Thank you for your transparency, I love how honest you are regarding writing and being a self-published author, about publishing, I think that the only ones who managed to be successful right out of the gate with their books are those who put extra money and time in marketing, 50 shade of gray is a fine example of this, but we also have to acknowledge that the reason 50 shade of gray became a huge success was that it already had a huge following on social media, from my understanding the book was being promoted left and right by E.L James, she also had a blog where she was writing and talking about the book, and also she was using specific strategies to encourage people to want to buy the book, she even managed to sell copies of her book via her blog before she posted it on social media, but yes finding success immediately with your first book is not impossible, but your book needs to be like superb for that to happen, but it can happen, like it happened with the book millennial wolves, but sadly that book you can only read it on the galatea app which is way too expensive! and there are a lot of scamming rumors going around about that app and its publishing house for my taste.
I love how you broke down each year and kept it on just your books. I'm an indie author and artist and hope to start a constant self publishing schedule this year.
In the 1980s I self published three books, The Redhead Book, Offbeat Careers: 50 Ways to avoid being a lawyer, and a childrens book Ozzie the Alligator: A true New Yawker. I stood on a street corner in Manhattan with a table and a sign reading Meet the Author, get a perrsonally signed copy and sold a total of 17,000 books. This was before the internet.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Another numbers video! Including how many books you had for sale each year along with your earnings really helped illustrate the scalability of an indie author career. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I have to remind myself of that. Congrats on the sales! Those numbers are AWESOME!
I was scammed by Amazon KDP for over $3000 dollars. They knew my book was turned down by Amazon to be on their book list but continued to get more money out of me for promotion and will not give a refund.
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Numbers are always nice to see. I don't know why it just feels good to look at especially when you are growing. 20k free books is amazing with the majority of it in one month.
I've been doing KDP for 8 years. Since 2014. I made about $50,000 last year. KDP, Audible, and PublishDrive to reach all the other platforms. I've started making hardbacks now that that has become available on KDP and that is now bringing in some nice sales. Made over $13 on one hardback sale alone this week. I don't see how Ingram Spark is as profitable as KDP. Ingram Spark is one more middle man and you end up with about a 20% cut by the end of it. Amazon is ubiquitous. Everyone uses it. It's no hardship for anyone to buy a book there. That's my opinion. How much did you make after costs are factored in? What was your net income after taxes and paying for voice talent and book designers is taken into account? I think that would be an informative video.
Thanks for sharing. I've been writing books for a while now, and I'm just finishing the first draft of what I feel will be my debut. Up until now, I just didn't feel that my books were up to where I thought they needed to be to sell. I was curious what to expect from sales (I know it varies widely from author to author), but this gives me an idea of what I might expect. I write for fun, so any money that I make from it is just icing on the cake.
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Thanks for sharing your numbers it's nice to see what's possible. I bought books 2-4 in your Enchanted Crown series a couple days ago and they just came in the mail today! There beautiful and I'm excited to see what happens next. ☺️
Thank you for your video and being willing to put yourself out there to help others out. I am a late starter on my dreams of illustrating and writing children's books. It feels very overwhelming and I am not a natural writer at all. But I still am trying to start this dream. I just finished a draft of my first book and it took so many hours and I feel like each step is so hard. I may be over thinking it. Thanks again.
@@BethanyAtazadeh yes, it’s fun and straight to the point. Love it 🤗 And great job on selling over 10 000 books. That’s huge! Also congratulations on your precious baby boy. Wishing the whole family great health and lots of joy ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for sharing, it's inspiring to see! I hope to self-publish my fiction books I have written eventually as well :) I published 4 coloring books on Amazon KDP, and only made a few sales, but hopefully they'll sell more when I get more following on TH-cam and instagram as well :) thank you for your transparency!
I thought this was another fun video to watch. Thank You for how you were willing to share this information. I have wondered like what to expect more like "real" wise. You hear about all these authors and wonder about being able to "make it" as an indie author. Plus you also got to think about how much money went into making these books a reality. That's why I've been trying to think of other outlets of income besides the books themselves to help fund the books until they can fund themselves easily. I feel as though I don't have enough outreach for Patron because I barely have any people subscribed to my newsletter let along do something like that. I would like to do merch but figuring out what type of designs to do is hard lol.
