Indie Earnings
Preliminary Indie Earnings Report
Okay, I’ve finally got some numbers to report! They won’t be laid out as neatly as my regular Show Me the Money survey, I’m afraid, and I’ll confess upfront that if I’d realized just what a slippery beast I’d be wrestling here, I probably would never have taken on this task. But since I did, here’s my promised report, which I hope will become more useful as time passes. At this moment:
I have data on a total of 82 titles at the moment: 33 backlist/reprint titles and 49 original titles (meaning they’ve only ever been self e-published). The average amount of time a title has been available as an e-book: 7.7 months for backlist, 6 months for original titles. (The longest was 16 months, the shortest 1 month.) This obviously means this survey is in its infancy and that these are VERY preliminary numbers! Please keep that in mind as you look at the rest of this, and emphasize it when you talk about it to others.
The average price people are charging for their e-books (non-discounted) is $2.93 for backlist, $3.02 for original. (Let’s just call it “about $3.”) As for discounting, 28% of original titles reported have been discounted, anywhere from a dollar off to free, for periods ranging from a few days to a few months. For backlist, 18% of titles have been discounted at some point.
Now, what everyone’s really interested in: actual earnings.
For backlist, the average total amount earned over a book’s e-lifetime to date is $7,915. The median earned is $4,134. (Keep in mind the average length of time these books have been available is only 7.7 months!)
For original works, available an average of 6 months, total earnings to date average $12,548 with a median of $5,150.
These earnings per title range from just a few dollars to a current maximum of nearly $140,000. (Obviously, these figures are changing daily as more books sell. I emphasize again that this is merely a snapshot, taken very early in the game!) These earnings are across ALL channels, to include Amazon Kindle, B&N, Smashwords (including all channels supplied by Smashwords) and other, lesser-known (so far) vendors. I had hoped to break earnings down by vendor, but while Amazon is clearly the top seller for most (not all!) authors, the figures weren’t complete enough to allow me to do that. Many respondents only listed a total figure and quite a few others only gave me total earnings for all of their titles combined, forcing me to average their figures. A few respondents made a point of telling me that the majority of their sales came from an unexpected source (Apple in one or two cases, AllRomance eBooks in another), and for a handful of authors, B&N sales far surpassed Amazon earnings. No one was able to speculate on reasons, however, and I won’t even attempt to do so.
In case you’re curious, only 11 out of 49 original titles were put up by previously published authors, and earnings don’t appear to be significantly better (or worse) based on prior traditional publication. In fact, the single highest-earning title reported to me was an indie original by a previously unpublished writer with no other books available to date.
I had also hoped to group earnings by genre, and still hope that I’ll be able to do that in the future, but for now, the titles are spread across too many genres to make that doable (or useful). Genres respresented (backlist and original) include Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Romantic Suspense, Mystery (of various types, including Historical), Young Adult (again, various types), Thriller, Women’s Fiction, Erotica, Romantic Comedy and Paranormal Romance of various types. I’ve put all the info I was given on my spreadsheet in hopes that eventually I will have enough data to break things down further, making this survey more useful.
Feel free to post questions about this survey on my “Money Talk” page and I’ll do my best to answer (without compromising respondents’ anonymity, of course). And keep sending me data! (see below) I hope to update this survey periodically just as I do the other one, making it more and more representative and useful as time goes on.
I plan to continue to collect data on independent publishing, since so many people have asked for this information. The more info people send, the more accurate this will be, of course, so spread the word to all of your indie published friends!
Here’s what I need for each title (email me at brendahb@aol.com. If you send an attachment, please make it .doc or .xls –my Word & Excel are older versions.) NOTE: I’m getting quite a few responses where people claim they can’t possibly separate out their earnings by title. Amazon Kindle allows you to download nifty spreadsheets for each month that do this for you. Without that, my results won’t be nearly as accurate, I’m afraid.
For EACH TITLE, I need:
Whether it’s a backlist (reprint) or new/ original title
E-book release date:
Genre/subgenre:
Price (non-discounted):
Lowest discounted price/for how long:
Earnings to date: Kindle: B&N: total:
(feel free to break down further by vendor)
Total number of titles CURRENTLY available under this name (traditional & indie):
Previously print published under this name?
Number of months available:
Title acronym: (first letter of each word in title)
(I’m open to suggestions for more parameters, but I want to keep it simple for now, so more people will be willing to respond.)
As with my other survey, no names will be saved. Only averages will be reported, with NO identifying information. Thanks to all who participate!
