This is fantastic. Congrats to you. Obviously, the more books you have, the more you will sell and more page views read too. You are building momentum. Thanks for sharing full year data.
Thank you for being so transparent. There is a lot of potential in self-publishing but it is hard to find honest numbers and info about the hard work that goes into it well after you've written the book.
love these vidoes thank you!! yes talking about money is so weird in society!! I hate it. And what I hate even more are those clickbait scam like "easy side hustle, sell books on amazon" videos on yt
It's so crazy to me because we all need money! Yesss, the "easy" ones are the worst. And the fact that a lot of people don't differentiate between revenue and profit. Like, maybe you made $5,000 in a month with your "medium content journal" but probably spent $4,500 in ads to get that much traffic. $500 in a month would still be good, but it's that pushing of the "easy" narrative that grinds my gears 😂
@@katgreer6113 I was raised in an era where we didn’t talk about money because that was something the finer class didn’t do 🤦🏼♀️ so in our house I had no idea where the money came from, how much things cost, taxes, IRAs, stocks etc. Yet money was talked about all the time: Money doesn’t grow on trees ( me: really? Prove it!) Do you think I’m made of money? Watch your money A penny here and a penny there …. So we weren’t to talk about money but it was always talked about. 🤦🏼♀️
Also this nonsense where, it doesn’t matter if the books are any good at all. They encourage flooding the market with garbage. Which harms all the legitimately creative writers. Of course, nobody trying to make money gives even half a sh!z about that.
@@sub-jec-tiv Agreed!! And if any of them are in Kindle Unlimited, it totally messes up the redistribution of how those funds are paid out. Sometimes you get $.001 per page, sometimes it's $.005 but let me tell you it makes a difference!
Thanks for making this! I really appreciate learning about this as someone who is considering becoming an indie author. Knowing that you were posting a LOT of tiktoks a day was helpful. This feels like a "doable" goal. I also appreciate your enthusiasm for those numbers. I think sometimes people dream of much higher numbers. But to see your joy and gratitude is really nice and a good perspective. :) I'll add some page-reads and check out your books!
Have been watching your channel for a while and wanted to drop in and actually say thank you for the transparency (and the books😊). Really enjoy your videos (and books) and find them extremely helpful as a beginner writer. THANK YOU!
Thank you !! First of all, you have a voice that is easy to follow, you are articulate. Second, I am one of millions who was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia and everything you shared about your self publishing experience made so much sense to me…in other words I didn’t need a pilot’s license !! Thank you so much 😊
Published my first book in 2022 and the income has definitely been more of a slow trickle than a rushing river like I expected. I feel like the reality of book writing is that very few have one book go viral. It takes writing a series and publishing over and over to make substantial money. At least that’s what it seems like. But thanks for sharing your numbers!!
I feel like we see the viral ones more BECAUSE they're viral. But yeah, I didn't have a lot of expectations, and in reality is quite a slow process unless you get lucky.
@@itslindseeey I agree. And I feel like those who do “get lucky “ usually have a bigger audience and have been growing it for a while so that when they release the book it is automatically a success.
That's great! Very awesome for first full year. As an independent author i think sharing your income on book sales is a wonderful idea, and it shows others what is realistic and achievable. I've only published mainly short stories and one novel so far, started in 2020 and... i don't think i've pulled in 1000 in one year yet. I also haven't really published anything in a while due to family and health reasons. BUT now i'm moving from crime to my original dream, which is high fantasy. So... we'll see where to future takes me.
Thank you! It's crazy how fast the past few years feel like they've gone by. I can't wait to see where your high fantasy project takes you! I think it really shows when you're writing something you love.
Thanks for sharing. Don’t know if you’d be comfortable answering this, but if you are: What’s your realistic evaluation of your book’s quality? The writing, the story, the world building? How do they stack up vs. other writers in your genre? And another ‘if you’re comfortable answering’ question, how many hours did you spend writing these books?
The easier part of the question might be the time spent. I honestly have no idea how many hours, but the first book took me about 8 months from concept to publishing (including rewrites for the second edition). Book 2 was similar, book 3 has taken almost 2 years, but I was writing all 3 congruently for a little while. I think it's important for us to be able to look at our work with a critical lens, but then it's also art, so it's a bit subjective by nature. I've had some really great reviews and messages comparing my writing style/ storytelling/ worldbuilding to other popular traditionally published authors in the genre, which I would like to agree with (earlier reviews on the first edition of book 1 were kind of rough and it was the first book I'd written in years, so I ended up taking a step back and figured out how I could make the story better before really moving onto the other books in the series). With worldbuilding, sometimes it's a question of how much is there vs. how much shows up. I do have about 1,000 years worth of this world's history documented but it's woven into the main story very organically, sometimes in pieces that may not make sense until something else is revealed. I do put a lot of time and care into how things are worded and show up on-page, so I would hope that comes through in the quality of the story. Haha this answer could've been a video itself, hopefully I answered your questions well enough!
