Best Selling Self-Published books?

Katie's first post clearly stated that the $4500 a year was a secondary income rather than a decent living wage.

I'm not cynical about a self-publishing income. I'm small time and can see how having half a dozen mid-list books could bring in enough money for some people to live on. Obviously, it depends on the person.

I'd be really cautious quiting a job whether I was self-published or trade-published because you never know when those sales are going to slow down. I'm wayyy off the 'quitting a job' stage though.

The get quick rich people - I don't think anyone's trying to say that here, and I've never come across them.

At place made up of primarily self-published writers, there's a much bigger range of self-publishing experience and incomes, and you do see a lot more people succeeding at it.

Thanks to two boards I frequent that are primarily self-published writers, I know several people making between $5 and $35k a month (at least one or two handfuls of folks make more than that), and have watched many go from making $0 - $50 a month to those levels. It's how I make a living now. There are also a number of people making between $1,500 and $5,000 a month. The low-end of that isn't living wage territory for most people, but it's a nice boost in income for most people.

There's no one here reporting those kind of numbers, I don't think, but there are only a handful of people actively posting their sales here--very small sample.

I'm not saying there aren't heaps and scads of people who are lucky to sell 2 copies a month to extended family--oh man, there are. But I think it's important to remember many people who are now making a nice extra income or a full-time living started out selling just a few copies a month. And the existence of all the truly awful stuff that's barely literate and should never have been put up for public consumption should not taint the fact that people can and do succeed, in the same way that all the horrible submissions that get glanced at and rejected do not taint the fact that many people get accepted for publication. No one ever looks down their nose at someone's new agent or publishing contract based on all the horrible submissions that must have gone before, but it feels like most people look at all the horrible self-published stuff out there and look down their noses at the stuff that does well, just because they got there by the same process. Man, I find that strange.

I don't think the self-publishing landscape is as bleak as most people here at AW do, and that's based on what I've seen among people I know.

The odds of failure or success at self-publishing aren't the same for everyone, just as they aren't if you're trying to trade-publish. Most people who try will fail at both, I believe, or at least not reach whatever goals they've set for themselves. But just like someone asking the odds of success in submitting a novel, those odds shift if you can spell, use correct grammar, tell a story, submit it in the preferred format, follow the rules. Most submissions are easily dismissed, but for the ones that do most things right, the odds of getting picked up are much higher than the average odds among all submissions.

It's no different with self-publishing. If you have a competently-written manuscript that tells a good story and you package and publish it well, your odds of selling better than the average self-published book go way, way up.

There are no guarantees either way, and of course self-publishing isn't for everyone. But it's not nearly as bleak as most people seem to think, especially for those who seriously work at it.

"$35k a month"

You would think, though, that someone making that kind of money - ie, having that number of sales - would make a bit of a splatter in the world of publishing, and if it really weren't that uncommon, that in itself would also be making news. I mean, SPs aren't exactly shy about their accomplishments or the "promise" of self-publishing.

shadowwalker said:

SPs aren't exactly shy about their accomplishments or the "promise" of self-publishing.

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That's a bit of a generalisation and sounds quite derrogatory. I don't know if you mean it like that or not, but it's quite insulting.

shadowwalker said:

"$35k a month"

You would think, though, that someone making that kind of money - ie, having that number of sales - would make a bit of a splatter in the world of publishing, and if it really weren't that uncommon, that in itself would also be making news.

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The links in the OP are pointing out how many self-published titles are on the bestseller lists lately. There are articles elsewhere online that talk about how many more there are now than ever before. So it is kind of making news.

I don't feel comfortable naming names, since most of the people I know who are making 20-35k a month share this information in a restricted-membership area. There are some people at Kindle boards who openly share what they're making, and at least a handful or two hitting in that range. Those posts are public.

You've already posted in this thread that you're skeptical of anyone who claims to make a living writing, self or trade. So even if you were given a list, you're coming at this from the assumption that they're lying. I'm not sure how to counter that. I make a living writing and have for several years now. Am I lying? Why do you think that? What, short of sharing a tax return, would persuade you to believe someone making such a claim? It's just one of those things where I think your mind is made up for some reason and that tends to shut down the conversation.

I don't make 35k a month, but if I did, I would sound pretty much the same as I do now. I try to be very measured when I talk about it, especially here, because I do believe it's not for everybody.

