The Payout Breakdown of an Author …
It’s all about eyeballs and reviews … it’s about reviews too. Eyeballs though are very important. Did I mention how much I like reviews? I’ve had people recently ask me why I am giving my books to the library, although *cough* libraries are making it hard to give to them which is annoying because its a book donation.
A single, independent author is likely not going to make enough $$ to actually support the cost for creating a book. The author of a series, 2 – 3 books and then starts pumping out more books may be able to support each book in succession but the first book will likely not pay for itself and in turn support the next book.
**This paragraph was originally at the end but I’ve decided to focus more on the positive ** Let’s look at the eyeballs. There are 79 copies of my book out there. With another 30 in my attic if anyone wants one. 2 of those books are in a library and will hopefully be read over and over again. 9 of those are in bookstores reaching a population that my social media won’t get to. A whopping 55 of those that I sold through amazon and just my contacts are paperback so you can share them with one another. So if everyone shared the book with 2 people they know that’s 250 people that may be interested in book 2. This is where the email list comes into play this is where the followers of the blog come into play. This is where the anticipation comes into play and the ball starts rolling.
Here’s the breakdown of the costs I’ve incurred for a fiction novel with no artwork besides the cover. That is important to note each book is going to be slightly different. …. gotta sell a house soon.
Editor – $1,000 Artwork – $30 Audio Book – $700 Advertising – $6 Book Purchases for donation / sale – $300
Here’s what I’ve made: On average I get paid about $3.50 a copy, paperback is a bit higher, e-book is a bit lower, KU is depressing.
Kindle Unlimited Readers $6.37 – 4 book sales (they pay per page which is a lot of math, so I divided the number of pages read by the number of pages in the book and came to an even 4. So 4 people with that subscription read the entire book or 8 people only read half, I’ll never know.
Paperback $124.52 – 30 copies sold
E-book $57.72 – 18 downloads
I have sold on my own 25 copies to friends / family / book stores $150
I have donated 6 for a $30 loss
I just did the math and it depressed me so if you want to know you do it. BUT … it’s about eyeballs, and telling your friends and even if they don’t buy it now maybe when the next book comes out they will be interested. So tell your people, bring it into your circles, let’s make this thing go international out there, I’m putting it all out for you. If you want to publish a book I will show you how but know that the first one you are going to do just for yourself, so you can have a good cry, cross it off the bucket list and start writing another one.
