"The Report" (imperical data on self publishing $)

[The Deposed King]

Conversely, The Deposed King, I know a couple somebodies who have several books on Kindle who haven't had much success at all, despite being definitely readable, and making an attempt at advertising.

You know my Falon books are pretty readable and yet I have very few customers.  And that's with a high functioning sci-fi series popping up right beside them on the search lists.

That tells me that my books can't just be readable, they have to have something else.  Like my brother says, I have to be able to answer the question: why would the reader want to read this book?

And sure part of it is reaching your audience.  But the other part is being good enough that when you get that look, you start snowballing down hill, growing your audience by leaps and bounds.

And sure there are books that aren't getting the look they deserve.  But on the other hand there are books like my Falon series that get the look and then are politely set to the side.  There's nothing 'wrong' with it, there's just nothing calling out for people to start buying it in job lots.  Plus like I said.  It can take months for a book to catch on, and I assume its only going to get more competitive.

My advice if your friend has difficulty getting a look.  Is do another editing pass for nits, get a new cover and see what is what.  The other thing you can do is write more books.  The more you write the more spots you have up on the search engines for those who are interested to come and find you.  If on the other hand they had 20+ sales a day for a few days in a few and things dropped off... well you got your look.  That doesn't mean give up.  It just means you need to do more.

If you haven't got even that high on the sales front all I can say is keep after it.  Lots of people and smashing it out of the ball park.  And unlike in the days of the dead tree, where if you have one failure of a performer you are forever consigned to the bottom of the charts because the bookstores won't buy enough copies of your novel to ever have the potential of high sales, unless you change your name and start over, here with e-books, we don't have that problem.  Just keep banging them out.







The Deposed King

[meg_evonne]

So for those if us mathematically challenged... how does this stack up?http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/hey_amazon_wheres_my_money/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[The Deposed King]

Sounds like his publisher is selling his book for 6-7 bucks.  And yeah it sounds like he's done fairly high end of indie for just a couple months.  As in top ten in the charts and such.

If you want to make it as a writer for get this whole, 1 book a year garbage.  Forget 2 books.  You've got to write full time which means about 4 books a year.  Plus I sure hope his novel was first in a series.  Series sales stack up and you're life line is in the residual.  Sell 100+ sales for a couple weeks and 60+ for the better part of 2 months and your 'back list' in the series will pop right up there into the teens.  However books unrelated to your new best seller get single digit bumps.

If you want the kind of high end money people seem to dream about authors having.  You've either got to be better connected or do the Chris Nuttal thing.  Crank out a book every 2 months like clockwork until you hit it big.  Get #100-300 amazon ranking on multiple books for more than one month (book1 Ark Royal and next month book 2 Ark Royal and then another good sci-fi the following).  From what I've seen on the amazon sales calculators and what I know from having a 900-1000 amazon ranking with my books, he's got to have made 50k plus in his last month from having 3 books in those rankings.  Which ignores his Empire Corpse series which is doing well.  His entire list was elevated.

Anyway the numbers for this link you sent sound about right if he's selling the 7 dollar figure and got those 4k books sold.  He made a couple months income.  Next Book!



The Deposed King

[trboturtle]

That's the key -- As a self-publisher, you can't do the ne book a year thing. But, now you have the freedom to write more than one series -- or even in multiple generes. Unlike triditional publishing, this isn't a sprint --- it's a marathon, and while the chances of one book hitting it big are small, a dozen books selling modestly year after year is more likely goal and better in the long term....

Craig

[meg_evonne]

This finally is firming up in my mind. It's a lot like the time value of money and a constant stream of funds into the account, right? In other words, it's the accumulative effect that's important. in addition, the more you have to dump in the soonest will increase that total over time.

Thanks guys!

[trboturtle]

This finally is firming up in my mind. It's a lot like the time value of money and a constant stream of funds into the account, right? In other words, it's the accumulative effect that's important. in addition, the more you have to dump in the soonest will increase that total over time.

Thanks guys!

Exactly! Its's not going for the big killing, it's the five-ten-fifteen books that earn small amounts consistantly over YEARS. WIth E-books, they never go out of print, so even if they're earning only a couple of hundred bucks over a year, it's still more money then it would have made otherwise if it was out of print....

Of course, if one of our books hits for the big bucks, we're not going to complain, are we? 

Craig