In the 1980s I self published three books, The Redhead Book, Offbeat Careers: 50 Ways to avoid being a lawyer, and a childrens book Ozzie the Alligator: A true New Yawker. I stood on a street corner in Manhattan with a table and a sign reading Meet the Author, get a perrsonally signed copy and sold a total of 17,000 books. This was before the internet.
Thank you for your transparency, I love how honest you are regarding writing and being a self-published author, about publishing, I think that the only ones who managed to be successful right out of the gate with their books are those who put extra money and time in marketing, 50 shade of gray is a fine example of this, but we also have to acknowledge that the reason 50 shade of gray became a huge success was that it already had a huge following on social media, from my understanding the book was being promoted left and right by E.L James, she also had a blog where she was writing and talking about the book, and also she was using specific strategies to encourage people to want to buy the book, she even managed to sell copies of her book via her blog before she posted it on social media, but yes finding success immediately with your first book is not impossible, but your book needs to be like superb for that to happen, but it can happen, like it happened with the book millennial wolves, but sadly that book you can only read it on the galatea app which is way too expensive! and there are a lot of scamming rumors going around about that app and its publishing house for my taste.
I love how you broke down each year and kept it on just your books. I'm an indie author and artist and hope to start a constant self publishing schedule this year.
I was scammed by Amazon KDP for over $3000 dollars. They knew my book was turned down by Amazon to be on their book list but continued to get more money out of me for promotion and will not give a refund.
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Another numbers video! Including how many books you had for sale each year along with your earnings really helped illustrate the scalability of an indie author career. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I have to remind myself of that. Congrats on the sales! Those numbers are AWESOME!
I've been doing KDP for 8 years. Since 2014. I made about $50,000 last year. KDP, Audible, and PublishDrive to reach all the other platforms. I've started making hardbacks now that that has become available on KDP and that is now bringing in some nice sales. Made over $13 on one hardback sale alone this week. I don't see how Ingram Spark is as profitable as KDP. Ingram Spark is one more middle man and you end up with about a 20% cut by the end of it. Amazon is ubiquitous. Everyone uses it. It's no hardship for anyone to buy a book there. That's my opinion. How much did you make after costs are factored in? What was your net income after taxes and paying for voice talent and book designers is taken into account? I think that would be an informative video.
Thanks for sharing. I've been writing books for a while now, and I'm just finishing the first draft of what I feel will be my debut. Up until now, I just didn't feel that my books were up to where I thought they needed to be to sell. I was curious what to expect from sales (I know it varies widely from author to author), but this gives me an idea of what I might expect. I write for fun, so any money that I make from it is just icing on the cake.
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Thank you so much for sharing! I'm just starting on this journey of writing books, in the music learning world, your transparency and positive energy is very inspiring!
Numbers are always nice to see. I don't know why it just feels good to look at especially when you are growing. 20k free books is amazing with the majority of it in one month.
Thank you for your video and being willing to put yourself out there to help others out. I am a late starter on my dreams of illustrating and writing children's books. It feels very overwhelming and I am not a natural writer at all. But I still am trying to start this dream. I just finished a draft of my first book and it took so many hours and I feel like each step is so hard. I may be over thinking it. Thanks again.
WOW! Thank you so much for sharing. I love Excel spreadsheets so I was really engaged with how you organized your data. Kudos on your work as an indie author.
@@BethanyAtazadeh yes, it’s fun and straight to the point. Love it 🤗 And great job on selling over 10 000 books. That’s huge! Also congratulations on your precious baby boy. Wishing the whole family great health and lots of joy ❤️❤️❤️
Great video, appreciate your honest approach, but kinda discouraging, too, as a not-yet-published author. Looking forward to watching your multi-income stream video, too. (Thanks for that! 🙂)
I thought this was another fun video to watch. Thank You for how you were willing to share this information. I have wondered like what to expect more like "real" wise. You hear about all these authors and wonder about being able to "make it" as an indie author. Plus you also got to think about how much money went into making these books a reality. That's why I've been trying to think of other outlets of income besides the books themselves to help fund the books until they can fund themselves easily. I feel as though I don't have enough outreach for Patron because I barely have any people subscribed to my newsletter let along do something like that. I would like to do merch but figuring out what type of designs to do is hard lol.