This so so helpful, Bethany! This is my goal, to be a successful author and as I dream and meditate and work towards this goal I can use these numbers as markers. 🥰☺️📚
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
WOW! Thank you so much for sharing. I love Excel spreadsheets so I was really engaged with how you organized your data. Kudos on your work as an indie author.
I still don't have the ball rolling from 2016 to now. I kind of want to give up at this point. I just don't get what to do about making sales even though I have read a lot about marketing. But you really have it down. Congrats on all your success and more to come. I was going to ask if the original covers for your Stolen Kingdom series was still available, but I just checked your website and saw they are in paperback. So I just bought them in paperback on Amazon.
Great video, appreciate your honest approach, but kinda discouraging, too, as a not-yet-published author. Looking forward to watching your multi-income stream video, too. (Thanks for that! 🙂)
Love your video. Very inspiring. I am one of those authors who have not made much money from writing. It's my own fault. It's hard to go from writer to salesman.
Thank you for doing these!! Really loving these videos with the number crunching. It's so eye opening. Could we also see what you pay in marketing against earnings? This could be very useful.
I would love a video about the website sale process. I might have missed it. But like ordering books what that looks like. (Really preorder ) When you do it for a new book. What you do once they are at your house and how you ship back out.
Funny u mention your children's book videos get more views. That's actually how you popped up on my feed because I started writing children's books, hence, watching tons of YT videos. I'm now reading your marketing for authors series to help me sell my books. 🤞
This is an interesting video, as most people will assume that most authors make a lot of money. It's also good to see an increase in sales every year. Yet, I suspect this is roughly a typical amount that most authors make from book sales.
Thank you for sharing! Congrats on all the books sold! That's something to be proud of. Are those totals after you took our book expenses, such as cover design, editing, etc.?
👍🏽 I am in the process of getting my book ready for publication and am considering indi vs. Pub house. Still not sure which way to jump. Always interested in learning more!
Hi, great video! Im currently writing my first book here in the uk. It's a fantasy/ sci-fi novel currently at around 55 pages long. Im thinking of going for around 150 pages total but was wondering, where can i go for a good cover illustrator, and do you have any tips on publishers. Im thinking about using kdp just to start. Many thanks 😊
Hi, I was wondering if you're going to do another book signing. Because I live in Minnesota and I thought it would be fun to go to one. Also congrats on selling over 10,000! books
I've been self published since 2018 and am still struggling. I write YA Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books. I just can't seem to find my audience. All the book sales I make go to my parents funeral fund. I just wish I knew how to find my readers.
Congrats, I hope you triple your sales this year. I'm an author who makes no money from self-publishing, right now, but I'm giving my eBooks. My abstract art is for sell, and I have some fiction which companies rent the rights to. I'm trying to create a social experiment of kindness and build my TH-cam channel.
Thanks for sharing ! Very inspiring 👏 can you also share how much time you spend on average writing the books? Say 6 hrs weekly ? I understand it will be changing a lot over 4 years yet ..many authors have writing routine so asking
Honestly I have no idea! I haven't written in over a month, but when I do write these days it's during a baby nap so would never be more than a couple hours a day, if even one hour. 6 hours a week could be a good estimate, but honestly it's so irregular that I can't really say for sure!
Bethany, Thank you for this very personal look into your book sells. I had a question about your sells through your website. How do you fulfill those? Do you keep physical stock of all your books at your home?
Is the total gross or net? You didn’t specify. As a self published author myself, I know there are several expenses you never mention: cover design, editing costs, ad spend from fb, Amazon, etc, book marketing promos. Did you do any mailing list builders? Email marketing fees?
Hi, thanks for your interesting tips and tricks. Question: if you would promote a book on your website, would you direct people to an online platform like Amazon that sells your book , or sell it via your own webshop? I am a starting author that just published my one and only first book. So, go for the larger margins or go for the larger exposure that Amazon might be able to give me?
