World, Writing, Wealth discussion
All Things Writing & Publishing
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"Books not selling'
What a coincidence! I was just reading they one of these exact threads to see if anyone posted any solutions that I hadn't heaard of before.
It's worth stating the obvious for the sake of clarity. when people complain about poor sales, it's because there's a gap b/w reality and their expectations. Self-publishing is a high-risk entrepreneurial business and there are start-up costs (but they are a lot lower than many others). Part of the problem is that some writers apply--without critically thinking-- the centuries-old paradigm (submit to a publisher/agent and at no cost get published and become a success) to self-publishing.
Therefore if you self-publish without putting a substantial amount of money into making a quality product (the editing, the cover, the blurb) and marketing, then it's not realistic to expect to be successful.
Perfectly said, Alex!Although the more I look into it, the more I find that trad publishing is nothing like my own pre-conceived notions. The books that sell millions or even tens of thousands appear to be the exception, not the norm.
Yes, Marie!I heard a stat (I won't make it up on the spot like 87% of other statistics. :)) that stated just how many traditionally published authors had other jobs to pay the bills. It was so high that it convinced me to not waste time with the submission process and just go straight to self-publishing. Had I chosen trad, I'd surely still be waiting for replies.
Alex is absolutely right. Expectation management is the key to life, and it's no different with self-publishing. The only thing I would add is that the opportunity cost of writing a book is huge. It may not come out of your bank account directly, but you could've found other, more profitable ventures on which to spend your time.
If anybody had any brains, they wouldn't go into any of the arts. Since I'm crazy and have no brains, I went into the arts. If one goes into the arts, this is my advice: don't get married, devote yourself to your craft, and shut the world out. Because most will never make it. At best, they'll labor at their love, and hope that someone will see their genius. My books have not sold. One book, maybe has about 10 buyers, another about 3. It amazes me how many people dream about making it. Stop dreaming. It ain't goin' nowhere. The only one who's going to make it big, is Amazon, Kindle, and ACX. It's rare to see a novice come to light. How many saviors have come to show the way?
This is why most books don't sell. I would imagine it's redundancy.
Kent wrote: "The only thing I would add is that the opportunity cost of writing a book is huge. It may not come out of your bank account directly, but you could've found other, more profitable ventures on which to spend your time."right you are. in 1999, i could moonlight at $75/hr writing software manuals.
i think that to even be in the game--generally speaking--you have to spend in 1 year on 1 book--or barter or substitute the expertise and the time to get the same quality as--$2k for editing, $200 custom cover, and $1000 for marketing ($50/mo on promos and $400 (or whatever it is) on something like bookbub + rewarding beta readers (optional?)) = $3200 + tools of the trade (computer, software, printer, printer supplies, internet, home office, mailing costs--some of which can be depreciated), classes, conferences. your cost on editing will go down as you become a better writer. so, at $3200, to break even you'd have to sell 1600 units in the first year (4.38 units/day) at $3.99@the amazon 70% royalty rate.
thoughts?
In addition to that, I'd say that a 100,000 word book takes, let's say, 4 hours a day for 300 days of your own work. So that's 1200 hours that you spend planning, writing, and editing. Maybe this is a low estimate, though?Now let's say you trade those 1200 hours for the $75/hr gig that Alex said. That's $90,000. Even if you found something at $15/hr, that's still $18,000.
That means you gotta sell 6 times as many units to pay yourself for your time.
Kent wrote: "Now let's say you trade those 1200 hours for the $75/hr gig that Alex said. That's $90,000. Even if you found something at $15/hr, that's still $18,000. That means you gotta sell 6 times as many units to pay yourself for your time."
yes, thx! i neglected to include the cost of labor. including the cost of labor results in a more accurate and realistic judgment as to the viability of the writing business in comparison to others.
unit sales (copies of books) has the potential to result in higher gross sales vs a service (editing or technical writing), correct?
Alex G wrote: "unit sales (copies of books) has the potential to result in higher gross sales vs a service (editing or technical writing), correct? "Yes, you're right. Book sales are not limited by the number of hours in a day.
How would labor figure in to a situation like this with royalties, though? The writing/editing/publishing is only a one-time effort for each book. There will be hours and $ spent marketing after that, but nothing as intense or time consuming as getting the book written. If it consistently earned royalties year after year, then it could turn out to be a pretty sweet situation. You couldn't do the same (see residuals long after the fact) with an hourly wage.
