Self-Publishing Failure Stories (and How to Avoid Them)

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Self-publishing failure stories have one thing in common: the author gave up too early, jumped between genres, or didn’t publish enough books. Everyone has failure stories until they succeed at the thing they are trying to do. Here are mine, what authors actually earn, and what to do instead.

What was my own failure story?

I published several books in several different genres when I got started. I used KDP and put the books on a free promo so people could get them for free. I posted them in Facebook groups and on Twitter. I hired people on Fiverr to do extra promotions. A trickle of sales came in, very few. I had no ads. I asked friends and family for reviews, which was a mistake: Amazon took many of them down because the reviewers were connected to me. I had no real reviews and no plan, and no single genre.

I was excited by the few sales, but they weren’t enough to last. I started thinking about foreign exchange trading, or Mexican pesos, or another internet business, because I realized I had failed and didn’t have the right strategies. I had done many things on eBay before, but Kindle books were the ones I wanted to succeed with.

Then I met people who had succeeded at self-publishing. That turned everything around. Listening to people who succeeded share what worked for them is the key to winning at this or any game. I started using their strategies and tactics, read books, took courses and talked to even more people, because I was hungry to crack it. Then I started to succeed with Kindle publishing. If you are still deciding whether it can work for you, read what is really true about Kindle publishing. For a plain look at what it is like, read what self-publishing is really like.

How many self-published books fail?

The number of failures is massive, so don’t be fooled. The Authors Guild’s 2023 survey of 5,699 published authors found a median book income of $2,000 for 2022 across all authors, $10,000 for full-time authors, and $12,800 for full-time self-published authors. These are medians, which means half earned less. They also include part-timers who publish a book or two.

The first reason for failures is that many people can’t follow the best strategies. There is an awful lot of talking about what they want to accomplish. They may have written the first book, and then nothing, no next step. That is what I spend a lot of my time on. Don’t get stuck on one point, and don’t talk about thousands of things like millions of sales. Do one thing at a time and keep it simple and easy.

Can you make tens of thousands in a few months?

A few people manage it, but they are few and far between, and some people lie about what they earn. Most people expect far too much in the short term, and far too little in the long term. Sticking to the game long enough results in the sales you want.

What do failure stories have in common?

They don’t stick to one game. First, they hop between genres. Second, they don’t publish enough books. Many of the authors making a full-time income on Amazon have a large catalog, and each new book you put out gets better than the last. Stay within the same genre. I hopped around and paid for it.

High-quality books sell more copies, and the reason is reviews. A book with lots of one-star reviews doesn’t sell, and Amazon won’t push it. Your first book can’t be top quality, so you improve with practice, like any skill. Then get it in as many formats as you can: audiobook, paperback, Kindle ebook, and EPUB through Draft2Digital, across multiple sites. With ads and optimized books you see big wins over the long run. For writing the books, read How To Write A Book? and for traffic, How Can Content Marketing Help Me Sell Books?

How do you avoid being a failure story?

Don’t get demotivated by your first book. I wouldn’t expect anything from it. Its job is to get you through the process. You optimize it later and keep writing more books, running ads, and getting smarter each round. Most people with failure stories give up too early and don’t follow the best strategies. So don’t try to be original. If something is working for others, copy what they do.

Do you have any self-publishing failure stories to tell? Share them in the comments. If you feel stuck, book a free 25-minute discovery call and we will work out your next step.

Should I take down a book that is not selling?

My advice is not yet. Most “failed” books never got a fair test, so fix the cover, title and description first, run a small ad, and give it a few months. Unpublishing does not make a book succeed, and it is not final either: KDP says unpublishing stops new copies being sold on Amazon, and for big changes such as a new title or manuscript it advises unpublishing and then publishing a new edition (KDP help: Remove or unpublish a book). So if the book really needs a new title, that is the route. If it just needs readers, keep it up and write the next one in the same genre.

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