Now do a breakdown on the cost versus what you made. AKA ROI. People look at this and think they will make a "passive" income that easily. Even if it takes a few years. Not understanding that there are costs like cover design, editing, advertising, and even the audiobook which is often out of pocket several grand for us indies. (they use this to justify piracy, thinking we make so much when all we do is magically put up a book). Good job on the copies sold.
Check out my other videos in this same Author Money Playlist for tons of examples on the expenses! :) That's very true that not everyone thinks of ROI, but that's also why I made my most recent video and mentioned this same thing. And thank you!
Good video. I'm an author who publishes with a traditional publishing house. My sales (profits) are very similar to yours. I write in a language other than English, and my books are mostly literary. I had some positive reviews in newspapers and literature magazines. I want to publish a new book under a pen name in a slightly more popular genre like a romance novel or a horror novel, to see if I can make a little more money. I must say that the figures you present worry me a little (even if they are good), because I could already see myself making a lot of money with this new project. Judging from your experience, it seems more difficult than expected and also very long before waiting for substantial amounts. The goal is to be able to make a living from my writing. I have the impression that book sales are a lottery, in that only one author out of several thousand has the chance to sell thousands, even millions of copies. Do you think that your TH-cam channel has made you sell a lot of books or you could have achieved the same results without it ?
Wow. I just published my first book in August and I have to say, this is impressive. How many words per day do you think you write? I try to do 600, but don't and then I have like, one day a week where I just write all day long to catch up, haha. Anyway, this is inspiring and thank you for the video! I just hired another illustrator today and I was kind of like... where is the money going to come from? And this is just what I needed. Thank you so much! I kept trying to find numbers online for indie authors and none of them were in my genre or very specific.
Wow, that is really great. I have only sold ~thirty books in seven years and one review says it is way above Graham Hancock. It has a fantastic front and back cover and tons of research backing it up. All I get is crickets, even the scientists keep their distance even though they love it. The vast majority of people are incredulous with accusations of preying on the tractable. Not one person has asked a question on FB in all these years, nor on my 'wed sites' which Google doesn't even seem to crawl, a week ago I was going to pay a web building company to fix it and they turned me down. Even the video people in the same genera shadow block me if not outright strong armed shunning. The strange part is it is all true and many think I am making it up as I go. Reminds me of that talking dog joke wherein the dog always talks about his services and accomplishments and the interested buyer asks the owner why he would sell a talking dog to which he reply's "Because he's a big phat lair!" Go girl, someone has to do it.
This was really fun to see, I have been holding on my first book for many years now just waiting for that traditional publisher, but so far everyone declining my book, so guess next step is to self-publish. I think fantasy in general is a hard category to sell to publishers especially if it's your first book. Have you got any book contracts later on? Or are you going to continue with self-publishing? EDIT: This is the first video I seen from you so sorry for questions if you already have covered them, how did you do the book cover arts?
Curious to know the breakdown on sales of your fiction books alone. You're a great speaker (this is my first time seeing your YT video), I imagine you sell a lot of your non-fiction books.
Thank you for sharing this! It's forced me to get more organised with my data. But gosh what a pain it was going back through IngramSpark trying to find it all! Tip to new authors- have this set up from month 1! haha
I’ll have to go through your videos and see how you sell books on your website and if you package everything and send it all yourself. I’m thinking of adding this to my website.
Really interesting! Re website sales, have you looked at what those sales really cost you? (Including some allowance for the time it takes to package and send out, etc.) What if you fulfilled website orders by sending out books via amazon prime? The headline income would surely drop enormously, but when you add in (or take out!) the other costs associated with fulfilling manually, maybe there wouldn't be much difference? But you'd save hassle, having to keep stock, and time that you could use elsewhere. Just wondering whether sending from Amazon in that way makes sense. (I did that with the kickstarter for my first pair of books, but set the paperback price so I got zero royalty just to send those out, before putting the price up. I found that the cheapest way to fulfill those orders. But once the price is set up, it would be a different story.)
Unfortunately that wouldn't work for me since I advertise my website copies as "signed copies" and it'd be hard to sign them if I never had a chance to see them! :)
1, totally awesome! congratulations! 2. I am MASSIVELY jealous! with 11 books avail on amz, and still working on the 12th... and virtually no sales... I'm rebranding. 3. how much did you spend on marketing, on competition entries, on book conferences. 3. do you have a day job aside from writing? and how many years did you put into writing those books, did you use AI? cause at your age, that's pretty prolific. Just sayin... without pitching your "how to" books... when did you start writing? and how did you manage to write so much by yourself without being formulaic or did you stick with a formula?
