I don't know about you, but the one thing I've always wanted to know about e-books is how much do you make? No one ever really comes out and says, do they? Well today I will share with you what I know so far, which, unfortuantely, isn't much. We priced "Totally Cliche" at $.99 a copy. We published on Kindle and Smashwords so far. On Kindle we are making $.35 a copy. On Smashwords we are making $.56 a copy. Combining both sites, we have sold about 30 books and made about $10. No, we're not getting rich off this book, but we are learning so much and since you are part of the team, I want to make sure you know what we know.
Now, Smashwords also has what they call Premium Status for e-books that have been formatted correctly. What Premium Status means is that your book would go out in their catalogue to their e-book distributors and could be picked up by distributors like Nook, Sony Reader, iBooks, etc. Meaning, people could go to Nook.com, for example, and find your e-book. When your book sells on the site of an affiliate, your profit goes down a bit to pay the affiliate for distributing your book. I'm not sure how much yet, since our e-book has just barely reecieved Premium Status. But Smashwords would still be the one sending you your royalties.
Now, all my knowledge so far is based off of a $.99 price. The perrcentages change some based on the set price.
Have I completely confused you yet? If so, please leave a question in the comments and I will hope I know the answer! I hope this has helped clear up a little bit of the mystique for you, I know this experience has really been a wonderful confidence booster for me. I highly recommend it for any who are thinking about it. No, most of us will not be Amanda Hocking and make millions off of e-books, but what we do gain by putting our books out there is knowledge, experience, confidence, and more qualities that can't be given a price tag.
Another good place to see how much someone can make with ebooks is jakonrath.blogspot.com. J A Konrath is a pretty well-known author, who has gone.from traditionally published to independent, and is now combining his Indies books with a few that were picked up by amazon's publishing wing. He cant give stats.on what hes making through the book he has out through the amazon publisher, but he has posted stats quite a few times comparing paper sales, his sales via traditionally published ebooks, and his sales on independently published ebooks. For each, he gives the number sold and what he earned. He also talks about the effects of book tours, book signings, etc.
ReplyDeleteOne of the coolest things ive seen him do is that he runs experiments with his books. He will drop or raise the price temporarily, and see what that does to sales and earnings. At one.point, he even posted a copy of one book for free.on his.website, and asked everyone who reads his blog.to.post the file to every file-sharing/piracy site they knew of, because he wanted to see how widespread availability on pirate sites would affect his sales, both for that book and for his other books.
He also frequently has guest posts and.interviews with other independent authors, and they always discuss what they've learner about pricing and earning with ebooks.
Just one warning: if you want to get signed by a traditional publisher, you may want to be cautious about browsing his site. He is.pretty blatant about his views regarding the intelligence.of anyone who still wants a traditional publishing contract.