Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's common sense. If you have 10 books that you make $5000 a year each from, that's an income of $50,000. Price your book at $5 at Amazon, and you'll get $3.50 a sale, so to make $5000 you need to sell about 1400 copies. That's certainly not bestseller territory.
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I maintain that at least the first in that 10 must have reached much higher numbers in order to sell 1400 in subsequent (or other) titles. Without at least one big book, you don't have the visibility to sell those kinds of numbers on 9 other titles. And few authors have 10 books in a series that all sell that many. Even trad books sell the MOST in a first is series with 30 to 40 percent sell through on subsequent books considered VERY good (these are old trad figures that were published probably 10 years ago). I don't think the sell through has changed any--50 percent sell through on subsequent titles was common 5 and 7 years ago with kindles, but that is partly because Kindles were new enough that people were still collecting titles. There are fewer readers doing that now.
And even at 50k a year when you are self-employed, is not a high-on-the-hog a living because 15 percent comes off the top for social security in the US. That's BEFORE Federal or state taxes, which is going to eat another 15 to 25 percent. If there are 10 titles, the author is probably producing books. Expenses to get ONE book out per year is going to run about 1000 per book AT LEAST. Some authors spend even more. This doesn't count ad expenses if the author is actively advertising those other books. It doesn't count the two or three thousand required to get a book in audio and if you sell that many per year, an author has to be considering audio.
I work with several authors and a few have 10 titles (including myself). Selling 1400 of a first in series isn't impossible--but the price may vary from 99 cents to 2.99 or even require a couple of free runs that don't count towards the 1400 sales. If you have to take out ads to sell that amount, the "earned" money doesn't count because it's spent on ads. Then too, getting those other 9 titles to sell 1400--or ALL first is series to sell 1400 is a LOT trickier. You really need a LOT more than 1400 of a first series to have enough fans to try your other series and to continue to read the series that IS doing well.
It's also very difficult to sustain. Amazon's algos now take into account publication date--they don't show older titles as often and they don't show titles that don't have recent reviews as often. So an author has to constantly work to keep the momentum going. Fifty thousand one year is no guarantee of 50k the next. Authors have to plan ahead even if they have that kind of income.