Self-Publishing Statistics

I really found this reassuring.

Boy that sounded like a plug. Too bad the source is not free and independent, but a book for marketing. I guess this article is a plug then...

The statistics are taken from the survey Taleist published recently. I've not read the full survey as one has to buy it, but I'd prefer to go directly to their site: I'm concerned that some of the conclusions shown in that post can only be reached with a bit of stretching.

(I've only skimmed it, so I could be wrong: but reading a primary source is almost always better than reading an interpretation.)

I'm curious to know what dollar amount qualifies someone as a "top earner"...

I've read the book based on the survey and "top earner" is any one on the survey that answered Yes to a question indicating whether you do, or could if you wanted, to live off your writing income.

As another poster said, "how you analyze the data" is where things get tricky as everyone sees something different, and Taleist won't release their "raw data" just the conclusions.

There is another survey going on for "all authors" (even unpublished ones) and that data will be made available to anyone who wants it.

Currently it has around 600 participants and they want to get to the size of Taleist so that means at least another 400 - so if you are a writer.....

I did that survey and ticked the 'I could live on my earnings' box. It feels a bit weird to be described as a 'top earner' though!

I'd never heard of the site involved before I did the survey - I heard about the whole thing from someone I follow on Twitter and decided to take part as I was in a 'taking stock' of how I was doing frame of mind anyway.

I should probably take a proper look at the results actually - all I've seen so far are other people's interpretations of them...

MmeGuillotine said:

I did that survey and ticked the 'I could live on my earnings' box. It feels a bit weird to be described as a 'top earner' though!

I'd never heard of the site involved before I did the survey - I heard about the whole thing from someone I follow on Twitter and decided to take part as I was in a 'taking stock' of how I was doing frame of mind anyway.

I should probably take a proper look at the results actually - all I've seen so far are other people's interpretations of them...

Click to expand...

Well congratulations for being in the "top earners." Please consider also taking the survey I linked to as this data is going to be "available" whereas the raw data for the survey you took is not being released.

I'll give it a try now.

Interesting survey although I found the emphasis on full length novels odd, especially since it wasn't defined IE via word count. Some consider novels start at 50k while others it's 70 or 80. I did fill it out though so I'll be interested in reading the result.