Thanks for sharing your numbers it's nice to see what's possible. I bought books 2-4 in your Enchanted Crown series a couple days ago and they just came in the mail today! There beautiful and I'm excited to see what happens next. ☺️
I would love a video about the website sale process. I might have missed it. But like ordering books what that looks like. (Really preorder ) When you do it for a new book. What you do once they are at your house and how you ship back out.
I still don't have the ball rolling from 2016 to now. I kind of want to give up at this point. I just don't get what to do about making sales even though I have read a lot about marketing. But you really have it down. Congrats on all your success and more to come. I was going to ask if the original covers for your Stolen Kingdom series was still available, but I just checked your website and saw they are in paperback. So I just bought them in paperback on Amazon.
Thank you for doing these!! Really loving these videos with the number crunching. It's so eye opening. Could we also see what you pay in marketing against earnings? This could be very useful.
Thank you for sharing, it's inspiring to see! I hope to self-publish my fiction books I have written eventually as well :) I published 4 coloring books on Amazon KDP, and only made a few sales, but hopefully they'll sell more when I get more following on UA-cam and instagram as well :) thank you for your transparency!
Love your video. Very inspiring. I am one of those authors who have not made much money from writing. It's my own fault. It's hard to go from writer to salesman.
This so so helpful, Bethany! This is my goal, to be a successful author and as I dream and meditate and work towards this goal I can use these numbers as markers. 🥰☺️📚
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
👍🏽 I am in the process of getting my book ready for publication and am considering indi vs. Pub house. Still not sure which way to jump. Always interested in learning more!
This is an interesting video, as most people will assume that most authors make a lot of money. It's also good to see an increase in sales every year. Yet, I suspect this is roughly a typical amount that most authors make from book sales.
Curious to know the breakdown on sales of your fiction books alone. You're a great speaker (this is my first time seeing your YT video), I imagine you sell a lot of your non-fiction books.
Thank you for sharing! Congrats on all the books sold! That's something to be proud of. Are those totals after you took our book expenses, such as cover design, editing, etc.?
Hi, I was wondering if you're going to do another book signing. Because I live in Minnesota and I thought it would be fun to go to one. Also congrats on selling over 10,000! books
Is the total gross or net? You didn’t specify. As a self published author myself, I know there are several expenses you never mention: cover design, editing costs, ad spend from fb, Amazon, etc, book marketing promos. Did you do any mailing list builders? Email marketing fees?
Funny u mention your children's book videos get more views. That's actually how you popped up on my feed because I started writing children's books, hence, watching tons of YT videos. I'm now reading your marketing for authors series to help me sell my books. 🤞
Thank you for sharing this! It's forced me to get more organised with my data. But gosh what a pain it was going back through IngramSpark trying to find it all! Tip to new authors- have this set up from month 1! haha
Hi, thanks for your interesting tips and tricks. Question: if you would promote a book on your website, would you direct people to an online platform like Amazon that sells your book , or sell it via your own webshop? I am a starting author that just published my one and only first book. So, go for the larger margins or go for the larger exposure that Amazon might be able to give me?
Hi, great video! Im currently writing my first book here in the uk. It's a fantasy/ sci-fi novel currently at around 55 pages long. Im thinking of going for around 150 pages total but was wondering, where can i go for a good cover illustrator, and do you have any tips on publishers. Im thinking about using kdp just to start. Many thanks 😊
I've been self published since 2018 and am still struggling. I write YA Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books. I just can't seem to find my audience. All the book sales I make go to my parents funeral fund. I just wish I knew how to find my readers.
Wow. I just published my first book in August and I have to say, this is impressive. How many words per day do you think you write? I try to do 600, but don't and then I have like, one day a week where I just write all day long to catch up, haha. Anyway, this is inspiring and thank you for the video! I just hired another illustrator today and I was kind of like... where is the money going to come from? And this is just what I needed. Thank you so much! I kept trying to find numbers online for indie authors and none of them were in my genre or very specific.
I just published a new book on Amazon that I hope might become successful as well, my first Science Fiction book, Mars Adventure 3000, Part One, The Only Hope.
I’ll have to go through your videos and see how you sell books on your website and if you package everything and send it all yourself. I’m thinking of adding this to my website.