@@itslindseeey thanks for sharing all that. I think it would make a great episode. I haven’t watched enough of your videos to know if you’ve already done this, but a world building video would be interesting, it’s an area that I’m always fascinated with at least. 8 months is really fast, good job! I don’t know many writers who finished their first book in less than a year, and most take 2-3 years. I average about a year per book…slower now that I’m on UA-cam as well. Still trying to find the right balance between writing and video production.
@@The3dge It's probably worthwhile to take a look at her book and judge the quality yourself. Gives you a chance to support and give you a point of comparison. It can be hard for anyone to assess the quality of their own work.
I love supporting smaller authors, self-publishers, generally people who are just starting out and are not so known yet. Buying their books, making free fanarts to promote, supporting on social media. They worked so hard to write that book and I know it means a lot when people appreciate you. However I have one rule in that. No Ai. If I see that you are fine with your book covers being ai generated, for me it's a sign that probably your books were made using chat GPT, that they were not fully written by you. No support for Ai from me. And I can already tell you that no matter how good your book is, there is a huuge group of readers who won't read it simply because of the cover. Choosing to go cheap in one aspect, costs you so much more in lost profit. And it's not even that hard to find an artist who would do a cover for you for a resonable price. Just a thought for the future.
@@itslindseeey If so, I would gladly see your process of doing them. Cause 1. especially the first cover literally SCREAMS "ai generated" - those type of graphics have very recognisable style. Even if you dont see it at first, after you have seen many ai generated content, you learn to easily spot it. 2. I've used like 5 different sites that are made to recognise ai generated content and ALL OF THEM confirmed my suspisions about it being ai generated. 3. I've checked out your ig to see if you have made any videos/ posts regarding this topic and I've seen one reel in which you have shown files in, I think it was photoshop? But... At the very end you show first layer and on the thumbnail you can clearly see that the full image is already there. So this video is more of a confirmation of my suspisions and not a proof of it not being ai generated.
Wow, you really went through a lot of work to discredit me! Demanding process videos and proof while blatantly not trusting artists isn't very supportive, tbh. 1. AI was trained on human art. Of course they'll have similarities. 2. Putting art into an AI to see if it's AI sounds... like a choice. 3. So you had to scroll past the reel titled "fantasy book cover design (by the author)" that shows my process in order to see that reel with the photoshop layers in which the "full image already there" was my base layer image (a woman with red hair on a black background) that I started out with for photo manipulation before adding other elements and digital painting.
Of all the books I've sold on Amazon. They take their cut first was it different for you. Paperback $15 Amazon 60% $ 9 Print Cost $ 4.50 (approx, as it varies). You get what's left.
Glad it was helpful! If you're talking career-wise, I initially self published when I was in high school and unpublished those books when I went to college. If you're talking individual book-wise, the first book in the series took about 8 months from first draft to publication. The third book in the series has taken a bit longer lol
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Recalling some of your earlier videos, am I correct that you are relying only on your TikTok videos to advertise your books? My first book was only released on Sept. 7, 2024, so I realize it's early in the game, but I've pretty much exhausted the family and friends sales. Now I need to figure out how to sell to the general romance genre book buyers. It seems daunting.
Yes, as far as marketing, I mostly do TikTok and Instagram Reels videos. Congrats on your debut! It can be a little daunting for sure. I do have a video out about my marketing tactics, but I also do plan to put out another one for people who don't want to dive into the short form video platforms.
I somehow left this comment in the wrong place initially… 😂 Super interesting! As someone who isn’t at all enthused about advertising via TikTok (mayyybe on YT but realistically it wouldn’t pop off there, I’m pretty sure), do you think there’s much hope for someone who isn’t advertising and posting on those social media to drum up interest? You said you were doing up to three TikTok videos in a single day so it sounds like you REALLY leaned into that avenue. Also thanks for outlining the 70% and how that’s off of the book after printing costs. I had no idea it was that high of a royalty! Can you outline how the page reads count affects the price you’re paid again? I always wonder what’s happening when I’m flipping through pages looking for the spot I left off when my devices don’t sync. Is the author making some money off all those page turns? Or only if I spend a particular amount of time on each page, in order? Would love to know! Thank you for your transparency! 😊
Haha! I also do plan to put out another one for people who don't want to dive into the short form video platforms, and I do think there's hope; there are tons of different avenues for marketing! The actually royalties per page read is a fraction of a penny, but somehow KU is usually my main source of income. From my understanding, the page reads are based on how much time is spent on the page, so just quickly flipping through it wouldn't add to the overall total. According to their terms, "Authors are able to earn a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read per title per customer. This means that each time your Kindle eBook is borrowed and read, you can receive credit for up to 3,000 pages." So my books are about 500 KENP, so I would get paid even if the same person read my book 6 times all the way through.