I just published a new book on Amazon that I hope might become successful as well, my first Science Fiction book, Mars Adventure 3000, Part One, The Only Hope.
Thank you for this great video. I have a question: KDP and IngramSpark both offer e-book publishing. When publishing an e-book with Ingram, is it not distributed to Amazon Kindle automatically? Cheers.
Thanks! And the answer is yes, IF you publish an ebook through Ingramspark, they distribute to Amazon. But I don't publish ebooks on Ingram, I only use Ingram to publish paperbacks and hardcovers.
very helpfull video. Could you please talk about illustrated books, and the difference with just text books. Any advice? Does people also buy ebooks for illustrated books. Thank you ;)))
Loved this!! It's always so inspiring to see how another indie author is doing. To think that over 30,000 people own your books is just crazy!
Thank you Katie! So glad it was helpful! :)
Thank you for your transparency, I love how honest you are regarding writing and being a self-published author, about publishing, I think that the only ones who managed to be successful right out of the gate with their books are those who put extra money and time in marketing, 50 shade of gray is a fine example of this, but we also have to acknowledge that the reason 50 shade of gray became a huge success was that it already had a huge following on social media, from my understanding the book was being promoted left and right by E.L James, she also had a blog where she was writing and talking about the book, and also she was using specific strategies to encourage people to want to buy the book, she even managed to sell copies of her book via her blog before she posted it on social media, but yes finding success immediately with your first book is not impossible, but your book needs to be like superb for that to happen, but it can happen, like it happened with the book millennial wolves, but sadly that book you can only read it on the galatea app which is way too expensive! and there are a lot of scamming rumors going around about that app and its publishing house for my taste.
WOW! I didn't know this about Fifty Shades of Gray. Thanks for sharing. A good marketing plan sure makes the difference.
@@asrgelpi_author for sure does! thats why I always give authors who claim on youtube that you don't need to spend money on marketing the side-eye!
I love how you broke down each year and kept it on just your books. I'm an indie author and artist and hope to start a constant self publishing schedule this year.
thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :D
In the 1980s I self published three books, The Redhead Book, Offbeat Careers: 50 Ways to avoid being a lawyer, and a childrens book Ozzie the Alligator: A true New Yawker. I stood on a street corner in Manhattan with a table and a sign reading Meet the Author, get a perrsonally signed copy and sold a total of 17,000 books. This was before the internet.
wow amazing ❤
Vow, I admire you.
wow! that's something amazing! INSPIRED 😊TYSM
@@hemanginipr6974 what book have you written? perhaps I can assist with ideas
@@allensacharov5424 I haven't written completely as of now. I will surely contact you when I do. TY :)
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Another numbers video! Including how many books you had for sale each year along with your earnings really helped illustrate the scalability of an indie author career. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I have to remind myself of that. Congrats on the sales! Those numbers are AWESOME!
That’s the perfect way to look at it! Thank you so much!
If I could break even with my first book I will be happy! This gives me so much hope that i could do so much more! Thanks Bethany!
You can do it! So glad you liked it!
The info you share is gold for everyone stepping in as an Indie author. Keep posting!
Thank you so much!
I was scammed by Amazon KDP for over $3000 dollars. They knew my book was turned down by Amazon to be on their book list but continued to get more money out of me for promotion and will not give a refund.
That stinks!! ):
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Great overview for authors out there and, reality check, you’re one of the hardest working authors out there!
I appreciate that!
Numbers are always nice to see. I don't know why it just feels good to look at especially when you are growing. 20k free books is amazing with the majority of it in one month.
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
This is encouraging and idea building for us! Thanks again for sharing Bethany!
I've been doing KDP for 8 years. Since 2014. I made about $50,000 last year. KDP, Audible, and PublishDrive to reach all the other platforms. I've started making hardbacks now that that has become available on KDP and that is now bringing in some nice sales. Made over $13 on one hardback sale alone this week. I don't see how Ingram Spark is as profitable as KDP. Ingram Spark is one more middle man and you end up with about a 20% cut by the end of it. Amazon is ubiquitous. Everyone uses it. It's no hardship for anyone to buy a book there. That's my opinion.
