I'm quite interested in knowing how much authors make per book indie versus traditional.
However realizing this is most likely impossible....
I will say, it look to me like its production, production, production. If you've a big backlist your base income will be much higher, un-respective, of how much you make in the initial couple (1-2) month sales.
As an example:
Ignoring his #1 amazon best seller, I'm mainly jealous of Chris Nuttal's 34 book back list, mainly because it took him 34 books to get to that top seller. I'm sure there are other ways to win. But as far as I'm concerned, grinding out the books will get you there.
I will say, as an author whose been in the Amazon Rank 900+ that as far as I can see (keeping in mind I've only really ever gotten as high as the 900-1000 rankings) that they look fairly accurate. And 2.99 gets you about 2 bucks a book. Also my experience has shown that you get most of your blow out sales (after you're first book gets noticed) in the first 4-5 weeks. And frankly once my first book got noticed up about 3-4 months after I published it, I had the same 1-2 months of hot and heavy sales before it petered off. Now the first book only ever got to peak sales of 50 a day. While my latest book 120+
I've also seen that in my series. I get a 50-70% buy through rate from my first book to my 2nd. And that if they buy the second its pretty much a lock they're going to buy the rest. I think its like 90% that do the second buy the third and the third to fourth to fifth just pretty much plain buy them all straight through. Also sales in my last book in the series bump everything. I go from 1-3 sales on my first book, after things have died down, to low teens after my latest mainline book has caught. With spikes in the low twenties. And my follow through sales actually get higher percentages when my sales are low. Versus when they are high and this I attribute to being more highly visible on the search lists, when you have half a dozen books showing up on the top 100 lists. Versus when you're being found by people with keyword searches, or also bought.
For instance its been since november I published a book and sales had dropped like a rock this month. But the buy through from books 1-4 is incredible.
Sales -
Book 1 = 75
Book 2 = 75
Book 3 = 79
Book 4 = 80
With only one day to go in the month.
Anyways sorry if I hi-jacked your thread as this is supposed to be more of an imperical data thing.
The Deposed King