Absolutely. That's the beauty of a product. It's a gift that can keep on giving.All labour costs do is increase the number of units you need to sell in order to break even. It doesn't really matter how long it takes for that to happen (unless you want to factor in time value of money).
There are certainly arguments for ignoring labour costs, but I think that's an unjust treatment of the most precious resource we have. This is especially true if you're trying to make it as a full-time author.
It's also a question of on account of what one does the writing. If it's on account of other lucrative activity, I'd say it's a direct expenditure in the form of lost alternative income. However if it's downtime and writing for leisure, it might be money saved on other forms of leisure, like yachts, clubs and space tourism -:)
Marie wrote: "How would labor figure in to a situation like this with royalties, though? The writing/editing/publishing is only a one-time effort for each book. There will be hours and $ spent marketing after th..."This turned out to be a really long post, so tl;dr bullet point version:
- Your time is worth money, either you're being paid to write, or you are paying yourself to write by having another job. It doesn't matter which, either is great if that's what you want, but make sure you understand which it is you're doing, because all your other business decisions sort of depend on understanding it.
- Most books (across all formats, and all sales routes) average out to selling 250 copies a year(ish), and about 3000 total. Note this is Bookscan info so it's about ISBN's, and isn't even accounting for the very very many Kindle only authors who never sell a copy.
- Very few trad pubbed books ever earn out a $10k advance, and the average book selling 3k copies definitely didn't.
-- Which means, IMO if an actual publisher ever offers you a $10k advance (or more!), and you're in the "I am being paid to write" camp, take the money and run. Run hard, run fast, and go write another book, because you just made bank!
And now the wordy version.
Time always has value, even if you're not accounting for it.
It's an opportunity cost.
Let's assume you write anyway, at a fairly regular pace.
If you spend 400 hours writing per year (from working in tech writing like Alex, that's actually a pretty reasonable amount of time, alongside another job at least, and would net you pretty much one fairly in depth computer book a year. ) Let's say you make $1000 dollars a year, then your hourly wage is $2.50. Add another 400 hours promoting it (or just faffing about on twitter getting nothing sold, whatever, I'm fail on twitter), and you just split that in half. Your time *is* worth money, and if your writing is your actual business, you need to bear that in mind.
In this situation, a real job that is paying your living costs, is paying for you to have a cool hobby. And don't get me wrong, that is a great thing to have, but I think people need to be realistic about what it is exactly they're doing.
In reverse, this is why big selling authors do not self-publish (even though they obviously could, and get to keep 70% of their royalties): Their writing time is too valuable. If a successful writer spends the same 400 hours writing per year, but is earning $1 million a year, then their hourly rate is $2500 an hour. Of course, they can probably spend more writing, but let's say they don't, because big 5 trad publishers tend to only want a book
a year for most authors anyway. Anything keeping them from actually writing (promotion, etc) that they can pay someone else less than $2500 an hour to do is costing them writing time. And let's be fair, that's all of it other than things requiring an actual personal presence like signings or interviews.
But let's put this in perspective: As an indie, you're not all that much worse off than the average trad published author either.
Worth bearing in mind is that the majority of trad published novels do not earn out their advance. That's why most trad pubbed authors still have a day job! Industry average advance is something like 30k, but that includes Grisham and Child and Rowling, etc., debut authors very rarely get that much let alone more.
So, sure a $10k or $20k advance is not that much for the epic literary novel that someone 12 years polishing, but it's also all they're ever going to get from it, because it won't sell enough. It's publishing's dirty little secret. Many many books that don't earn out the advance, are still profitable enough for big publishing, because there are a lot of deductions etc going on, but only a tiny percentage ever make it to the point their authors are getting residual royalties.
So how many books even is it to earn out a $10k advance?
- Let's say first novel, paperback because it's easy to work out, selling at $14.99 because hey, it's a number. Authors royalties are roughly 5-7% of selling price, so let's go with 6% of the cover i.e. $0.90 per book. To earn out your 10k advance would take a little over 11k sales.
Except it's worse than that, because most smaller presses pay on the net price that is, what the bookstore pays the publisher, not what the reader paid in the store. Let's say B&N discounts it 30% (to sell for $10.49) and has a 40% discount with the publisher, meaning they're paying a bit over $6.25. Now you're getting 6% of let's say $6 for roundness sake: To earn out a $10k advance you would have to sell over 25k copies.
