>I think people severely, severely underestimate the amount you can make self-publishing.
You're results are fairly atypical, but I think a lot of it heavily depends on the niche you publish under as well. I have friends that self publish romance books and they sell for ~$3-5. If they make 10k in a year they're happy. People see value in a $40 technical book over a typical novel.
A survey I saw recently had the median income for unagented authors at around $7k/yr for non-technical genres.
I get the sense that different verticals require vastly different strategies. A friend of a friend pulls in ~$10-20k a year on Kindle erotica, but they have to pump out like 2 books a month.
Yup, that is what my friend does. Kindle Unlimited erotica, one new book per month. New releases get ~100k reads during the first month, then another ~50k from all the previous books per month.
Very few people actually "buy" the erotica. Most just consume it through KU.
For anyone wondering (as I was), Kindle Unlimited pays per page based on the size of the fund (number of subscribers total), and the number pf pages read during that month.
>Here are some examples of how it would work if the fund was $10M and 100,000,000 total pages were read in the month:
The author of a 100 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $2,000 ($10 million multiplied by 20,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages).
I hear about so many people doing this that I have to wonder how many freaking romance novels people are reading. I consider myself a pretty frequent reader but it usually takes me anywhere from a week to a month to finish a book, depending on how long/dense it is.
I spent a couple summers home from college working the circulation desk at the local library branch near my parents' home. They lent books for 21 days, and the women who were voracious romance novel readers would return and check out an entire tote bag full of paperbacks every time they visited.
There are writers making millions self-publishing romance novels. (Not many make millions, but the number who work full-time and earn more than they would in a day job is not small.)
The Romance Writers of America industry group has always been well ahead of the curve on self-pub - ironically further ahead than the Science Fiction and Fantasy industry group.
The big problem with self-pub is marketing and audience building. (Fifty Shades started as a marketing exercise, written by a professional marketer.)
Most self-pub has similar problems, including tech self-pub.
Publishers used to do the marketing for writers. Now they expect writers to do it. Most writers have worked out that if they're going to do the marketing anyway, giving up more than 80% of the income in return for an initial advance may not be a great deal.
Unfortunately marketing is hard, and not many people are good at it. Especially writers, who tend to think all they have to do is put the book up on Amazon, mention it on Facebook, and wait.
So the intersection of "can write", "can market", and "can finish a book and not just think about writing one" is a tiny percentage of the total aspiring author demographic.
> Fifty Shades started as a marketing exercise, written by a professional marketer.
Really? I thought Fifty Shades started as a porny fanfic of the Sparkly Vampire book(s?), and a variety of sources (via Wikipedia) seem to back that up with references going back to before it was published.
You're results are fairly atypical, but I think a lot of it heavily depends on the niche you publish under as well. I have friends that self publish romance books and they sell for ~$3-5. If they make 10k in a year they're happy. People see value in a $40 technical book over a typical novel.
A survey I saw recently had the median income for unagented authors at around $7k/yr for non-technical genres.