How much did you make after costs are factored in? What was your net income after taxes and paying for voice talent and book designers is taken into account? I think that would be an informative video.
that's awesome!
Thanks for sharing. I've been writing books for a while now, and I'm just finishing the first draft of what I feel will be my debut. Up until now, I just didn't feel that my books were up to where I thought they needed to be to sell. I was curious what to expect from sales (I know it varies widely from author to author), but this gives me an idea of what I might expect. I write for fun, so any money that I make from it is just icing on the cake.
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Thanks for sharing your numbers it's nice to see what's possible. I bought books 2-4 in your Enchanted Crown series a couple days ago and they just came in the mail today! There beautiful and I'm excited to see what happens next. ☺️
Yay! Happy reading and hope you enjoy!
Thank you for your video and being willing to put yourself out there to help others out. I am a late starter on my dreams of illustrating and writing children's books. It feels very overwhelming and I am not a natural writer at all. But I still am trying to start this dream. I just finished a draft of my first book and it took so many hours and I feel like each step is so hard. I may be over thinking it. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for sharing this information. You are such an inspiration. And your honesty and transparency are so so admirable and helpful ❤️
Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked the video!
@@BethanyAtazadeh yes, it’s fun and straight to the point. Love it 🤗 And great job on selling over 10 000 books. That’s huge! Also congratulations on your precious baby boy. Wishing the whole family great health and lots of joy ❤️❤️❤️
Thanks for sharing! Och congrats on the 10k sold, that's amazing!
Thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing, it's inspiring to see! I hope to self-publish my fiction books I have written eventually as well :) I published 4 coloring books on Amazon KDP, and only made a few sales, but hopefully they'll sell more when I get more following on TH-cam and instagram as well :) thank you for your transparency!
Thank you! You can do it!
I thought this was another fun video to watch. Thank You for how you were willing to share this information. I have wondered like what to expect more like "real" wise. You hear about all these authors and wonder about being able to "make it" as an indie author. Plus you also got to think about how much money went into making these books a reality. That's why I've been trying to think of other outlets of income besides the books themselves to help fund the books until they can fund themselves easily. I feel as though I don't have enough outreach for Patron because I barely have any people subscribed to my newsletter let along do something like that. I would like to do merch but figuring out what type of designs to do is hard lol.
Yay! Thank you! So happy you liked it!
This so so helpful, Bethany! This is my goal, to be a successful author and as I dream and meditate and work towards this goal I can use these numbers as markers. 🥰☺️📚
So glad it was helpful!
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
WOW! Thank you so much for sharing. I love Excel spreadsheets so I was really engaged with how you organized your data. Kudos on your work as an indie author.
Thank you so much! ❤️
I still don't have the ball rolling from 2016 to now. I kind of want to give up at this point. I just don't get what to do about making sales even though I have read a lot about marketing. But you really have it down. Congrats on all your success and more to come. I was going to ask if the original covers for your Stolen Kingdom series was still available, but I just checked your website and saw they are in paperback. So I just bought them in paperback on Amazon.
Ah! So much info in one place, I love it! Also, AMAZING sales!!!
Yay! Thank you! :D
Great video, appreciate your honest approach, but kinda discouraging, too, as a not-yet-published author. Looking forward to watching your multi-income stream video, too. (Thanks for that! 🙂)
Love your video. Very inspiring. I am one of those authors who have not made much money from writing. It's my own fault. It's hard to go from writer to salesman.
Thank you for doing these!! Really loving these videos with the number crunching. It's so eye opening.
Could we also see what you pay in marketing against earnings? This could be very useful.
Thank you! And that's a fun video idea, I'll add it to my list of ideas!
Thanks for sharing. Congratulations on your award, persistence, and success!
I've watched Mandi Lyn as well 👍
Honestly, since I live in Latin America, 4000 USD per year of revenue with only my books it’s A LOT and I will be so happy 😂
Thanks Bethany! Your transparency is very helpful. Totally appreciated ❤
Thank you! I'm so glad it was helpful!