In both these situations, the publisher and B&N make a profit long long before the advance is earnt out but they also carry all the overhead costs for you. So most of the advance is free money!
According to Bookscan: "The average U.S. book is now selling less than 250 copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over its lifetime.
So let's look at those numbers again: In scenario one, author needs to sell 11k to earn out and start getting royalties, but sells the typical 3k. The publisher essentially gave them a gift of 8k books * 0,90 = $7200 dollars. The second author who got discounted, actually made out even better, their free money from the publisher amounts to about $7920 (22000 books left to sell to earn out * 6% * $6).
"But!" you say, "If it was self-published, the author could have earned 70% of all the royalties!" Well sure. But most indies are selling primarily ebooks, and most people won't pay trad pub prices for an unproven author. So let's say $5.99 (highish, but not unreasonably so), kindle ebook on amazon, 70% royalty rate. And still sells the average 3k copies. That's about $12.5k.
Sure, it's a little more. And they would have also had to have covered all the overheads, and spent a ton more *time* on it than the author above, who has probably written another book by now. And bear in mind, at ~250 books a year (average, some will be far under or over that), means it'll take 12 years to earn that $12.5k. And now we're back at the $1k a year we started with all the way up at the top of this post, and it's starting to not look so hot again.
NB: All this maths is pretty back of the envelope, because different book formats have all different rates, every publisher is different, every contract is different. So this is just some averages. Feel free to run the numbers yourself.
Let's face it, if you write in order to get rich then 99.9999% of us will be disappointed.If you write because you love it then 99.9999% of us will be gratified.
Roger wrote: "Let's face it, if you write in order to get rich then 99.9999% of us will be disappointed.If you write because you love it then 99.9999% of us will be gratified."
Perhaps, Roger.
But if that were really true, why is "How do I sell more books" a pernnial topic on every writer-populated board/group/forum ever, per Nik's post that opened the thread :)
I think a little self-honesty is ok. Better than ok.
Some people can make a good living out of writing and self-publishing but they are relatively few.
Some people really and truly don't care if they don't make any money, and give everything they write away for free, like Michel.
But most people at least hope to make some kind of income, enough to cover coffee money, or their car payment, or somewhere in between. And I don't think it's 0.0001% of the writerly population by any means, I think it's probably the majority. Or why charge for the work at all? Very few of the people protesting a little too much that they're doing it for artistic fulfillment are willing to put their money where their mouth is, after all.
And don't get me wrong, that's fine. Better than fine. I think "This is my side gig, it doesn't pay much (yet), but I really wish it did and I'm working hard to make that happen." modified with a dash of actually realistic goals, is a perfectly reasonable and grounded position to take.
I think it's funny that if you say "I don't care about the money" people don't believe you. I've seen that in other threads, one author said she didn't care about sales and the mod came back and disagreed with her. Is it "projection?" :)
M.L. Roberts wrote: "I think it's funny that if you say "I don't care about the money" people don't believe you. I've seen that in other threads, one author said she didn't care about sales and the mod came back and di..."Projection? No. It's just logic.
If you don't care about the money, why don't you just put everything up on Wattpad? Or give it all away on your website? There are authors who do just that (we have one fairly prolific one right here in the group.)
Of course you care about the money. (And that's ok.)
M.L. Roberts wrote: "I think it's funny that if you say "I don't care about the money" people don't believe you. I've seen that in other threads, one author said she didn't care about sales and the mod came back and di..."I believe Michel, who offers all of his books for free, that he doesn't care about the money at least on the lit side -:)
Krazykiwi wrote: "Which means, IMO if an actual publisher ever offers you a $10k advance (or more!), and you're in the "I am being paid to write" camp, take the money and run. Run hard, run fast, and go write another book, because you just made bank!..."I would -:)
Since you are referring to Marie's post, she, specifically, is one of those (very) rare examples of an indie author making decent money and proving the concept -:)
Nik wrote: "Since you are referring to Marie's post, she, specifically, is one of those (very) rare examples of an indie author making decent money and proving the concept -:) ."Indeed, to be clear--because I wasn't--that is a generic "you" in my answer in #18.
