As David Kudler says there are lots of online resources for people hoping to publish their own books and he recommends The Independent Book Publishers Association — it’s got both information and trade resources that he has found invaluable over the years.
David Kudler goes on to say;
"If you’re talking median — the amount that 50 percent of self-published authors can expect to earn — it was in 2013 around $5,000 per year or less, according to a report in Digital Book World (Self-Publishing Debate: A Social Scientist Separates Fact from Fiction).
If you mean the mean — the average amount that every self-published author made — it was much higher, because a small percentage of authors earned a lot more than that $5,000/year number.
Self-publishing isn’t a get-rich scheme for anyone. Book publishing — whether you’re doing it by yourself, through a small independent publishing company or through a Big Five publishing conglomerate — requires an enormous amount of work before, during, and after publication to pay off.
A truism that I’ve heard quoted a lot — though I haven’t seen any documentation — is that over 90 percent of books sell a hundred copies or fewer. There are lots of reasons for this: many of the books have a narrow audience (a particular family, business or class) and weren’t necessarily meant for a wide adience; in many cases, the market just isn’t there (the interest is too narrow, the quality is too low, etc.); and in a great many cases, the author and/or publisher didn’t market the book adequately. Publishing a book isn’t just about the writing — there’s a huge amount of work involved in simply making sure that folks know that your book exists, let alone presenting it in such a way that someone wants to buy it."
Follow David Kudler if you would like to read more of his experiences in publishing on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dkudlerAn article by Alison Flood published in The Guardian last January 2014, revealed that most writers earn less than £600 according to a survey. She goes on to say "More than 9,000 writers, from aspiring authors to seasoned pros, took part in the2014 Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Author Survey, presented at the Digital Book World conference. The survey divided the 9,210 respondents into four camps: aspiring, self-published only, traditionally-published only, and hybrid (both self-published and traditionally-published). More than 65% of those who filled out the survey described themselves as aspiring authors, with 18% self-published, 8% traditionally-published and 6% saying they were pursuing hybrid careers.
Just over 77% of self-published writers make $1,000 or less a year, according to the survey, with a startlingly high 53.9% of traditionally-published authors, and 43.6% of hybrid authors, reporting their earnings are below the same threshold. A tiny proportion – 0.7% of self-published writers, 1.3% of traditionally-published, and 5.7% of hybrid writers – reported making more than $100,000 a year from their writing. The profile of the typical author in the sample was "a commercial fiction writer who might also write non-fiction and who had a project in the works that might soon be ready to publish", according to the report.
Fortunately only a minority of respondents listed making money as "extremely important" – around 20% of self-published writers, and about a quarter of traditionally-published authors. But authors' top priority was not divorced from commercial concerns, with around 56% of self-pubbers, and almost 60% of traditional authors, judging it "extremely important" to "publish a book that people will buy".
It's just as well we write for pleasure before profit!We meet every Monday of each month at 7.15pm in the meeting room at the back of Winton House Centre. The entrance is just down the footpath next to the building and through the garden gate.
Some of our both published and unpublished writers at a recent Harting Festivities
We try to keep the numbers to around ten/session so that everyone gets a chance to share.
Contact:
Secretary and Vice Chairman Jim Morley
email jim@fircot.fsnet.co.uk