Thank you for this great video. I have a question: KDP and IngramSpark both offer e-book publishing. When publishing an e-book with Ingram, is it not distributed to Amazon Kindle automatically? Cheers.
Thanks! And the answer is yes, IF you publish an ebook through Ingramspark, they distribute to Amazon. But I don't publish ebooks on Ingram, I only use Ingram to publish paperbacks and hardcovers.
Now do a breakdown on the cost versus what you made. AKA ROI. People look at this and think they will make a "passive" income that easily. Even if it takes a few years. Not understanding that there are costs like cover design, editing, advertising, and even the audiobook which is often out of pocket several grand for us indies. (they use this to justify piracy, thinking we make so much when all we do is magically put up a book). Good job on the copies sold.
Check out my other videos in this same Author Money Playlist for tons of examples on the expenses! :) That's very true that not everyone thinks of ROI, but that's also why I made my most recent video and mentioned this same thing. And thank you!
Thanks for sharing ! Very inspiring 👏 can you also share how much time you spend on average writing the books? Say 6 hrs weekly ? I understand it will be changing a lot over 4 years yet ..many authors have writing routine so asking
Honestly I have no idea! I haven't written in over a month, but when I do write these days it's during a baby nap so would never be more than a couple hours a day, if even one hour. 6 hours a week could be a good estimate, but honestly it's so irregular that I can't really say for sure!
This was very helpful; thank you. You mentioned a link for the Publish and Thrive course below. I’d like to use it if I buy the course so you will get the credit as an affiliate, but I can’t find the link. Could you please send it to me another way? Thanks again!
So glad you enjoyed it! And I'd love to share the link (although keep in mind the next round is sometime in 2024, so it'll be a bit of a wait). Here's the link: heartbreathings.teachable.com/courses/publish-and-thrive?affcode=145068_cetumz57
very helpfull video. Could you please talk about illustrated books, and the difference with just text books. Any advice? Does people also buy ebooks for illustrated books. Thank you ;)))
I saw on one of your videos that you had a book included in a subscription box. My book is being considered for a monthly subscription box, and they’ll need about 5,000 copies of my book. How do I price my book for the company? What is the standard discount to give a company when they’re purchasing so many copies?
That's awesome! I have no idea what's standard, but I did a huge discount, think I made roughly $1 per book after printing and shipping costs, but for that much exposure I might even be willing to do it at cost personally. Definitely make sure they pay you BEFORE you ship the books though, there's at least one subscription company (The Bookish Box) that's been known to not pay authors :/
Thanks for this terrific info! Very helpful. Can you clarify if these numbers reflect gross income, with exception of Amazon? Many thanks and continued success!
So glad you enjoyed it! Yep, I didn't go into expenses in this video, but if you want to know more about that, definitely check out my author money playlist here: ua-cam.com/play/PL3IFBPbxQRyp1rbyE1NpQfwoUi450h0_9.html
Congrats, I hope you triple your sales this year. I'm an author who makes no money from self-publishing, right now, but I'm giving my eBooks. My abstract art is for sell, and I have some fiction which companies rent the rights to. I'm trying to create a social experiment of kindness and build my UA-cam channel.
In the 1980s I self published three books, The Redhead Book, Offbeat Careers: 50 Ways to avoid being a lawyer, and a childrens book Ozzie the Alligator: A true New Yawker. I stood on a street corner in Manhattan with a table and a sign reading Meet the Author, get a perrsonally signed copy and sold a total of 17,000 books. This was before the internet.
wow amazing ❤
Vow, I admire you.
@hemanginipr6974 what book have you written? perhaps I can assist with ideas
@hemanginipr6974 noted and best wishes
Loved this!! It's always so inspiring to see how another indie author is doing. To think that over 30,000 people own your books is just crazy!
Thank you Katie! So glad it was helpful! :)
Thank you for your transparency, I love how honest you are regarding writing and being a self-published author, about publishing, I think that the only ones who managed to be successful right out of the gate with their books are those who put extra money and time in marketing, 50 shade of gray is a fine example of this, but we also have to acknowledge that the reason 50 shade of gray became a huge success was that it already had a huge following on social media, from my understanding the book was being promoted left and right by E.L James, she also had a blog where she was writing and talking about the book, and also she was using specific strategies to encourage people to want to buy the book, she even managed to sell copies of her book via her blog before she posted it on social media, but yes finding success immediately with your first book is not impossible, but your book needs to be like superb for that to happen, but it can happen, like it happened with the book millennial wolves, but sadly that book you can only read it on the galatea app which is way too expensive! and there are a lot of scamming rumors going around about that app and its publishing house for my taste.