I also do plan to put out another one for people who don't want to dive into the short form video platforms, and I do think there's hope; there are tons of different avenues for marketing!
Hey! I actually made a video about that. TikTok has been the most helpful for me, but maybe there's some more stuff in it that can help, here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/kVU1lorUWjY/v-deo.html
Amazon can't make a proper hardback, so, did you publish that format on another platform and then just make it available via Amazon? Anyway, great video.
Thanks! Amazon does a hardcover case laminate without the dust jacket, so I use that. I've also been toying with the idea of using Ingram Spark to get a dust jacketed hardcover version and the listing would migrate over to Amazon.
Why don't you make a full course on UA-cam showing people how to actually write a short book from start to finish by showing the entire process step-by-step. It would help to promote the book and get subs. I've only seen one person on UA-cam do that. Everyone else just tells and shows nothing. Think it over, at least. God knows it would help a lot of people out.
This is fantastic. Congrats to you. Obviously, the more books you have, the more you will sell and more page views read too. You are building momentum. Thanks for sharing full year data.
Thank you! I'm excited to see how it will change as I put more books out and not just in the same series.
Thank you for being so transparent. There is a lot of potential in self-publishing but it is hard to find honest numbers and info about the hard work that goes into it well after you've written the book.
I'm glad it was helpful! I agree, and I think a lot of people don't realize that marketing is a huge part of self publishing
Congratulations on a great year! I love the transparency; it is helpful to hear because we need to discuss it more.
Thanks so much!
love these vidoes thank you!! yes talking about money is so weird in society!! I hate it. And what I hate even more are those clickbait scam like "easy side hustle, sell books on amazon" videos on yt
It's so crazy to me because we all need money! Yesss, the "easy" ones are the worst. And the fact that a lot of people don't differentiate between revenue and profit. Like, maybe you made $5,000 in a month with your "medium content journal" but probably spent $4,500 in ads to get that much traffic. $500 in a month would still be good, but it's that pushing of the "easy" narrative that grinds my gears 😂
@@katgreer6113 I was raised in an era where we didn’t talk about money because that was something the finer class didn’t do 🤦🏼♀️ so in our house I had no idea where the money came from, how much things cost, taxes, IRAs, stocks etc.
Yet money was talked about all the time:
Money doesn’t grow on trees ( me: really? Prove it!)
Do you think I’m made of money?
Watch your money
A penny here and a penny there ….
So we weren’t to talk about money but it was always talked about. 🤦🏼♀️
Also this nonsense where, it doesn’t matter if the books are any good at all. They encourage flooding the market with garbage. Which harms all the legitimately creative writers. Of course, nobody trying to make money gives even half a sh!z about that.
@@sub-jec-tiv Agreed!! And if any of them are in Kindle Unlimited, it totally messes up the redistribution of how those funds are paid out. Sometimes you get $.001 per page, sometimes it's $.005 but let me tell you it makes a difference!
Thanks for making this! I really appreciate learning about this as someone who is considering becoming an indie author. Knowing that you were posting a LOT of tiktoks a day was helpful. This feels like a "doable" goal.
I also appreciate your enthusiasm for those numbers. I think sometimes people dream of much higher numbers. But to see your joy and gratitude is really nice and a good perspective. :)
I'll add some page-reads and check out your books!
Thank you so much!! I love being an indie author, but it's nice to have some sort of expectations
Thank you for sharing your journey , it is so encouraging to see your success .
Thank you so much!
Have been watching your channel for a while and wanted to drop in and actually say thank you for the transparency (and the books😊). Really enjoy your videos (and books) and find them extremely helpful as a beginner writer. THANK YOU!
I'm so glad the videos are helpful! Happy writing!
Thank you !!
First of all, you have a voice that is easy to follow, you are articulate.
Second, I am one of millions who was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia and everything you shared about your self publishing experience made so much sense to me…in other words I didn’t need a pilot’s license !!
