Let me guess, you are still new to self publishing and you are wondering how much do self publishing authors make? Find out the figures that you too can earn if you start self publishing now.
Today's question has three answers. The third answer is a secret that will ensure you're making a lot more money than the average author on Amazon.
Now, let's get right on into it. Today's question is, what can an author expect to make? This is an excellent question that many aspiring writers are wondering.
Do I publish my books at all? Do I use all of this time and energy? Can I expect to get money back in return for all of the work that I'm doing?
And if so, what is a reasonable amount of money that you can earn? Before I answer the question, check out my free Self Publishing Secrets Checklist.
Let's get right on into it. When I first started, I wasn't even that concerned about making money. I thought the idea of making any money would be interesting and fun.
It was a way to maybe starting with online, an online business of some sort. I didn't know what was the reason a lot of amount of money to make.
So, when I first get going, I would just be happy if I could get a sale a day. For example, when I released my first book right now, I was making almost no sales a day. Even though there were many things I was doing right.
I didn't fully realize that when I started. Only to find out later that my results were terrible when I first get started. Over time, I began to understand I had been breaking some key rules for making money on Amazon.
By fixing those, I was able to ensure that I was making a lot more money than the average author on Amazon. So, let's get right on into the answers to the question, how much do self publishing authors make?
The first answer is that the average author according to the Guardian makes $1,000 per year on Amazon which is pretty lousy. Because you can't live off of $1,000 a year if that's all that you're making off of your books.
One of the problems is our expectations can be so high. Number two, we see all of the attention goes to these insanely successful authors who put their books on Amazon.
Then, they are selling millions of copies and everyone in the world wants to buy their book. We imagine that the books that we are writing are going to be equally as popular. Because after all, it's such a great book.
I mean, why would you write it if it weren't? Then comes the surprise which is the average number. The average author is only making about $1,000 a year off of Amazon.
Check out this related article: Do You Think It's Still Worth Doing Amazon KDP As A Business?
The reason we mentioned Amazon and not another store like Barnes & Noble or something like that, is because this is where the majority of book sales are happening. This is where people have their credit cards out.
We're going to be targeting Amazon with our sales. But let's get to our secret answer of the day which is answer number three.
It is that the reason these authors are only making $1,000 a month and no more on average is that they are not following the winning strategies for self publishing. It is that simple.
Target An Existing Market
Now, there are several strategies just like any board game you would play. Writing books, publishing books onto Amazon, some strategies will get your books to sell. As well as strategies that will cause you to lose.
Ignoring the correct strategies is a better way of putting it. The first mistake that most authors are making is they are not doing market research.
I use Kindle Spy. That's the tool that I use when I'm trying to figure out which market to go into. The way that I do it is I look to see how many books on a topic exists.
So, if you are talking about making your own coffee for example and that was what the book was going to be about, I would look to see homemade coffee. How many books are on homemade coffee?
Let's say there are a hundred books on homemade coffee. And then I will use KDP Spy or Kindle Spy, so they change the names of these tools from time to time. Then, I will look to see how many of those books in the first 20 books of the results are in the top 100,000.
Their basic sales rank or the BSR is in the top 100,000 and then based upon that, it will give me a ratio. So, I would take 100 books and I would divide it by let's say 10 of them are in the top hundred. Meaning, they are selling at least a book a day.
That would show me that I would be getting 100 divided by 10, and that would give me 10. For me, I do not publish books unless that ratio is under 20. Does that make any sense?
Check out this related article: What Type Of Books Help An Author Make Most Royalties?
So in other words, even if there were 100 books on the topic and only 5 of them were selling, 5 of them were in the top 100,000 with BSR ranked 100,000, which would give me a ratio of 20.
By staying underneath that, I am sure that I am going to be targeting a market that already exists. With people who wish to pay money to buy books on these very topics.
The other issue and a lot of people overlook this one is that they are selling but there aren't very many books. Meaning, there is a shortage of supply on this exact keyword. That is the key, my friends, to figure out where you should be writing in the first place.
We do not write a book or create a product for that matter without knowing first that there's going to be a market that is hungry for that product. You may think you are going to write a new genre or a new topic that nobody's ever thought about.
But then at that point, they are not searching for it either. So they will never find your book. Because generally, they are going to find it by searching.
If you make this single mistake, it's going to be insanely difficult for you to sell your book. It can be either of these two. You may be selling your book where there are too many books in that market already so nobody's going to find your book.
Or there are too few people buying books in that market, so it's a losing market. So, your market research is the most important point.
Right Keywords For Your Ads
The next thing is your cover. You may be thinking the contents of your book should matter but it is almost the least important. Your cover is the next one.
I use Fiverr and for $20 you can get a fantastic cover done. I use the cover designer-artist you'll see in the link.
The title comes next. It has to involve those keywords. So that when they are looking for it and then you have the keywords for the book itself, that will also have the keywords in it that you are trying to target, to bring in things.
Then, you will the category. Making sure we are under the right categories that match the books on. Then you have a description that is all designed to sell the book, not to tell everything in the book.
But it should be designed to talk about the pain points that your readers are having that this book is going to meet. Then, come the reviews. Setting up some sort of review team email list, some way to get in touch with your route the reviews.
Last but not the least, if you want to get a book to sell, you are going to run ads. I use Publisher Rocket or what used to be KDP Rocket to do this. That is what I use to figure out the keywords I'm going to use on the ads.
But just to keep it really simple. If you just simply looked at the market, you can manually, without any tools find that market. You can build the cover in Canva yourself without paying any money for that.
You can write the description, the title yourself, and you can go even without reviews. You can run ads against it and you will probably still see sales. Assuming you are in the right market and you chose a cover that looks like some of the other covers that are within that market.
This is the secret, my friends, to make more than $1,000 a year. Even making a lot more. I think one of my friends was making in one month $40,000. He made in December on his books off of Amazon, it was unbelievable.
So it is possible to make a lot more than $1,000 a year off of Amazon. This is definitely worth trying. But do not think that you can just write a book and put it out there and that it's going to sell itself.
Check out this related article: How Many Books Do You Need To Sell To Make A Living?
What you will find is the books will not sell themselves. But if you are running the ads regularly, you will be pulling the traffic in and you'll be seeing the money coming in.
I see the money coming in for books I wrote years ago. I have 170 books on the market. Some of them, I have written and some of them I haven't. I pay other people to write them.
But in general, there are a lot more strategies and by using these exact strategies now, here at Self Publishing Made Easy Now, we are trying to keep it as simple as possible. Where self publishing doesn't have to be so hard. So that's something to keep in mind.
What about you, what have you found? How much money have you managed to make off of Amazon yearly? Do you have other answers to the question for today as to how much do self publishing authors make?
Have you been able to beat the $1,000 a year average? Or maybe you're a little better, maybe a little bit worse? Did you find that by following these strategies, it helped improve it?
Go and tell me below in the comments and also check out my other blogs and videos just like this one that answers your self publishing questions.