I promised a blog entry about earnings as an author and I promised it yesterday. Instead, I spent the day traveling and visiting with our hosts on the first leg of our trip. It is Thursday morning in Ohio and I am sitting in a lovely room overlooking Lake Mohawk in the tiny town of Malvern eager to continue relaxing and visiting with our gracious and multi-talented hosts. I spent 2 days packing and weeks thinking about packing and still, I forgot a very important item. I neglected to pack my new tiny mouse for my laptop. A mouse is on our list of things to buy today. I just can’t get used to the mouse pad on these little machines.
Here’s what I have to say about earnings as an author:
Of course, there is no exact formula for potential earnings as an author. It depends on so many factors. But this I believe: it is possible to earn more from a niche book than a mainstream book, particularly if you have a solid platform in your niche (gardening, death and dying, fishing holes in the northwest, parenting the autistic child, art promotion, etc.)
With my first self-published niche book, The Ojai Valley, An Illustrated History (360-page comprehensive history), I sold 1,000 copies within the first few months and a total of 2,000 by the end of the year. I paid my printing bill of around $25,000 within the first 8 months. This meant that I got to keep the money collected for the remaining 3,000 books. That was $15.95 for books sold retail and somewhere around $10/each for books sold through bookstores. The secret to this book’s “success†was its uniqueness. (And these numbers, to me, compute into “success†when you consider that Ojai was a city of only around 5,000 when the book came out. Yes, the valley comprised another 15,000 then and we do get tourists.) But this book was a one of a kind book. It addressed points of interest that people were actually interested in, it profiled people whose names were familiar and I did promotion in all of the right places. I had orders for about 500 books before the book even came out. This was a regional niche book and it was self-published.
For a traditionally published book, the author collects anywhere from 5 to 15% of (usually) the wholesale cost of books sold. For a niche (or even regional) book the publisher might sell a thousand copies during the first few months. If you get out and promote like crazy, you might manage to spearhead another 1,000 sales in your field of interest and you may be pulling a check of around $5,000 in the first quarter. Keep up the promo and exposure and, if this book is needed, unique to your audience, you may get a few more checks in this range.
If you go the fee-based POD publishing service route, it might cost you $8.00 per book to purchase copies of your book, plus your initial outlay. In order to get a larger rate of profit, you opt to choose the higher cover price on the book and it becomes harder to sell. Depending on your platform and the time you can spend promoting, you may sell anywhere from 100 to 500 copies in the first year. This is typical, actually. The average for most POD companies is 100 books sold total.
So here’s a possible scenario related to one hypothetical book that sells for $19.95. Self publish the book and earn $15,000 after you sell 1,000 copies. (That’s if your costs per book are around $5.00). Earn only around $3,000 to $5,000 with POD for 1,000 copies sold and around $3,000 for 1,000 traditionally published books.
For more about potential earnings as an author and for tons of information about how the publishing industry works, how to self-publish your book, how to work with traditional royalty publishers, etc. be sure to order your copy of The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html