I would love a video about the website sale process. I might have missed it. But like ordering books what that looks like. (Really preorder ) When you do it for a new book. What you do once they are at your house and how you ship back out.
Check out my video on that for sure! If you search my name + “virtual book signing” it should show up!
@@BethanyAtazadeh that was so helpful thank you!
Very inspiring. Your persistence definitely pays off 👏👏 Congratulations 🎊🍾
Thank you so much!
Awesome, Bethany! Well done
Thank you!
Very interesting and helpful. Thank you. Good indicator that the more books you put out, the more you make all around.
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
Congrats Bethany on your success. Thanks for the video share.
Thanks for watching!
Funny u mention your children's book videos get more views. That's actually how you popped up on my feed because I started writing children's books, hence, watching tons of YT videos. I'm now reading your marketing for authors series to help me sell my books. 🤞
That's awesome! So glad you like them!
This is an interesting video, as most people will assume that most authors make a lot of money. It's also good to see an increase in sales every year. Yet, I suspect this is roughly a typical amount that most authors make from book sales.
Glad to see you back
Thanks!
First time watcher, definitely subscribed. This was really helpful! By the way, kind of random, but the covers on those books are amazing.
Thank you so much! And so happy you like them!
You made me curious about Bookcon and I see you have a video on that, so I'm going to check that out too.
Thank you for sharing! Congrats on all the books sold! That's something to be proud of. Are those totals after you took our book expenses, such as cover design, editing, etc.?
Thank you! Nope I’ve done videos on expenses before, but this one is about income!
How do you record and edit your videos? I know some seem like they come from your phone (or a carefully held camera) but what about the rest?
always a camera and edit in imovie
Congratulations! Thank you for being so transparent. Just great.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This is so amazing.
I will personally soar up.
Big ups.
👍🏽 I am in the process of getting my book ready for publication and am considering indi vs. Pub house. Still not sure which way to jump. Always interested in learning more!
Thank you for breaking things down like this! It helps put things in perspective.
So glad you liked it!
Thanks for a very informative video! Gives all authors hope:)
It's interesting to see how far you come 😊 wish you the best!
Thank you so much!
A great informative video :) Thanks! Looking forward to more videos.
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
Hi, great video! Im currently writing my first book here in the uk. It's a fantasy/ sci-fi novel currently at around 55 pages long. Im thinking of going for around 150 pages total but was wondering, where can i go for a good cover illustrator, and do you have any tips on publishers. Im thinking about using kdp just to start. Many thanks 😊
Ty it was Very helpful ,Look for my Memoir , Good Friday!
Hi, I was wondering if you're going to do another book signing. Because I live in Minnesota and I thought it would be fun to go to one. Also congrats on selling over 10,000! books
That would be fun, but I don’t have any plans to at the moment. Thank you!
Thanks for the great video! Selling direct on my website is daunting with all of the sales tax tracking in the US. 😵💫
wow! Congrats Bethany!!
I've been self published since 2018 and am still struggling. I write YA Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books. I just can't seem to find my audience. All the book sales I make go to my parents funeral fund. I just wish I knew how to find my readers.
You can do it!
Such a helpful video! Thank you so much for sharing what can be possible if we keep going.
Thank you Amanda! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Love the honest video!
Thank you!
Congrats, I hope you triple your sales this year. I'm an author who makes no money from self-publishing, right now, but I'm giving my eBooks. My abstract art is for sell, and I have some fiction which companies rent the rights to. I'm trying to create a social experiment of kindness and build my TH-cam channel.
Thank you so much!
@@BethanyAtazadeh welcome :-)
Thanks for sharing ! Very inspiring 👏 can you also share how much time you spend on average writing the books? Say 6 hrs weekly ? I understand it will be changing a lot over 4 years yet ..many authors have writing routine so asking
Honestly I have no idea! I haven't written in over a month, but when I do write these days it's during a baby nap so would never be more than a couple hours a day, if even one hour. 6 hours a week could be a good estimate, but honestly it's so irregular that I can't really say for sure!