Krazykiwi wrote: "Marie wrote: "How would labor figure in to a situation like this with royalties, though? The writing/editing/publishing is only a one-time effort for each book. There will be hours and $ spent mark..."Thx for the much-needed details on the trad Publishing side!
Krazykiwi wrote: "Nik wrote: "Since you are referring to Marie's post, she, specifically, is one of those (very) rare examples of an indie author making decent money and proving the concept -:) ."Indeed, to be cle..."
You should post his on your blog.
Roger wrote: "Let's face it, if you write in order to get rich then 99.9999% of us will be disappointed.If you write because you love it then 99.9999% of us will be gratified."
I agree with Roger. The creative force, if you are in love with it, is addictive. There is no other way out of it, so embrace it. I have.
Krazykiwi wrote: "M.L. Roberts wrote: "I think it's funny that if you say "I don't care about the money" people don't believe you. I've seen that in other threads, one author said she didn't care about sales and the..."You are right, Krazykiwi. It's the LITTLE money I dont' want. I want the BIG stuff!
Hey, guys and gals,You're all pretty much clued up judging from your comments. I've been published by major companies in the UK, US and in translation. I've had fiction and even more so non-fiction in a number of different bestseller lists. The most orders I have taken in a day was for a self-published health directed book, which sold 30,000 into Italy in a single order. I had paid for the translation myself through my small press outfit.
And yet . . . You might laugh or you might cry to hear that I still encounter low sales on the occasional book that I was sure would sell a lot. There's a big unpredictability factor out there.
But broadly speaking you are exceedingly unlikely to sell a lot of books if you publish a title that is badly written, badly edited, has a bad cover design, and is put out with no marketing. I wrote a free booklet on how to do it properly for self-publishing authors which is available as a freebie on my website www.frankpryan.com.
Good luck out there in the maw of the market!
Convenience! I put things where I shop, browse, look inside - and I *don't* shop on wattpad or SW for that matter or BN or kobo. :-)
The one common theme or key in all the self help classes on publishing and writing is quality. Pay to have the material professionally edited. Pay for a Killer cover. That is difficult when you're a poor author. But ...
Adam Houge, a best-selling author, offers a great course that helped me a lot. Good luck.
Nik wrote: "M.L. Roberts wrote: "I think it's funny that if you say "I don't care about the money" people don't believe you. I've seen that in other threads, one author said she didn't care about sales and the..."I do too! Thanks for mentioning this. I searched Michel (hi MIchel:)) and saw the place where it mentions download ebook. I didn't know you could add a free book here on GR! That's great to know. I might do that. Thanks again.
Kevin wrote: "The one common theme or key in all the self help classes on publishing and writing is quality. Pay to have the material professionally edited. Pay for a Killer cover. That is difficult when you'r..."
Frank wrote: "Hey, guys and gals,
You're all pretty much clued up judging from your comments. I've been published by major companies in the UK, US and in translation. I've had fiction and even more so non-ficti..."
Thank you both for your proactive approaches! It's hard to cram everything into a 24-page self-publishing guide.
Assuming you have a good quality product what kind of marketing activities do you think need to be tackled to effectively sell a book? And how much of a role do you think that market timing plays?
Does anyone here have a steady amount of sales coming in monthly? When I calculate mine it shows two sales a month which is more generous to show than what I'm actually selling..
Justin wrote: "Does anyone here have a steady amount of sales coming in monthly? .."Only a few people do. If King, Grisham and Rowling join the group, the pic might change. Independently, we breed here a few bestselling authors to dethrone the known ones -:)
Nik wrote: "Justin wrote: "Does anyone here have a steady amount of sales coming in monthly? .."Only a few people do. If King, Grisham and Rowling join the group, the pic might change. Independently, we bree..."
Lots of award winning books also don't sell to the level that Harry Potter sold.
Kent wrote: "In addition to that, I'd say that a 100,000 word book takes, let's say, 4 hours a day for 300 days of your own work. So that's 1200 hours that you spend planning, writing, and editing. Maybe this i..."My 300k+ epic Dione's War took 7 months. I'm currently doing a series of novellas of 26-29k words and can have a draft in 9-10 days. Back in high school, I didn't even look at the 20 page term paper until the night before it was do and cranked out the entire 20 pages overnight. I'm someone who can get easily distracted, but if I get caught up in the work, I can crank out the pages rather quickly...