Thank you so much 😊
You're welcome! Glad it was helpful! 😊
Congrats on a great year 1! Hoping that your year 2 is already on track to beat it 😊
Thank you! It's been going well overall and I should be on track to beat it, but it might be a close one lol
Published my first book in 2022 and the income has definitely been more of a slow trickle than a rushing river like I expected. I feel like the reality of book writing is that very few have one book go viral. It takes writing a series and publishing over and over to make substantial money. At least that’s what it seems like. But thanks for sharing your numbers!!
I feel like we see the viral ones more BECAUSE they're viral. But yeah, I didn't have a lot of expectations, and in reality is quite a slow process unless you get lucky.
@@itslindseeey I agree. And I feel like those who do “get lucky “ usually have a bigger audience and have been growing it for a while so that when they release the book it is automatically a success.
That's great! Very awesome for first full year. As an independent author i think sharing your income on book sales is a wonderful idea, and it shows others what is realistic and achievable. I've only published mainly short stories and one novel so far, started in 2020 and... i don't think i've pulled in 1000 in one year yet. I also haven't really published anything in a while due to family and health reasons. BUT now i'm moving from crime to my original dream, which is high fantasy. So... we'll see where to future takes me.
Thank you! It's crazy how fast the past few years feel like they've gone by. I can't wait to see where your high fantasy project takes you! I think it really shows when you're writing something you love.
Thanks for sharing. Don’t know if you’d be comfortable answering this, but if you are: What’s your realistic evaluation of your book’s quality? The writing, the story, the world building? How do they stack up vs. other writers in your genre? And another ‘if you’re comfortable answering’ question, how many hours did you spend writing these books?
The easier part of the question might be the time spent. I honestly have no idea how many hours, but the first book took me about 8 months from concept to publishing (including rewrites for the second edition). Book 2 was similar, book 3 has taken almost 2 years, but I was writing all 3 congruently for a little while.
I think it's important for us to be able to look at our work with a critical lens, but then it's also art, so it's a bit subjective by nature.
I've had some really great reviews and messages comparing my writing style/ storytelling/ worldbuilding to other popular traditionally published authors in the genre, which I would like to agree with (earlier reviews on the first edition of book 1 were kind of rough and it was the first book I'd written in years, so I ended up taking a step back and figured out how I could make the story better before really moving onto the other books in the series).
With worldbuilding, sometimes it's a question of how much is there vs. how much shows up. I do have about 1,000 years worth of this world's history documented but it's woven into the main story very organically, sometimes in pieces that may not make sense until something else is revealed. I do put a lot of time and care into how things are worded and show up on-page, so I would hope that comes through in the quality of the story.
Haha this answer could've been a video itself, hopefully I answered your questions well enough!
@@itslindseeey thanks for sharing all that. I think it would make a great episode. I haven’t watched enough of your videos to know if you’ve already done this, but a world building video would be interesting, it’s an area that I’m always fascinated with at least.
8 months is really fast, good job! I don’t know many writers who finished their first book in less than a year, and most take 2-3 years. I average about a year per book…slower now that I’m on UA-cam as well. Still trying to find the right balance between writing and video production.
@@The3dge It's probably worthwhile to take a look at her book and judge the quality yourself. Gives you a chance to support and give you a point of comparison. It can be hard for anyone to assess the quality of their own work.
I love supporting smaller authors, self-publishers, generally people who are just starting out and are not so known yet. Buying their books, making free fanarts to promote, supporting on social media. They worked so hard to write that book and I know it means a lot when people appreciate you. However I have one rule in that. No Ai. If I see that you are fine with your book covers being ai generated, for me it's a sign that probably your books were made using chat GPT, that they were not fully written by you. No support for Ai from me. And I can already tell you that no matter how good your book is, there is a huuge group of readers who won't read it simply because of the cover.
Choosing to go cheap in one aspect, costs you so much more in lost profit. And it's not even that hard to find an artist who would do a cover for you for a resonable price.
Just a thought for the future.
I have a graphic design degree and make my covers myself with photoshop and digital painting. So glad to hear you support indie authors 🫶🏻
@@itslindseeey If so, I would gladly see your process of doing them. Cause
1. especially the first cover literally SCREAMS "ai generated" - those type of graphics have very recognisable style. Even if you dont see it at first, after you have seen many ai generated content, you learn to easily spot it.
2. I've used like 5 different sites that are made to recognise ai generated content and ALL OF THEM confirmed my suspisions about it being ai generated.
3. I've checked out your ig to see if you have made any videos/ posts regarding this topic and I've seen one reel in which you have shown files in, I think it was photoshop? But... At the very end you show first layer and on the thumbnail you can clearly see that the full image is already there. So this video is more of a confirmation of my suspisions and not a proof of it not being ai generated.