WOW! I didn't know this about Fifty Shades of Gray. Thanks for sharing. A good marketing plan sure makes the difference.
@@asrgelpi_author for sure does! thats why I always give authors who claim on youtube that you don't need to spend money on marketing the side-eye!
I love how you broke down each year and kept it on just your books. I'm an indie author and artist and hope to start a constant self publishing schedule this year.
thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :D
I was scammed by Amazon KDP for over $3000 dollars. They knew my book was turned down by Amazon to be on their book list but continued to get more money out of me for promotion and will not give a refund.
That stinks!! ):
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Another numbers video! Including how many books you had for sale each year along with your earnings really helped illustrate the scalability of an indie author career. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I have to remind myself of that. Congrats on the sales! Those numbers are AWESOME!
That’s the perfect way to look at it! Thank you so much!
The info you share is gold for everyone stepping in as an Indie author. Keep posting!
Thank you so much!
If I could break even with my first book I will be happy! This gives me so much hope that i could do so much more! Thanks Bethany!
You can do it! So glad you liked it!
I've been doing KDP for 8 years. Since 2014. I made about $50,000 last year. KDP, Audible, and PublishDrive to reach all the other platforms. I've started making hardbacks now that that has become available on KDP and that is now bringing in some nice sales. Made over $13 on one hardback sale alone this week. I don't see how Ingram Spark is as profitable as KDP. Ingram Spark is one more middle man and you end up with about a 20% cut by the end of it. Amazon is ubiquitous. Everyone uses it. It's no hardship for anyone to buy a book there. That's my opinion.
How much did you make after costs are factored in? What was your net income after taxes and paying for voice talent and book designers is taken into account? I think that would be an informative video.
that's awesome!
Great overview for authors out there and, reality check, you’re one of the hardest working authors out there!
I appreciate that!
This is encouraging and idea building for us! Thanks again for sharing Bethany!
Thanks for sharing. I've been writing books for a while now, and I'm just finishing the first draft of what I feel will be my debut. Up until now, I just didn't feel that my books were up to where I thought they needed to be to sell. I was curious what to expect from sales (I know it varies widely from author to author), but this gives me an idea of what I might expect. I write for fun, so any money that I make from it is just icing on the cake.
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Thank you so much for sharing! I'm just starting on this journey of writing books, in the music learning world, your transparency and positive energy is very inspiring!
That's so awesome, I'm glad you found it helpful! 😊
Thanks for sharing! Och congrats on the 10k sold, that's amazing!
Thank you so much!
Numbers are always nice to see. I don't know why it just feels good to look at especially when you are growing. 20k free books is amazing with the majority of it in one month.
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
Thank you for your video and being willing to put yourself out there to help others out. I am a late starter on my dreams of illustrating and writing children's books. It feels very overwhelming and I am not a natural writer at all. But I still am trying to start this dream. I just finished a draft of my first book and it took so many hours and I feel like each step is so hard. I may be over thinking it. Thanks again.
WOW! Thank you so much for sharing. I love Excel spreadsheets so I was really engaged with how you organized your data. Kudos on your work as an indie author.
Thank you so much! ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing this information. You are such an inspiration. And your honesty and transparency are so so admirable and helpful ❤️
Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked the video!
@@BethanyAtazadeh yes, it’s fun and straight to the point. Love it 🤗 And great job on selling over 10 000 books. That’s huge! Also congratulations on your precious baby boy. Wishing the whole family great health and lots of joy ❤️❤️❤️
Great video, appreciate your honest approach, but kinda discouraging, too, as a not-yet-published author. Looking forward to watching your multi-income stream video, too. (Thanks for that! 🙂)
Thanks for sharing. Congratulations on your award, persistence, and success!
Ah! So much info in one place, I love it! Also, AMAZING sales!!!
