Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Self-Published Author

Hey there! I'm Mercy, a full time self published author. I'm also specifically a disabled, neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ author. All of these things affect my job as an author and writer, so I'm open to questions about being an author, writing, and how any of these affect that.

Who do you self publish with? Do you self publish with anyone?

Hi Mercy!!

If you're allowed to tell us... Roughly how much do you make per sale?

I am thinking that you mean with any particular self publishing platform. My apologies if not!

I publish my books directly to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Barnes and Noble press, eBook and Print. Then, I use Draft 2 Digital Publishing to publish the eBooks to all of the other eBook retail sites and library sales channels. All are free to use and publish books with.

Oh that's cool! When I was a kid I tried to self publish and my family kinda pushed a self publishing company on to me. In the end it was a scam so I was wondering if there were legit ones you were using or not Thank you for the info.

Another question thou, my grandpa did the Amazon publishing thing once his book is free to all Prime members. Does this feature effect your stories? Do you have a way around it?

Hi!! I'm definitely allowed to tell ya, one of the perks of being indie. I can tell you everything!



How much money I make per sale depends on four things: the length of the book, the price I've set, the publishing platform, and the format of the book.

The break down is on Amazon I get 70% of the cost of eBooks (after digital delivery fee), and I get 60% of the Print book cost after printing costs.

On B&N (and most other stores) I get 60% of the cost of eBooks (after digital delivery fee), and I get 55% of the Print book cost after printing cost.

(Note, that for Amazon if the eBook is priced less than $2.99, you only get 35% rather than 70%.)

I'll use Amazon and Barnes & Noble for my example here.

Book:

eBook - 176 pages - $3.99 sale price
what I get
amazon: $2.75
b&n: $2.37

Paperback - 231 pages - $12.99 sale price
what I get
amazon:$4.02
b&n: $3.14

If I were to publish say a 450 page book, I would need to adjust the price to a higher number in order to make the same amount. I usually only raise or lower my prices at a difference of $1 or $2 for eBook and $3-$5 for print books, in order to still make a few bucks per sale but not have my prices be seen as "too much." (even if we all know we need to be charging more.)

Amazon actually pays more than other platforms they have such a bad reputation I thought the payouts would be abysmal compared to their competitors!

I know right! The reality is Amazon pays the best if you're not part of their Kindle Unlimited program. When you're part of the KU program where people can pay monthly for KU and read as many books as they want, you get paid...basically nothing.

For example, the typical payout of KU which is done by "page reads" is $0.001 - $0.004 per page (which fluctuates every month). So that 176 page eBook would get me anywhere from $0.18 cents and $0.70 cents per read through depending on the month, if it was part of Kindle Unlimited.

KU works well for authors with a large audience, and a backlog of books, especially authors writing mainstream contemporary M/F romance and are likely to get enough page reads to make the low amount per page read irrelevant. I don't typically write in that genre and it was not a good option for me.

When you're part of Kindle Unlimited, you are contractually obligated to only publish your eBook on Amazon, no where else. This includes your book being on pirate sites, which is entirely out of your control. They will and have banned accounts and withheld royalties from authors who were unable to get their books removed from pirating sites.

Because of the incredibly low payout, the exclusivity, my audience not really being on KU, and the risk of my account getting zonked, I decided to "go wide" and publish my books to many retailers instead of being in KU and exclusive to Amazon.

Scam or vanity publishers are definitely something to look out for. No legitimate publisher will ask you to pay them to publish your book.

I've never had one of my books be a "prime pick" so to speak where they have your book free to all prime members via Prime Reading. When your book is read via Prime Reading you don't get any royalties at all. It's basically a good way to pull in new readers to a first book, or to a book temporarily. Usually it has a end date, or you can pull your book from Prime Reading if desired. It's definitely not ideal to have a book be part of Prime Reading indefinitely. So I'd check it out if you can!

Oh yeah I'll have to check, thank you. I thought it was a indefinite thing.

This has been a fascinating read! What kind of self-promotion do you do, if any?

Thanks so much! Self-promo or marketing is very important for all authors, but for self-published authors with a low-budget it can be difficult. I avoid spending money on ad space on social media, as you need a fairly large budget for that to be sustainable long term. Instead I focus on somewhat consistent posts of what I'm working on, my available books, and ways to support me, such as subscribing to my newsletter, leaving reviews or ratings for books already read, and following my Amazon and/or Goodreads author profiles.

The style of self-promo varies per platform. With TikTok I follow trending sounds and apply quotes of my books or scenarios in my books to those sounds -- and use a series of images, lip-sync the sound, or a video flipping through one of my physical books. With X/Twitter and Instagram or Threads, I typically create promo material via Canva with quotes, the cover, print mock-ups, and collages as well. But the images have to speak much louder on these platforms where as on TikTok the sound and choice of words or quote is what brings peoples attention. I'm on Tumblr as well, but still figuring out my strategy so to speak on there. Over all, my self-promo varies between very casual posts about what I'm working on, to more direct things that suggest xyz might be something you'd like to buy and read and why.

I have posts that get 10 views and 1 like, and 400 views and 50 likes, and very occasionally several thousand views and several hundred likes. It's gotten much more difficult to draw attention in the last year especially, with even people who follow me not seeing my posts in their feeds.

Along with the unfortunate truth that many sites have become unpleasant to be on, and so a good portion of my audience disappeared from social media over the last year or so. Some of them stay updated on my books via Goodreads or my newsletter, but there's others that will simply have no idea I've published anything else unless they go looking for it themselves. It also means there's less people to repost and share my posts and get it out to new people.

I do my best not to let the lack of reach get to me. It's hard to get people to sign up for my newsletter when no one is seeing the posts about signing up for my newsletter; but it doesn't stop me from sending out emails to my 9 subscribers and having a good time. 🤣

What are the titles of your books?

I have quite a few books under several pen names, and the majority of them are NSFW, so I'll avoid putting all the titles. However anyone 18+ is welcome to check out my Goodreads author page where they can see all of my books and check any that interest them out.

Can I ask - what portion of your income does writing make up? Has it been growing steadily? Or are there like bursts when you release something new?

In a short of a way as I can say it -- I currently make well below what someone can live on and the majority of my needs are provided by my care giver and the government. My income from writing goes entirely to publishing costs, taxes, and the occasional treat for myself.

With that context: writing makes up 100% of my technical income. It has definitely grown since 2021 when I first started, and I would say it feels steady year-by-year but not so much month by month. There is definitely a spike when I release something new as well as when a video or post just happens to catch more attention on social media.

I'm comfortable sharing yearly royalty numbers for the last 3 years if it's desired but I'll leave that out for now.

Hi, Mercy. I, for one, am curious to know the yearly royalty numbers only to see if it's something that I should someday maybe try to get into if I have the time to really get good at writing (as you sure are). Thanks for all this illuminating info about how it all works!

Hello! I will say that my numbers differ vastly from many other authors I know. I have friends who have been publishing longer but make less than me and friends who have been publishing only in the last year and make more than me. There are so many factors that determine how much money you make as an author, but a big one is just...luck. So, I wouldn't let my numbers or any numbers really, determine if you should write and publish books. You'll never know how much income you could make, until you do.

Nevertheless, here are the numbers (before taxes).

2021: $47.23
2022: $387.61
2023: $788.63

My goal has been to double my royalties every year and so far I've done that!

Have you ever self published any physical books?

Yes! About half of my books come in paperback and a couple also have hardcover versions.