M.L. Roberts wrote: "I think it's funny that if you say "I don't care about the money" people don't believe you. I've seen that in other threads, one author said she didn't care about sales and the mod came back and di..."Those mods must not have encountered the authors who give away every book for free. :D
So, authors, do books sell or not so much?
The problem is that as much as we want to think that quality will rise to the top, a lot of genre writing sells because that's what people are buying. One of the hottest markets is the romance novel market - the readers form book clubs, actually buy the books, follow the authors. Plus, before covid, there were a lot of genre book conferences that people could attend to meet authors and go to events - romance and mystery conferences were always popular with authors because they could book signings.I used to go to book conferences, and at one, a panel of authors said that in the arts - not just books - there is a top level (about 10%) that make a ton of money off their sales. The next few levels, writers can make a modest to good living from writing, and everyone below that needs a day job.
The other issue is promotion - it used to be that if you got a plug in Publishers Weekly or Kirkus or the NYT, it did a lot for sales, but now it seems like its all about blogs and there are just too many of them to wade through and find one that offers a review that I can rely on to make me want to buy the book. Plus, (again at the book con) a lot of authors said that only that top level of author has any money spent by the publisher on promotion, most authors have to invest in their own promotion - and again, that's slogging through a bunch of blogs, book trailers, Amazon reviews to see what's worth buying.
Books sell, but figuring out how to sell YOUR book is the problem for a lot of authors, especially when covid has cut off a lot of book selling events, fairs, conferences, etc
Perhaps the history of my one and only published novel may be of interest to this discussion's participants.It was commercially available in 4 formats from Aug. 9, 2011 through Dec. 31, 2016, during which time, a total of 1,029 units were sold (paperback: 485, e-book: 480, audiobook on CD: 36, and audiobook download: 28).
Aug. 9 through Dec. 31, 2011: 457 units sold.
Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2012: 183 units sold.
Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2013: 185 units sold.
Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2014: 94 units sold.
Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2015: 67 units sold.
Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2016: 43 units sold.
As you can see, sales dwindled over time, even though marketing and promotional activity remained consistent during the entire period of commercial availability.
Some authors, including myself, must be willing to admit that, perhaps, their literary work or works just did not have whatever it takes to succeed commercially.
During my 74 years of life I have experienced both success and failure.
Successes included Military service (U.S. Marine/Vietnam Veteran) - Marriage (35 1/2 years, 5 children, 4 grandchildren) - Business (33 years/6 promotions with the H.J. Heinz Co.) and a comfortable/enjoyable retirement: 21 years & counting).
Failures: Professional musician (8 years with a Country/Western band: Good, but not great.) - Sports (Enjoyed playing, but not talented enough to qualifiy for any school team) - Published Author (Novel, a commercial failure).
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill Politician/Prime Minister of the U.K.) 1874 - 1965.
Love the above quote from Winston Churchill. I meditate on many important quotes. I set up a website when I self-published my first novel, so people could easily find me. www.colleenbooks.com. But I also wanted my own place to keep a blog pertaining to my projects and, posting quotes that are memorable to me is one of those things. Thanks for the reminder from Jim about how to define success. This is so important. My first book I wrote because I couldn't NOT write it. That simple. It was about my 2nd great aunt who inspired me every step of the way, every day. During the lockdown of 2020-2021, I felt like I was having a party in my office -- while covid ravaged through the US. I published the book in June, and am finding that I miss my characters (ancestors), as I got to know them so well while doing my research. Every webinar, writing, class I've participated in, the teacher starts with asking why we write? The implication is, don't get your heart set on income. I experienced inexplicable joy in writing this novel. I knew the marketing and sales would be difficult, but, nonetheless, I didn't know the business was this cut throat. That said, ... I continue to write. And as long as I have an idea that I can make a story out of, I will do so. Good luck to all fellow writers and Happy New Year.
I don't know how many books the 'Big Six' sell, but I, unfortunately, sell very few. I offer my titles in both paperback and digital versions, and have offered a title up as a free download a couple of times to attract readers. Hundreds of copies will be downloaded for free during a two or three day promo, but few people will part with 99 cents to download the same title when the promo is over. I think, it all hinges on marketing, if you have the money to employ a professional marketing service, you'll sell books, if not, you won't.