Yay! Thank you! :D
I thought this was another fun video to watch. Thank You for how you were willing to share this information. I have wondered like what to expect more like "real" wise. You hear about all these authors and wonder about being able to "make it" as an indie author. Plus you also got to think about how much money went into making these books a reality. That's why I've been trying to think of other outlets of income besides the books themselves to help fund the books until they can fund themselves easily. I feel as though I don't have enough outreach for Patron because I barely have any people subscribed to my newsletter let along do something like that. I would like to do merch but figuring out what type of designs to do is hard lol.
Yay! Thank you! So happy you liked it!
Thanks for sharing your numbers it's nice to see what's possible. I bought books 2-4 in your Enchanted Crown series a couple days ago and they just came in the mail today! There beautiful and I'm excited to see what happens next. ☺️
Yay! Happy reading and hope you enjoy!
I would love a video about the website sale process. I might have missed it. But like ordering books what that looks like. (Really preorder ) When you do it for a new book. What you do once they are at your house and how you ship back out.
Check out my video on that for sure! If you search my name + “virtual book signing” it should show up!
@@BethanyAtazadeh that was so helpful thank you!
I still don't have the ball rolling from 2016 to now. I kind of want to give up at this point. I just don't get what to do about making sales even though I have read a lot about marketing. But you really have it down. Congrats on all your success and more to come. I was going to ask if the original covers for your Stolen Kingdom series was still available, but I just checked your website and saw they are in paperback. So I just bought them in paperback on Amazon.
Thank you for doing these!! Really loving these videos with the number crunching. It's so eye opening.
Could we also see what you pay in marketing against earnings? This could be very useful.
Thank you! And that's a fun video idea, I'll add it to my list of ideas!
Thank you for sharing, it's inspiring to see! I hope to self-publish my fiction books I have written eventually as well :) I published 4 coloring books on Amazon KDP, and only made a few sales, but hopefully they'll sell more when I get more following on UA-cam and instagram as well :) thank you for your transparency!
Thank you! You can do it!
Glad to see you back
Thanks!
Love your video. Very inspiring. I am one of those authors who have not made much money from writing. It's my own fault. It's hard to go from writer to salesman.
Awesome, Bethany! Well done
Thank you!
I've watched Mandi Lyn as well 👍
You made me curious about Bookcon and I see you have a video on that, so I'm going to check that out too.
This so so helpful, Bethany! This is my goal, to be a successful author and as I dream and meditate and work towards this goal I can use these numbers as markers. 🥰☺️📚
So glad it was helpful!
If you are looking for a reliable publishing house that will also market you book, and even to published it traditionally . I can recommend you to someone
Congrats Bethany on your success. Thanks for the video share.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks Bethany! Your transparency is very helpful. Totally appreciated ❤
Thank you! I'm so glad it was helpful!
First time watcher, definitely subscribed. This was really helpful! By the way, kind of random, but the covers on those books are amazing.
Thank you so much! And so happy you like them!
Congratulations! Thank you for being so transparent. Just great.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Very interesting and helpful. Thank you. Good indicator that the more books you put out, the more you make all around.
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the great video! Selling direct on my website is daunting with all of the sales tax tracking in the US. 😵💫
Very inspiring. Your persistence definitely pays off 👏👏 Congratulations 🎊🍾
Thank you so much!
Ty it was Very helpful ,Look for my Memoir , Good Friday!
A great informative video :) Thanks! Looking forward to more videos.
Thank you! So glad it was helpful!
👍🏽 I am in the process of getting my book ready for publication and am considering indi vs. Pub house. Still not sure which way to jump. Always interested in learning more!
This is so amazing.
I will personally soar up.
Big ups.
You've done the best work, and shared your methods. Thank you!
Thank you!
This is an interesting video, as most people will assume that most authors make a lot of money. It's also good to see an increase in sales every year. Yet, I suspect this is roughly a typical amount that most authors make from book sales.
Thanks for a very informative video! Gives all authors hope:)
Love the honest video!
Thank you!
How do you record and edit your videos? I know some seem like they come from your phone (or a carefully held camera) but what about the rest?
always a camera and edit in imovie
wow! Congrats Bethany!!
Thanks for the insights, super helpful!
Curious to know the breakdown on sales of your fiction books alone. You're a great speaker (this is my first time seeing your YT video), I imagine you sell a lot of your non-fiction books.
