So here we go, a post on ‘Making Money as a Writer.’ A subject that seems to come up often, far more than I ever thought it would actually when I began this journey. Let me start by saying of course, when I started this I thought “Oh I’ll write books, make $$$, quit my day job and be a writer for the rest of my life, it will be easy living!” I think that every writer has that same little fantasy that this will come and come fast and easy. It’s normal. It’s also almost never like that.
Yes, it *can* happen. And so does getting struck by lightning, or winning the lottery, or even creating this really new hot viral app that makes you $$$ hand over fist. All of it’s POSSIBLE. But likely? No. I have been asked more than once, by very smart and well meaning people why I don’t just write full time. Simple answer? Money.
See I think those same people think it’s easy to make money writing books.It’s not. Not even close really. In grand total for ALL of 2015, I made…. 211$ Whoohoo! off of writing. Yes, that little. Why so little you may ask?
- Lack of understanding on my part about marketing.
- Poor choices of categories
- Rushing books to market before they were ready.
All of those hurt me badly when it came to earning $$$, and I’m working heard to rectify those issues with my next book (coming soon!)
Then of course you read things.. things like http://bit.ly/1W64joy.
Basically the statement is to give it up, only 40 Amazon authors made “money”. But lets look at the definition of making money they used.. selling 1 million eBooks in 5 years. Excuse me? What??
Basic math here folks.
You sell a Million eBooks in 5 years, your averaging 200,000 a year. The most “common” eBook price (because the article is short on the details) is 2.99. Assuming your using the 70% royalty plan (and there’s no reason to think your not) you would be making 2.09 PER eBook sold. Which means your making 418,600$ a YEAR.
Yeah… That’s a fair amount more than “just being successful.” That’s being majorly AWESOMELY successful. It’s also a highly unrealistic number to use as “making money from self publishing.”
What do I want? My dream goal would be to pull anywhere from 70-90k a year from writing alone. That would be insanely awesome. Truly. My realistic goal, if I can get to 30k a year from writing, that would be great!! Would I quit my day job? Hell no. But if someone came up to you and said “Hey you want an extra 30k a year in passive income?” I think anyone and everyone would say yes please.
Why write then? If money is not so easy to make, why do it?
- I actually really enjoy writing
- I enjoy telling stories
- I get a kick out of creating something that is out there for others to enjoy.
You want to know what you can do to support or help an self publishing author?
- Buy their books
- REVIEW their books (seriously, telling someone you like their book is great, but writing a LEGIT review on Amazon is better, FAR better due to how Amazon does things.)
- Recommend their book to others.
That simple. 🙂