I think there are three reasons individual books might sell less1. There are more opportunities for books to get published, so you are not just restricted to the "Big Six" or the batch of smaller presses that are often here today/gone tomorrow. Self publishing - which used to be doing print runs of your own book that could cost into the thousands, can now be done fairly inexpensively, not to mention Kindled, which puts a lot more books on the market.
2. The economy. People who might think nothing of dropping $20-$25 for a hardcover book need that for gas and food money now.
3. Shut downs - A lot of books were sold at events and conferences where authors appeared, bookstore and library signings, but when these sites were shut down, it cut off areas where books were often sold.
I can only speak for Australia but the reality here is that authors have never done particularly well except for a very small handful.I heard some stats about 5 years ago that said: 4% of commercially published (not self published) authors made $70k per year or more.
70% of commercially published authors made less than $4k per year.
I'm bang on that line, having made about $40k in total over the last 11 years. Except that I must've spent at least $20k of my own money on marketing and related activities.
And people tell me I'm comparatively successful!!! (Two of my books were popular enough to get into the airport bookstores.)
It's a good thing I just love writing and can't stop because I'd be screwed otherwise.
I heard some stats about 5 years ago that said: 4% of commerc..."At a writers conference I attended, at one of the panels one of the authors said that in the arts whether it's writing, acting, photography, music, about 10% or less will make a ton of money, maybe the 20-30% below that will make enough to earn a modest living with their art as their main job, and that everyone else had to have a day job because they could not make a living wage on their art alone.
I'd regard those as pretty good odds.Going by my Australian figures, I must be on the edge of the top 30% which would mean I could make a modest living.
I'm nowhere near a modest living so it's just as well I have a job to support my writing habit.
Adrian wrote: "...I'm bang on that line, having made about $40k in total over the last 11 years. Except that I must've spent at least $20k of my own money on marketing and related activities...."That's quite an impressive positive balance, well done!
That is impressive, and indeed well done. What I find that most formal promotions of my books actually lose money. I do make some money from other forms of marketing than formal paid advertising, and while I actually make a profit from my literary efforts it is pretty small. Fortunately, my money has come from other sources.
Nik wrote: "That's quite an impressive positive balance, well done!"..."
Nice of you to say so but fortunately I don't do it for money. Of course, I'd like to and hope that the small following I've built will eventually explode through word of mouth. Mind you, I don't do myself any favours with my genre hopping.
I do get emails from all over the world from people who enjoyed my work and that is tremendously gratifying. The best feeling of all though is seeing your new book on a shelf, for sale.
That's the main reason I do it - that and the simple fact I can't stop. I'm guessing most of us here are exactly the same.
Roger wrote: "Let's face it, if you write in order to get rich then 99.9999% of us will be disappointed.If you write because you love it then 99.9999% of us will be gratified."
Marie Silk wrote: "Perfectly said, Alex!
Although the more I look into it, the more I find that trad publishing is nothing like my own pre-conceived notions. The books that sell millions or even tens of thousands ap..."
Exactly. Love of the craft must be the foundation for those who can persevere long enough, through all of the crud to build a success, even if above break-even.
I've read that many authors need a read list of 5 or more titles to build the momentum to generate meaningful revenue.
After reading many of the posts on this topic I am feeling somewhat fortunate that I do not need an income from writing. Retired with a working spouse. But we all want to see our books successful if for no other reason than to know people are reading and enjoying what the author spent considerable time and effort and heart.
And while I spend top dollar for editors and cover design, I have been cautious on marketing until I know what has a ROI. One approach which I stumbled on involves presenting at shows. Not just the occasional and super expensive book festivals, but community events, fairs and festivals which can attract tens or hundred plus thousand attendees. I sold 200 books in 3 events last year, my first year as an indie author.
Yes, time consuming, yes an investment, but I was so impressed results I started an author association to collaborate with others others to share booth costs and space so that the event proves profitable. I get to engage directly with readers to talk about my book ( which works to build sales), I get names on my email list, and I earn 3-4 times my retail royalties.
It won't turn into a Dan Brown scenario, but I plan to make enough this year to fund the next book.
Guy wrote: "..I sold 200 books in 3 events last year, my first year as an indie author...."Very well done and good luck with the new book and further events!
Not surprising, of course, as most complain about low sales rather than boast good ones...
Yet, books are sold in millions every month. Probably only a fraction though of all of them out there..
So are books selling or not selling? -:)