in the money for good editing and cover design (your book will not sell without these). You cannot sell your book for as much as a traditional publisher would, because you do not have the name backing of a traditional publisher. So instead, you may sell your paperback at $15 and your ebook at $4.99. You get all the royalties this time, so for 11,250 paperback sold ($9 royalties), you’ll get $101,250, and for 3,750 ebooks sold ($3.42 royalties), you’ll get $12,836.25, for a total of $114,086.25. If your self-publishing costs (editing, cover design, and typesetting) are $3,000, your profit will be $111,086.25. For self-publishing, it likely won’t take you a year to write the book, but you also have to spend time on promotion, so we’ll just keep that year amount for a single book. That means you would make $53.40 an hour.

Now, that’s a great number, but as a self-published author, it’s difficult to sell that many copies of your book in its lifetime, especially if you're just starting out. You don’t have a publisher selling your book to bookstores and getting it into libraries. You don’t have the authority of a well-known publisher to back your work. You may not have the time or experience to market your book enough. (Note: publishers are doing less and less to market lesser-known authors, though.) Some self-published books may only sell 100 print copies in lifetime. But we’re assuming that your book is well written with an eye-catching cover. We’re also going to assume that you’re putting extra money aside for marketing, so you can sell more books. Let’s say that your book sells 5,000 copies in its lifetime. As a self-published author, you’ll likely be selling more ebooks than print books, since an ebook is cheaper and a safer bet for readers who don’t know you (and a lot of marketing sites will only market ebooks). So if 60% of your sales are ebooks, then you’ll sell 2,000 print books ($18,000) and 3,000 ebooks ($10,260). That’s a profit of $28,260, minus the $3,000 in self-publishing costs, and then another, say, $500 in marketing costs (for the lifetime of the book). That’s net profit of $24,760, or $11.90 an hour.

You can push that profit up as you become a better writer. Eventually, writing, publishing, and marketing a book may take you only a total of 6 months, which means you’d earn $23.81 an hour. Or maybe you publish, say, 5 books, then use marketing money to only market one, and that marketing also drives up the sales of the other books, which in turn saves you marketing money on those books (in our scenario, that would save up to $2,000, although $1,000 in savings would be a better estimate). The more books you publish, the more effective your marketing will be, because it will affect sales on all of your books.

Maybe you offer the first ebook in a five-book series for free (but keep the print price the same), which loses you out on those ebook sales, but instead gets readers hooked on the series. Then you could offer the next ebook for $2.99, and the next three books for $4.99. That drives up the ebook sales of your entire series, so the second book sells, say 10,000 copies, the third 8,000, and the subsequent two books 5,000 copies. With these numbers, we’ll assume the same print sales stay the same (since, for simplicity's sake, only ebook sales will increase), so 2,000 print copies sold of each book, for a total royalty of $90,000 for all five books ($9 x 2,000 x 5). (Note: honestly, unless you are doing school visits and book signings and pushing to get your print books in stores, your actual print numbers could be far less, and that's okay because you can usually make up for it in the ebook sales.)

For the ebook sales, book 1 would, of course, get you $0, book 2 would get you $16,184 ([$2.99 - $0.10] x .7 x 8,000 copies), the third $20,538 ([$4.99 - $0.10] x .7 x 6,000 copies), and the fourth and fifth $10,269 each ([$4.99 - $0.10] x .7 x 3,000 copies), for a total ebook profit of $57,260. We combine that with the print royalties to get $146,260, then minus production costs ($3,000 x 5 + $500 x 5) to get $128,760, or $12.38 an hour if each book took a year, or $24.76 an hour if each book took 6 months. Of course, with good marketing, and MORE money spend on advertising, your books should sell even more copies, but it will take consistent effort. Some successful self-published authors sell 100 copies of one of their books per day! Other authors are doing really well to sell 30-100 of a book per month. If you have 50 books out there, that can still add up. Keep in mind that if your book hasn't been edited well and you don't stay on top of marketing, it won’t make nearly this much.

Another Note
All these calculations are for the lifetime of a book. In other words, you’re not recouping this money right away, but instead over the course of a lifetime. But with ebook publishing, "lifetime" in books no longer means what it used to. In the old days, publishers marketed books hard only a few months, and after three or so years, the average authors really didn't see many sales. With ebooks, that lifetime is extended, and you can keep pushing your book indefinitely and continue making more money. Even if you don't hit our projected lifetime sales per book in 3-10 years, that's okay. There is time."

This is an excerpt from a reputable site called "My Book Cave".

Is this a fair assessment of how much self-published authors make?

Grrr indeed, Dale. But you'll be an old hand at it by next year...

Sleeping and writing - what more could we ask?

OK, OK - eating. Preferably chocolate.

Simi wrote: "Aww, you office sounds fun :( I wish I can dress up in my doctor's office, but eh..."

My first laugh today, thanks Simi!

Pumpkin pie? Now that's worth celebrating!

Alex said: "I'm waiting to see if I'm going to keep the money I've been getting for my anxiety or have to start looking for a job, and I'm trying to put together enough money for a new laptop before this one dies on me, lol.

Thinking of you, Alex, and cheering you on.

So good to hear this news. Well done.

Me neither. So sorry! I mostly know nuffink.

http://www.ebooksoda.com/authors/requ...

You don't have to discount your books to use this site so it might be good if you need to boost one or some of your books.

Even without qualifying for a free ad, it doesn't charge much, if I remember rightly.

I think eBookStage returned about 15 sales and 1 paperback. Difficult to be accurate, of course. As this was a free ad - it certainly worked for me.

I've also mentioned ebookstage on the 'Where can I promote my book' thread.

Thanks so much Alex. I'd love to do that in future. My free one One Stolen Kiss and other short stories is only on for a couple of days more, so I won't bother you.

I'm at much the same stage as you are re seeking sites.

I've found Book Gorilla to be one of the best at the moment. You could try theereadercafe too, though I'm not certain how many books were sold through them. MyBookCave has been good too. You have to go through some hoops to be accepted because their readers choose books according to their grading of violence, swearing and so on. My smugglers are a rotten lot but they've still let me in.

I've used most of the others so often that I don't get much return. If you have a new book out, then you've got more choice.

Thanks, Alex.

I haven't advertised this with any marketing sites nor am I paying Amazon to give away this little book, so your help is much appreciated.

I've only mentioned it in a few GR groups - India for example late last night and you might like to know that I've had a rare download from India. It might be a good place to advertise freebies and hope they'll move on to your other books. Also India has Kindle Unlimited, though I don't think you are in that game.

A collection of five short stories:

Deep in the World of the Dead – Former Army soldier, Ben, tries to settle into civilian life and moves to a new town to audition as a Big Band trumpet player. But when his housing arrangements fall through, he learns how easy it is to become homeless through no fault of your own.
Judge Not – You know what they say about assumptions. A holidaymaker in Italy makes the mistake of misjudging and is humbled when, at last, she discovers the truth.
Angela – Angels come in all shapes and sizes, and some of us have entertained them unaware. As the poet says, “God moves in a mysterious way”.
A Wonderful World – The loss of a loved one can lead to loneliness, but new doors open that can lift the spirits even for those who have been recently bereaved.
One Stolen Kiss – Set in 1814 England, this is a prelude to The Dark Moon Trilogy. Daniel, a key figure in the smuggling community, becomes aware of a girl who will change his life.

FREE for a short while and on Kindle Unlimited

Looks good - and I've * it to read when my brain will take it in and DO something, thank you.

Good question, I hope we can be enlightened.