Bethany, Thank you for this very personal look into your book sells. I had a question about your sells through your website. How do you fulfill those? Do you keep physical stock of all your books at your home?
Glad it was helpful! And you're in luck, I have a whole video on how I do my virtual book signings here: th-cam.com/video/eCpyFfmLY1w/w-d-xo.html
Is the total gross or net? You didn’t specify. As a self published author myself, I know there are several expenses you never mention: cover design, editing costs, ad spend from fb, Amazon, etc, book marketing promos. Did you do any mailing list builders? Email marketing fees?
Hi, thanks for your interesting tips and tricks. Question: if you would promote a book on your website, would you direct people to an online platform like Amazon that sells your book , or sell it via your own webshop? I am a starting author that just published my one and only first book. So, go for the larger margins or go for the larger exposure that Amazon might be able to give me?
I don’t even know where to find a literary agent. Self publishing sounds cool, but I would really love to have someone who knows what they are doing
Now do a breakdown on the cost versus what you made. AKA ROI. People look at this and think they will make a "passive" income that easily. Even if it takes a few years. Not understanding that there are costs like cover design, editing, advertising, and even the audiobook which is often out of pocket several grand for us indies. (they use this to justify piracy, thinking we make so much when all we do is magically put up a book). Good job on the copies sold.
Check out my other videos in this same Author Money Playlist for tons of examples on the expenses! :) That's very true that not everyone thinks of ROI, but that's also why I made my most recent video and mentioned this same thing. And thank you!
You've done the best work, and shared your methods. Thank you!
Thank you!
Good video. I'm an author who publishes with a traditional publishing house. My sales (profits) are very similar to yours. I write in a language other than English, and my books are mostly literary. I had some positive reviews in newspapers and literature magazines. I want to publish a new book under a pen name in a slightly more popular genre like a romance novel or a horror novel, to see if I can make a little more money. I must say that the figures you present worry me a little (even if they are good), because I could already see myself making a lot of money with this new project. Judging from your experience, it seems more difficult than expected and also very long before waiting for substantial amounts. The goal is to be able to make a living from my writing. I have the impression that book sales are a lottery, in that only one author out of several thousand has the chance to sell thousands, even millions of copies. Do you think that your TH-cam channel has made you sell a lot of books or you could have achieved the same results without it ?
Love your honesty and transparency - also I just love data 😀
Yay! Thank you!
Wow. I just published my first book in August and I have to say, this is impressive. How many words per day do you think you write? I try to do 600, but don't and then I have like, one day a week where I just write all day long to catch up, haha. Anyway, this is inspiring and thank you for the video! I just hired another illustrator today and I was kind of like... where is the money going to come from? And this is just what I needed. Thank you so much! I kept trying to find numbers online for indie authors and none of them were in my genre or very specific.
Wow, that is really great. I have only sold ~thirty books in seven years and one review says it is way above Graham Hancock. It has a fantastic front and back cover and tons of research backing it up. All I get is crickets, even the scientists keep their distance even though they love it. The vast majority of people are incredulous with accusations of preying on the tractable. Not one person has asked a question on FB in all these years, nor on my 'wed sites' which Google doesn't even seem to crawl, a week ago I was going to pay a web building company to fix it and they turned me down. Even the video people in the same genera shadow block me if not outright strong armed shunning. The strange part is it is all true and many think I am making it up as I go. Reminds me of that talking dog joke wherein the dog always talks about his services and accomplishments and the interested buyer asks the owner why he would sell a talking dog to which he reply's "Because he's a big phat lair!" Go girl, someone has to do it.
Loved the video, it was very helpful 👍
Thank you so much and continued success 🙏
Thank you so much!
This was really fun to see, I have been holding on my first book for many years now just waiting for that traditional publisher, but so far everyone declining my book, so guess next step is to self-publish. I think fantasy in general is a hard category to sell to publishers especially if it's your first book. Have you got any book contracts later on? Or are you going to continue with self-publishing? EDIT: This is the first video I seen from you so sorry for questions if you already have covered them, how did you do the book cover arts?
Curious to know the breakdown on sales of your fiction books alone. You're a great speaker (this is my first time seeing your YT video), I imagine you sell a lot of your non-fiction books.