Wow, you really went through a lot of work to discredit me! Demanding process videos and proof while blatantly not trusting artists isn't very supportive, tbh.
1. AI was trained on human art. Of course they'll have similarities.
2. Putting art into an AI to see if it's AI sounds... like a choice.
3. So you had to scroll past the reel titled "fantasy book cover design (by the author)" that shows my process in order to see that reel with the photoshop layers in which the "full image already there" was my base layer image (a woman with red hair on a black background) that I started out with for photo manipulation before adding other elements and digital painting.
Of all the books I've sold on Amazon. They take their cut first was it different for you.
Paperback $15
Amazon 60% $ 9
Print Cost $ 4.50 (approx, as it varies).
You get what's left.
I put my numbers in the description, but amazon words it as (Royalty rate x list price) - printing costs = royalty
Thanks for sharing, this is so helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks sooo much, this is super helpful! Could I ask how long it took you to self publish?
Glad it was helpful! If you're talking career-wise, I initially self published when I was in high school and unpublished those books when I went to college. If you're talking individual book-wise, the first book in the series took about 8 months from first draft to publication. The third book in the series has taken a bit longer lol
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Recalling some of your earlier videos, am I correct that you are relying only on your TikTok videos to advertise your books? My first book was only released on Sept. 7, 2024, so I realize it's early in the game, but I've pretty much exhausted the family and friends sales. Now I need to figure out how to sell to the general romance genre book buyers. It seems daunting.
Yes, as far as marketing, I mostly do TikTok and Instagram Reels videos. Congrats on your debut! It can be a little daunting for sure. I do have a video out about my marketing tactics, but I also do plan to put out another one for people who don't want to dive into the short form video platforms.
I somehow left this comment in the wrong place initially… 😂
Super interesting! As someone who isn’t at all enthused about advertising via TikTok (mayyybe on YT but realistically it wouldn’t pop off there, I’m pretty sure), do you think there’s much hope for someone who isn’t advertising and posting on those social media to drum up interest? You said you were doing up to three TikTok videos in a single day so it sounds like you REALLY leaned into that avenue.
Also thanks for outlining the 70% and how that’s off of the book after printing costs. I had no idea it was that high of a royalty!
Can you outline how the page reads count affects the price you’re paid again? I always wonder what’s happening when I’m flipping through pages looking for the spot I left off when my devices don’t sync. Is the author making some money off all those page turns? Or only if I spend a particular amount of time on each page, in order? Would love to know! Thank you for your transparency! 😊
I always wonder the same thing. I HATE tiktok and Instagram, but without them is there any hope for a new nobody author?
Haha! I also do plan to put out another one for people who don't want to dive into the short form video platforms, and I do think there's hope; there are tons of different avenues for marketing!
The actually royalties per page read is a fraction of a penny, but somehow KU is usually my main source of income. From my understanding, the page reads are based on how much time is spent on the page, so just quickly flipping through it wouldn't add to the overall total.
According to their terms, "Authors are able to earn a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read per title per customer. This means that each time your Kindle eBook is borrowed and read, you can receive credit for up to 3,000 pages." So my books are about 500 KENP, so I would get paid even if the same person read my book 6 times all the way through.
I also do plan to put out another one for people who don't want to dive into the short form video platforms, and I do think there's hope; there are tons of different avenues for marketing!
@@itslindseeey oooh that would be so helpful! Especially coming from someone who actually studied marketing!
Curious how you handle/funnel income streams from Tik Tok, UA-cam, Etsy etc. It is very interesting
I talk about my books non-stop 😂 I have a marketing video that maybe would answer this: ua-cam.com/video/kVU1lorUWjY/v-deo.html
Hey Lindsey, can you tell me what you did for marketing to get your name and your book out there? I tried Twitter and Instagram and not a single sale.
Hey! I actually made a video about that. TikTok has been the most helpful for me, but maybe there's some more stuff in it that can help, here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/kVU1lorUWjY/v-deo.html
Amazon can't make a proper hardback, so, did you publish that format on another platform and then just make it available via Amazon?
Anyway, great video.
Thanks! Amazon does a hardcover case laminate without the dust jacket, so I use that. I've also been toying with the idea of using Ingram Spark to get a dust jacketed hardcover version and the listing would migrate over to Amazon.
Why don't you make a full course on UA-cam showing people how to actually write a short book from start to finish by showing the entire process step-by-step. It would help to promote the book and get subs. I've only seen one person on UA-cam do that. Everyone else just tells and shows nothing. Think it over, at least. God knows it would help a lot of people out.
Great idea!
I think you forgot to link your marketing video 😅
I definitely forgot, thanks for letting me know 😅 I got it linked now 😄