Quote:
Originally Posted by Josieb1
I know authors who actually publish with a small publisher who don't even make sales of 100 ebooks.
Needless to say they can't make a living off writing and couldn't afford the initial outlay to self pub.
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This is very true. I have done editing for at least two of such authors (many also self-pub and in the case of the two I am thinking of they do both small publisher and self). The one author sells more via self-pubbed on a per copy basis and the other bobbles back and forth. NEITHER is making a living from the books. The one author has been with a couple of different small publishers and mentioned one time that selling 20 copies the first month a book was out was not at all unusual. It would then bounce around that 20 number for a few months before tapering off. If the publisher took out an ad, the number would float back up for a month.
There often seems to be no rhyme or reason why a book will sell for a while and then not--bursts in sales are common. It can easily be a conversation that an author/publisher never sees. This is why I say it takes thousands of fans, not hundreds. Fans come and go. They switch genres. They switch authors. They have LIVES and often forget authors or stop reading for periods of time to do something else--this means they often stop spending on reading. They aren't always online. They don't all frequent book signings.
We authors are in constant need of new readers and ways to keep earlier readers engaged and interested enough to sign up for a newsletter or at least interested enough to check back every few months.