I mean, SPs aren't exactly shy about their accomplishments or the "promise" of self-publishing.

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We're not all the same.

You would think, though, that someone making that kind of money - ie, having that number of sales - would make a bit of a splatter in the world of publishing

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Selling 16,700 units across an entire portfolio of their work? That's not bestseller territory. Keep in mind: 70% royalty.

Katie Elle said:

Selling 16,700 units across an entire portfolio of their work? That's not bestseller territory. Keep in mind: 70% royalty.

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That's a really good point I didn't even consider when replying. Many of the people we know who are making 5 figures a month are doing it with multiple titles.

I wouldn't expect anyone to post income - but verifiable sales figures would be nice. And I'm not calling anyone (here or elsewhere) liars, but exaggeration isn't unheard of when talking to anyone about their successes, particularly when talking in a group of people who are also, apparently, having phenomenal success.

I suppose I've just heard so many Konrath-style success stories that I'm automatically skeptical. And some of that creeps in in the posts here - yes, there are SPs making good money - BUT the idea that they have a lot of books out there gets little mention. It's like pointing to the Stephen King's of trade publishing and making it sound like there's a really good chance others can be that successful. Some writers will make good money - most will not; that doesn't change no matter how they get published.

shadowwalker said:

I wouldn't expect anyone to post income - but verifiable sales figures would be nice.

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Not being snarky, but if a self-publisher is the only available source of those figures, as the publisher, and you won't trust them on the whole enough to self-report in the ballpark, how could someone even provide a verifiable sales figure that meets your standards?

I'm sure there are exceptions, but on the whole I see no reason not to take these people at their word. The Best Seller appearances, to me, are more than enough evidence to support the top end of the market is reasonably accurate (given that Best Seller lists are imperfect approximations themselves.)

shadowwalker said:

I wouldn't expect anyone to post income - but verifiable sales figures would be nice. And I'm not calling anyone (here or elsewhere) liars, but exaggeration isn't unheard of when talking to anyone about their successes, particularly when talking in a group of people who are also, apparently, having phenomenal success.

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I don't doubt there are some people who exaggerate at times. But what I see most often, and it pisses me off when i see it, are people who really are making great money but being coy about how. It's not super common, I don't think, but I've run into it at least twice in the last few months.

I've seen cases where there's an outright lie (and none of it's erotica!) or where there's just deflection and no mention of the genre, when it's erotica. I think this has probably done some damage. All genres aren't created equal. Erotica and erotic romance are easier to make money with, especially just starting out, than say H/S/F. Someone writing sexy stories is likely to make more money faster than someone writing stories suitable for Tin House. So the ones who are raking it in with erotica but claiming that they're not writing erotica are giving people writing other genres a really false sense of where things stand, and I think that's a terrible shame.

I suppose I've just heard so many Konrath-style success stories that I'm automatically skeptical. And some of that creeps in in the posts here - yes, there are SPs making good money - BUT the idea that they have a lot of books out there gets little mention.

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Konrath's success is even based on a lot of books. I think most of us are so used to the "big catalog" idea, we don't mention it because we assume everyone else is, too.

It's like pointing to the Stephen King's of trade publishing and making it sound like there's a really good chance others can be that successful. Some writers will make good money - most will not; that doesn't change no matter how they get published.

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Most of us aren't pointing to the big successes, though, but the people making a nice secondary income or making a living without hitting the top of the heap, all while agreeing that a lot of people won't make much at all. Maybe it's just that so many others have acted like it's a get-rich-quick scheme and that self-publishing is the one true path to bestsellerdom that those of us with more reasonable attitudes get dismissed.

Of course you see people grinding out tons of books. Of course you see people writing in easy to write, underserved genres. They're going where the money is.

If you want to see the keys to success in the current market, the best thing to do is look at what sold as pulp paperbacks in the 1950s. It's all exactly the same stuff. It's commercial writing to a market. It's very high output. It tends towards the lurid, whether that's erotic romance, adventure science fiction, or men's adventure. And make no mistake, a big part of success is thinking of it as a business and writing to make money, not to create art.

You get the same type of criticisms as well. It's badly written, badly edited crap. It's all obscene, not real literature. The low prices will destroy "real" publishing. It's actually very amusing.

