publishing/writing as side-income only & what is the midlist?

[Quantum]

side-income only?
Not every author wants/needs to make a viable full-time income from publishing books, short stories, articles and so forth.

Is a side-income good enough for you?

i'm not here putting a value judgment on a book/writing by trying to attach a monetary amount to it. however, it is something that we think about and how people in general tend to value things in our post-industrial, mostly capitalist society.

for me, i'd probably think about it in terms of number of books sold. maybe a 1k sold per book would be nice. that would come out to $3,000/book@$4.99/bk in the first year on amazon.

(btw, the estimated US national median household income in 2014 is $53,482 according to the US Census Bureau's American Factfinder.)

what is the midlist?
there's always been what is termed, the mid-list. writers who are not bestsellers but
have enough sales to be profitable.

according to this article, it seems that midlist is in the magnitude of 1000s of copies for he first print run: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...

a very concise article on the current 2016 state of midlist authors and self-publishing: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

here's an old one about how the midlist has been shrinking: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...

btw, here's an intro article for a feb 2016 publisher's weekly article on the business of writing

[Nik]

Side-income is a realistic expectation. It takes few good-selling books until you can really live off of writing.
We have a real life example here of Evan sharing his sales info. With an average of 10 books sold a day during his first 50 days and thousands of pages read, he was at around 2,000 rank on the entire kindle and I hope he does even better now.
Unfortunately, not many indies can boast similar performance

[K.P.]

My game and web development sales does better than books. Now due to serious health issues I have to cut back on the publishing business as a whole. I had a few books that did well but not into a thousand copies

[Marie Silk]

Those are some great results! :)

Yes, side-income would be good enough for me.

[Tara Woods Turner]

My book is a non-fic parenting guide. Just paying for dinner out with my family and snagging that Marc Jacobs Resort Collection dress would make me feel like the queen of publishing forever!

[Quantum]

Tara wrote: "My book is a non-fic parenting guide. Just paying for dinner out with my family and snagging that Marc Jacobs Resort Collection dress would make me feel like the queen of publishing forever!"

parenting books can be top sellers. this one is #122 in all books on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-W...

this one is #1,990:

http://www.amazon.com/Peaceful-Parent...

this one is #597:

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Languages-...

w/o any data to back up my idea, it seems to me that a non-fiction book that teaches something seems to be an easier sell than a fiction book that merely entertains.

[Tara Woods Turner]

Alex G.

You are very correct in that books like mine are easy to sell in a way because they pull no punches, there is no mystery and often, the reader had a need that caused him/her to seek you out. The difficulties, compared to fiction, is that of the 12 books the average person reads per year, the majority of them are for escapism/entertainment value. People rarely stumble across non-fiction by mistake and blogs and review sites need their valuable, virtual shelf space for top selling fiction. It is also difficult to garner reviews because people want to read about spies, zombies or shape shifting vampire lovers.

But I am not discouraged. Books like mine have staying power - there's a baby born every second lol. And I do think non-fiction is easier to promote because your message is crystal clear and your target audience is as clear as the nose on your face. Thanks for the links!

[Quantum]

Tara wrote: "Alex G.

You are very correct in that books like mine are easy to sell in a way because they pull no punches, there is no mystery and often, the reader had a need that caused him/her to seek you out...The difficulties, compared to fiction, is that of the 12 books the average person reads per year, the majority of them are for escapism/entertainment value."

i see. easier to market, but a smaller market.

[Tara Woods Turner]

Alex
Indeed, especially with so many top notch parenting websites and blogs out there, to which parents can turn for advice 24/7 in the privacy and comfort of their own homes. Still, my book is useful and helps me with credibility and marketing potential/authorityship in my area of expertise. People simply look at you differently when they realize you're a published author and in my case it is helping me firmly establish and polish my brand.

[John]

Alex G wrote: "side-income only?
Not every author wants/needs to make a viable full-time income from publishing books, short stories, articles and so forth.

Is a side-income good enough for you?

i'm not here pu..."

The problems with these articles is that the numbers that are being reported come from traditional publishing houses. The Bloomberg article makes a claim that ebook publishing has declined- but that is from the reports of the trad publishing groups- and these firms price their ebooks substantially higher than what indies charge. PW is also pretty much geared towards the trad publishing groups too.

Here is an article from last year that puts this trend into perspective:

http://fortune.com/2015/09/24/ebook-s...

While trad publisher ebook sales have declined, the same cannot be true for indie publishing- the growth is there and they are taking it away from the trad publishing firms.