I sell more fiction than non-fiction, but that could be because I have more as well as market them a lot more
Thank you for breaking things down like this! It helps put things in perspective.
So glad you liked it!
It's interesting to see how far you come 😊 wish you the best!
Thank you so much!
Loved the video, it was very helpful 👍
Thank you so much and continued success 🙏
Thank you so much!
You go girl ! Very inspirational ! Thanks ! G
Thanks so much!!
Love your honesty and transparency - also I just love data 😀
Yay! Thank you!
Thank you for sharing! Congrats on all the books sold! That's something to be proud of. Are those totals after you took our book expenses, such as cover design, editing, etc.?
Thank you! Nope I’ve done videos on expenses before, but this one is about income!
Omgggg wow! This gave me such a realistic perspective
Yay I'm so happy to hear that!
Such a helpful video! Thank you so much for sharing what can be possible if we keep going.
Thank you Amanda! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Hi, I was wondering if you're going to do another book signing. Because I live in Minnesota and I thought it would be fun to go to one. Also congrats on selling over 10,000! books
That would be fun, but I don’t have any plans to at the moment. Thank you!
Is the total gross or net? You didn’t specify. As a self published author myself, I know there are several expenses you never mention: cover design, editing costs, ad spend from fb, Amazon, etc, book marketing promos. Did you do any mailing list builders? Email marketing fees?
Funny u mention your children's book videos get more views. That's actually how you popped up on my feed because I started writing children's books, hence, watching tons of YT videos. I'm now reading your marketing for authors series to help me sell my books. 🤞
That's awesome! So glad you like them!
What are some of the promotional sites you use to market your books? I'm looking for one that might do better than Bargain Booksy.
Thank you for sharing this! It's forced me to get more organised with my data. But gosh what a pain it was going back through IngramSpark trying to find it all! Tip to new authors- have this set up from month 1! haha
So glad you enjoyed it! And oh my gosh yes it's a huge pain haha!
Honestly, since I live in Latin America, 4000 USD per year of revenue with only my books it’s A LOT and I will be so happy 😂
wow thanks for the insights..very educative and inspiring💯
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hi, thanks for your interesting tips and tricks. Question: if you would promote a book on your website, would you direct people to an online platform like Amazon that sells your book , or sell it via your own webshop? I am a starting author that just published my one and only first book. So, go for the larger margins or go for the larger exposure that Amazon might be able to give me?
Hi, great video! Im currently writing my first book here in the uk. It's a fantasy/ sci-fi novel currently at around 55 pages long. Im thinking of going for around 150 pages total but was wondering, where can i go for a good cover illustrator, and do you have any tips on publishers. Im thinking about using kdp just to start. Many thanks 😊
Can someone please tell me what she meant by website? 0:51
Great information. Thanks for sharing.
This was interesting to me, thank you for doing this :)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Very nice Beth!
I've been self published since 2018 and am still struggling. I write YA Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books. I just can't seem to find my audience. All the book sales I make go to my parents funeral fund. I just wish I knew how to find my readers.
You can do it!
Hey I hope you see this comment I’m trying start my manga journey how do you make the copy’s of the paper back ?
Love you videos. Encouraging for a start up indie author!
Yay! Thank you!
By "website" do you mean direct sales? You made me curious about that path. Do you have a how to video on making sales via your website? Thanks.
Wow. I just published my first book in August and I have to say, this is impressive. How many words per day do you think you write? I try to do 600, but don't and then I have like, one day a week where I just write all day long to catch up, haha. Anyway, this is inspiring and thank you for the video! I just hired another illustrator today and I was kind of like... where is the money going to come from? And this is just what I needed. Thank you so much! I kept trying to find numbers online for indie authors and none of them were in my genre or very specific.
Thanks for the numbers. I appreciate this a lot for posting this.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for your honesty. I'm guessing I'll be happy to break even with my first book.
I'm so glad you liked it! And breaking even on book one is definitely a win!
I just published a new book on Amazon that I hope might become successful as well, my first Science Fiction book, Mars Adventure 3000, Part One, The Only Hope.
I’ll have to go through your videos and see how you sell books on your website and if you package everything and send it all yourself. I’m thinking of adding this to my website.