I'm sceptical too with success stories, and it's why I love reading blogs like Blenia's on the front page of people posting figures I can relate to for this field. i'm sure there are some that are making huge figures, but it's very uncommon...

on the whole publishing houses and agents are very astute and the idea that they have missed loads of people who can generate £10k per month is (not impossible) but a big leap. plenty gets through the net, but it is a widely cast net that they operate!

it's perhaps easier now than it ever was to produce a high quality product that is accessible in the most common shopping areas (amazon, kindle, barnes and noble, ingram) but it's hard out there. I've yet to see treble figure monthly sales (ok, albeit in a far tougher field to start out) and I know what I get from each sale, so I would have to become mega best seller to post that money!

everywriter said:

Even if they are not making a living writing, they are still writing. Many would have given up a long time ago. What's the difference between the self-published author who is making $4500 a year and the author who has a manuscript that will never be published? = $4500 and incentive to keep writing. I know many more writers who have given up writing than I know writers who have been published, so isn't a better world where you can give it a shot on your own and have a chance to make a little money. There are many many published authors who don't make a living wage from what they publish.

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Isn't the average advance like $5,000 anyway?

One of the big things that tilted me over into the Self Publishing camp was the time factor in trade publishing. I think THE factor was googling response times for Tor and Daw and Baen after flunking out of the agent game and realizing that it would take two or three years to hear back from the first publisher, probably ten to twelve to hear back from all of the big six, and that working on another book while I waited to hear back on the first would just mean another ten-twelve years with the same probabilities of acceptance and the same amount of frustration. (I probably still would have stuck with it, but the frustration had pushed me into a very ugly place)

Based on that, and on how my self published titles are doing, it would have taken the same amount of time for me to hear back from Tor-Forge on my first novel as it will take for me to build a strong enough audience to release that first novel. Two to three years. And it will probably take the same amount of time (ten to twelve years) for me to hit "livable wage" as it would have taken to hear from all of the big six.

I'm not saying other people ought to take the same path or that Self Publishing is THE way to go, but I am saying that from where I was last year, and from where I sit now, moving from a goal in trade to a goal in self publishing was a lateral move, and moving back to a goal in trade would be starting over from zero.

mercs said:

I'm sceptical too with success stories, and it's why I love reading blogs like Blenia's on the front page of people posting figures I can relate to for this field. i'm sure there are some that are making huge figures, but it's very uncommon...

on the whole publishing houses and agents are very astute and the idea that they have missed loads of people who can generate £10k per month is (not impossible) but a big leap. plenty gets through the net, but it is a widely cast net that they operate!

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What net? Publishing companies and agents wait for authors to come to them. And many authors have stopping going to the agents and publishers when they figure out they can make more money on their own.

christwriter said:

Isn't the average advance like $5,000 anyway?

One of the big things that tilted me over into the Self Publishing camp was the time factor in trade publishing. I think THE factor was googling response times for Tor and Daw and Baen after flunking out of the agent game and realizing that it would take two or three years to hear back from the first publisher,

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Two to three years just to hear back? Seriously? Are their slush plies THAT big?

Sure am enjoying this thread. Very interesting.

LOTLOF said:

Two to three years just to hear back? Seriously? Are their slush plies THAT big?

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I think we're hitting exaggeration territory again - definitely on that 10-12 years thing. Unless, of course, one is actually waiting to hear back from one before querying the next. Certainly doesn't match anything I've seen here or other writing forums.

LOTLOF said:

Two to three years just to hear back? Seriously? Are their slush plies THAT big?

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I checked their sites, they said six months to a year. And then I checked the publisher's threads on Bewares and Background Checks. Two or three years and "Be patient" was pretty much the consensus.

As of right now the reply times DO seem to be a little better (as in you'll hear back sometime next year maybe) but there's still a couple people reporting two year wait times.

Like I said, that was the big factor for me. I knew there was no way in hell I could do another two years. It was quite literally killing me. Entirely my fault for not being a good girl and getting on/staying on decent antidepressant meds, but the rejection cycle was contributing to an extraordinarily unhealthy mindset. Getting that depressed was scary, and it took me a long time to isolate rejection as the primary trigger. Nothing was in any way, shape or form related to books or agents or anything, but rejection letters were tripping an unrelated issue that I still haven't gotten under control. It was like discovering that you're allergic to your favorite fruit, and I was very sad.

And smaller publishers take much, much less time.

*points at her sig*

Depends on your genre, whether you want to go smaller pub or big Six, ebook or print... research, research, research!