I sell more fiction than non-fiction, but that could be because I have more as well as market them a lot more
Omgggg wow! This gave me such a realistic perspective
Yay I'm so happy to hear that!
Thanks for the insights, super helpful!
Thank you for your honesty. I'm guessing I'll be happy to break even with my first book.
I'm so glad you liked it! And breaking even on book one is definitely a win!
Thank you for sharing this! It's forced me to get more organised with my data. But gosh what a pain it was going back through IngramSpark trying to find it all! Tip to new authors- have this set up from month 1! haha
So glad you enjoyed it! And oh my gosh yes it's a huge pain haha!
I’ll have to go through your videos and see how you sell books on your website and if you package everything and send it all yourself. I’m thinking of adding this to my website.
Absolutely, check out my video on how I do virtual book signings here: th-cam.com/video/eCpyFfmLY1w/w-d-xo.html
Really interesting! Re website sales, have you looked at what those sales really cost you? (Including some allowance for the time it takes to package and send out, etc.) What if you fulfilled website orders by sending out books via amazon prime? The headline income would surely drop enormously, but when you add in (or take out!) the other costs associated with fulfilling manually, maybe there wouldn't be much difference? But you'd save hassle, having to keep stock, and time that you could use elsewhere. Just wondering whether sending from Amazon in that way makes sense.
(I did that with the kickstarter for my first pair of books, but set the paperback price so I got zero royalty just to send those out, before putting the price up. I found that the cheapest way to fulfill those orders. But once the price is set up, it would be a different story.)
Unfortunately that wouldn't work for me since I advertise my website copies as "signed copies" and it'd be hard to sign them if I never had a chance to see them! :)
Congrats! Amazing 🙂
1, totally awesome! congratulations! 2. I am MASSIVELY jealous! with 11 books avail on amz, and still working on the 12th... and virtually no sales... I'm rebranding. 3. how much did you spend on marketing, on competition entries, on book conferences. 3. do you have a day job aside from writing? and how many years did you put into writing those books, did you use AI? cause at your age, that's pretty prolific. Just sayin... without pitching your "how to" books... when did you start writing? and how did you manage to write so much by yourself without being formulaic or did you stick with a formula?
I wish she would too, but by this time, I'm honestly accustomed to being ignored.@Zeus-X1
You go girl ! Very inspirational ! Thanks ! G
Thanks so much!!
Very nice Beth!
Just doing the math, did you take out your expenses? If not, how much do you think you lost after deducting book costs, etc.
What are some of the promotional sites you use to market your books? I'm looking for one that might do better than Bargain Booksy.
Wov so real n true video just like u n ur smile..cheers friend..
This was interesting to me, thank you for doing this :)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I just published a new book on Amazon that I hope might become successful as well, my first Science Fiction book, Mars Adventure 3000, Part One, The Only Hope.
Hello..what you use to promote your books?
Here's my video on that: th-cam.com/video/nBI5YqorFWo/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the numbers. I appreciate this a lot for posting this.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for this great video. I have a question: KDP and IngramSpark both offer e-book publishing. When publishing an e-book with Ingram, is it not distributed to Amazon Kindle automatically? Cheers.
Thanks! And the answer is yes, IF you publish an ebook through Ingramspark, they distribute to Amazon. But I don't publish ebooks on Ingram, I only use Ingram to publish paperbacks and hardcovers.
Hey I hope you see this comment I’m trying start my manga journey how do you make the copy’s of the paper back ?
Thanks 👍😊
I made to hear you better , the best .
Thank you for sharing this!! ❤
very helpfull video. Could you please talk about illustrated books, and the difference with just text books. Any advice? Does people also buy ebooks for illustrated books. Thank you ;)))
Thanks! And I'm sorry I don't have any experience in those two types of books, but I bet you can find youtube videos on those topics! :)
By "website" do you mean direct sales? You made me curious about that path. Do you have a how to video on making sales via your website? Thanks.
Super content! Very inspiring. Sub'd. Do you have a per-book breakdown? How does your fiction compare to your non-fiction?
Great information. Thanks for sharing.
Your books look so good 😊.
Thank you so much!
Thank you. This gave me serious food for thought.
You are so welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it!