Absolutely, check out my video on how I do virtual book signings here: ua-cam.com/video/eCpyFfmLY1w/v-deo.html
Thank you for this great video. I have a question: KDP and IngramSpark both offer e-book publishing. When publishing an e-book with Ingram, is it not distributed to Amazon Kindle automatically? Cheers.
Thanks! And the answer is yes, IF you publish an ebook through Ingramspark, they distribute to Amazon. But I don't publish ebooks on Ingram, I only use Ingram to publish paperbacks and hardcovers.
Now do a breakdown on the cost versus what you made. AKA ROI. People look at this and think they will make a "passive" income that easily. Even if it takes a few years. Not understanding that there are costs like cover design, editing, advertising, and even the audiobook which is often out of pocket several grand for us indies. (they use this to justify piracy, thinking we make so much when all we do is magically put up a book). Good job on the copies sold.
Check out my other videos in this same Author Money Playlist for tons of examples on the expenses! :) That's very true that not everyone thinks of ROI, but that's also why I made my most recent video and mentioned this same thing. And thank you!
Wov so real n true video just like u n ur smile..cheers friend..
Yes, your video was considerably helpful👍🏾
I'm so glad it was helpful!
Hello..what you use to promote your books?
Here's my video on that: ua-cam.com/video/nBI5YqorFWo/v-deo.html
Thank you for sharing this!! ❤
Love your videos. Such hoest and open info. Thanks.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Very informative! How to start an author website please
Thanks for sharing ! Very inspiring 👏 can you also share how much time you spend on average writing the books? Say 6 hrs weekly ? I understand it will be changing a lot over 4 years yet ..many authors have writing routine so asking
Honestly I have no idea! I haven't written in over a month, but when I do write these days it's during a baby nap so would never be more than a couple hours a day, if even one hour. 6 hours a week could be a good estimate, but honestly it's so irregular that I can't really say for sure!
This was very helpful; thank you. You mentioned a link for the Publish and Thrive course below. I’d like to use it if I buy the course so you will get the credit as an affiliate, but I can’t find the link. Could you please send it to me another way? Thanks again!
So glad you enjoyed it! And I'd love to share the link (although keep in mind the next round is sometime in 2024, so it'll be a bit of a wait). Here's the link: heartbreathings.teachable.com/courses/publish-and-thrive?affcode=145068_cetumz57
very helpfull video. Could you please talk about illustrated books, and the difference with just text books. Any advice? Does people also buy ebooks for illustrated books. Thank you ;)))
Thanks! And I'm sorry I don't have any experience in those two types of books, but I bet you can find youtube videos on those topics! :)
I don’t even know where to find a literary agent. Self publishing sounds cool, but I would really love to have someone who knows what they are doing
I saw on one of your videos that you had a book included in a subscription box. My book is being considered for a monthly subscription box, and they’ll need about 5,000 copies of my book. How do I price my book for the company? What is the standard discount to give a company when they’re purchasing so many copies?
That's awesome! I have no idea what's standard, but I did a huge discount, think I made roughly $1 per book after printing and shipping costs, but for that much exposure I might even be willing to do it at cost personally. Definitely make sure they pay you BEFORE you ship the books though, there's at least one subscription company (The Bookish Box) that's been known to not pay authors :/
@@BethanyAtazadeh Thank you so much! That info is a huge help!
Thanks for this terrific info! Very helpful. Can you clarify if these numbers reflect gross income, with exception of Amazon? Many thanks and continued success!
So glad you enjoyed it! Yep, I didn't go into expenses in this video, but if you want to know more about that, definitely check out my author money playlist here: ua-cam.com/play/PL3IFBPbxQRyp1rbyE1NpQfwoUi450h0_9.html
@@BethanyAtazadeh Really appreciate it! And congrats on the baby!
Congrats! Amazing 🙂
Thank you. This gave me serious food for thought.
You are so welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Super content! Very inspiring. Sub'd. Do you have a per-book breakdown? How does your fiction compare to your non-fiction?
Congrats, I hope you triple your sales this year. I'm an author who makes no money from self-publishing, right now, but I'm giving my eBooks. My abstract art is for sell, and I have some fiction which companies rent the rights to. I'm trying to create a social experiment of kindness and build my UA-cam channel.
Thank you so much!
@@BethanyAtazadeh welcome :-)