Self-Publishing Success Stories (authors with more than 50,000 ebooks sold to date)

[Top100EbooksRank]

130 authors now that I have found.


any authors that I should look at (i.e. do a google search "author name books sold)?


Also, this site has the top 50 selling indies for the month of March 2012
http://ireaderreview.com/2012/04/05/...hors-to-watch/

Barbara Freethy
CJ Lyons (Estimated 114,109 sales)
Andrew E. Kaufman (53,984)
Marie Force (51,000)
Bella Andre (50,131)
J.R. Rain (Estimated 45,539)
Michele Scott
Scott Nicholson (Estimated 41,984)
T.R. Ragan (40,835)
Kathleen Brooks (Estimated 39,060)
Gemma Halliday
Tracey Garvis-Graves (Estimated 34,937)
J.A. Konrath (Estimated 33,509)
Darcie Chan

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click to read the rest.

[kennyc]

More information by genre here:

http://ireaderreview.com/2012/04/20/...hors-by-genre/

[kennyc]

Also I note that (our own) Mel Comley is on that list at #30! Go Mel!

[dogsballs]

very interesting thread, particularly the mention of seven figure sums

[Top100EbooksRank]

I have a feeling that Jackie Collins and Lawrence Block will be among the 50,000+ self-published ebooks sold list (in the near future).

http://jackiecollins.com/jackies-blo...-self-publish/
Jackie Collins: ON MY DECISION TO SELF-PUBLISH…


and Lawrence Block (author of many NYT bestsellers)
http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/2...anged-utterly/
All Changed, Changed Utterly...

I don’t know where all of this is going—which gives me something in common with everybody else in the world. The publishing landscape is changing almost daily.

But I know this: my default response, when someone asks how to get an agent, or how to find a publisher, or any writerly version of what-do-I-do-now, is to suggest publishing it oneself. That’s a course I never would have recommended to anyone, except perhaps the occasional dotard who’d penned a memoir he hoped his grandchildren would read. And now I’m urging it upon everyone—writers whose publishers have dropped them, writers who never had publishers in the first place, writers whose early books have gone out of print.

Will everyone have a good experience with self-publishing? No, of course not, nor will every book show a profit. But it has never been so easy for readers and writers to find one another, and for any book to find its proper audience.

[kennyc]

Good! The more mainstream(or genre) bestselling authors that move in this direction the sooner the traditional publishers will come round to getting on board or getting out of the way.

[morriss003]

What I would like to know is how many of my books have been downloaded since 2009. I can see the monthly totals and I can go back and see the last 12 months, but what is the total? I estimate it at over 50,000, but I never bothered to keep track in the early days. I sold about 5,000 before it became free.

[GA Russell]

Top 100, thanks for that Lawrence Block quote. I find it very encouraging.

[Top100EbooksRank]

on a sample of 1007 self-published authors

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...uthor-earnings

The average amount earned by DIY authors last year was just $10,000 (£6,375) – and half made less than $500.

500 made more than $500
500 made less than $500

The average (of this 1000+ authors) made $10,000 last year.

less than 10% of self-publishing authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue

About 10% (or 100 authors sampled) made $7.5 million total or $75,000 on average.

[kennyc]

Average would be fine by me.

[Lazybones]

From the article:

Romance authors earned 170% more than their peers, while authors in other genres fared much worse: science-fiction writers earned 38% of the $10,000 average, fantasy writers 32%, and literary fiction authors just 20% of the $10,000 average.

Seems I should start writing romances. I'm also well below the average (though comfortably above the median), but my royalties have risen significantly each year since I published my first book, and I'm quite content. I never really went into this with the idea that it would become an alternate career, and I suspect most self-published authors are in the same boat.

[VydorScope]

Well I have made more then $500 this year, so SWEEET, I am in the top 50% LOL

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Well I have made more then $500 this year, so SWEEET, I am in the top 50% LOL

You Go Man! You're way ahead of me.

[Top100EbooksRank]

the more the merrier

The "200,000+ self-published ebooks sold" club:

Barbara Freethy - over 2 million ebooks sold (April 2012)
Amanda Hocking - 1,500,000 ebooks sold (December 2011)
John Locke- more than 1,100,000 eBooks sold in five months
Gemma Halliday - over 1 million self-published ebooks sold (March 2012)
Michael Prescott - more than 800,000 self-published ebooks sold (Dec 2011)
J.A. Konrath - more than 800,000 ebooks sold (April 2012)
Bella Andre - more than 700,000 books sold (May 2012)
Darcie Chan - 641,000 ebooks sold (May 2012)
Chris Culver - over 550,000 (Dec 2011)
Heather Killough-Walden - over 500,000 books sold (Dec 2011)
Selena Kitt - "With half a million ebooks sold in 2011 alone"
Stephen Leather - close to 500,000 books sold (Nov 2011)
CJ Lyons - almost 500,000 ebooks sold (Dec 2011)
J.R. Rain - more than 400,000 books sold (Sept 2011)
Bob Mayer - 347 sold in Jan to over 400,000 total sold by year's end (Dec 2011)
Rick Murcer - over 400,000 ebooks in one year (May 2012)
Tracey Garvis-Graves - 280,480 sold in the two months of April and May 2012
Tina Folsom - over 300,000 books sold (October 2011)
J Carson Black - more than 300,000 books sold (November 2011)
Terri Reid - 300,000 sold (May 2012)
Marie Force - 300,000+ sold (June 2012)
B.V. Larson - over 250,000 books sold (Dec 2011)
Kerry Wilkinson - more than 250,000 books sold (Feb 2012)
T.R. Ragan - 239,592 books sold (March 2012)
H.P. Mallory - more than 200,000 ebooks sold (July 2011)
Scott Nicholson - Just guessing, I'd put my worldwide sales total between 200k-250k
David Dalglish - more than 200,000 (May 2012)
Antoinette Stockenberg - total sales stand at 216,686 (most from B&N) (June 2012)
Cheryl Bolen - 200,000 sold (June 2012)
Jennifer Ashley/Ashley Gardner - crossed the 200,000 sold mark in early June 2012




***Tracey Garvis-Graves - 280,480 sold in the two months of April and May 2012

recently signed a 7 figure 2 books deal with a New York publisher.

[Top100EbooksRank]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...YbW_story.html

A sexy, self-published romance novel that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies has been acquired by an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Atria Books announced Tuesday that it had signed up Jamie McGuire’s “Beautiful Disaster,” to be released immediately as an e-book. A paperback will follow in August.

I have a feeling that Terry Goodkind will join this list in the near future.

He has sold around 10,000 in his first 10 days (my estimate) of his $8.99 priced The Last Confessor