Self Publishing Earnings on Amazon

Posted on by LittleFears

Self Publishing Earnings on Amazon

I have been asked on social medias, how much I earn from my Little Fears presents series of books. My month to month earnings is not worth discussing as they had a total collapse over the last three months while I was trying to get my shiz together. The question is more aimed at how much I make per book sale.

When you publish on self-publish Kindle Direct Publishing, you get the options of how your book’s printed. Full-colour white paper, black and white cream paper and black and white on white paper. You can also choose the size and shape of the book. Unfortunately, because I have colour pictures I need to choose the most expensive options. In addition to that, the file size affects the cost of the digital edition.

My earnings and sales prices are:

Digital edition sale price; £4.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; £1.72

Print edition sale price; £12.
Royalty that I receive per sale; £1.91

That’s not that much compared to the price of the book, is it? That’s for around 100 pages, full colour, 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches.

Are you writing a novel?

I have dicked about with prices and uploaded novel style books a few hundred pages long. So, if you are a fiction writer and want to self-publish in standard black and white ink on cream paper, this next bit applies to you.

For a 200 page book with black and white ink on cream paper, my earnings would be:

Digital edition sale price; $0.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; $0.30

Digital edition sale price; $2.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; $2.09

Print edition sale price; $9.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; $2.12

I figure most of my readers are American, hence the dollar prices for the cream paper editions.

There are no costs involved in self-publishing that is not optional. I would advise getting an editor to read your work. If you cannot afford or do not want an editor, get at least five people to read your book looking for errors before you publish. Your eyes and mind can only pick up so many errors in your book. A fresh set of eyes with a different perspective helps. Also, run your book through Grammarly. Several times and always after every big edit.

image of little fears presents spiders book 3, a book of flash fiction and short stories

Find this post helpful? Shimmy on over to my Amazon authors page where you can buy all three of my books in digital or paperback, January, Capricorn and Spiders.

USA: https://goo.gl/r64kH4

UK: http://amzn.to/2wAgZPr

Want to support the Little Fears so we can continue telling you new daily groaners and horrors? Hit me up on Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/littlefears

Cheers

38 thoughts on “Self Publishing Earnings on Amazon”

  1. I’ve had problems with pricing as well. I have several short story and short story collections out on amazon. Most of them have sold a few copies right after release and then, nothing. I’ve made most of my ebooks 99cents and still no sales. The thing I keep reading is that you need to give away a lot of books to get readers interested and get the reviews you need to boost visibility and credibility.
    Try watching a few of Derek Murphy’s youtube videos about marketing. It gave me a perspective change.

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    1. Giving away books at the start might help. I’m generally OK for sales, but the last three months, life has given me repeated kickings. Haven’t had the time to market properly here or on social media. I find I can get them selling, as long as I devote a lot of time to it you know? Take your foot off the pedal, and it all stops.

      I’ll check out Dereks videos. Thanks for the suggestion man!

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      1. No problem. I’m just at the beginning of my marketing adventure. I’ve had self-pubbed short stories and anthologies on amazon for years, but my first small press pulished novel comes out next week. Time to learn the marketing ropes, quick.

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    1. Yeah, I’m the worst for putting mistake riddled fiction online. But it’s never good seeing in a book, especially when books cost £10+ now!

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    1. Much better now than it was a few years back. Pictures of my book should show what a pro-job they do of creating your books now. 4 years ago, it pretty much was hitting print on your PC haha!

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  8. Excellent. Real, useful information on the internet! I use Grammarly. Not that I agree with it all the time, but it forces you into a line by line edit of your material, and if that’s boring, think of your readers!

    Thanks!

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  9. I’ve been wondering about self publishing and reading posts here and there. Thank you for the numbers! I just started with the free version of Grammarly to get an idea of how it works. Looks like it’ll be worth the investment. I am very early in process of creative writing and hope to publish something eventually… Thanks again for this post.

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    1. I cannot recommend the premium version of Grammarly enough.

      It points out so much more, overuse of words, passive voice. It really forces you to examine your own writing you know?

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      2. Oh, OK, trick thing. If you sign up with a different email, go right up to payment page then close your browser. About 24 hours later you get an email offering you a half price subscription. Done this with 3 peoples accounts this year.

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    1. Ah, honestly, I was doing OK and making enough until June. Then I had one life event after another, everything work wise had to be put on hold. Blue skies ahead now, I just gotta work my way back to where I was 3 months ago, and I’ll be good again. 🙂

      Cheers!

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  15. Thanks for this post (and others), has given me the encouragement to actually go ahead with a little charity ebook project I’ve been mulling over. Just gotta get my head round how to format and include photos. Wish me luck! 😉

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    1. Ah, the formatting was the hardest bit for me! Originally the first book had full sized squares but the doubled the pages of the book and made it bonkers costly. A starting price for sale of $24 and that gave me $0 per sale. o.o

      Not sure if you managed to nobble my book when it was free, but happy to email you over a screenshot of how I laid mine out if it helpsy

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      1. I did indeed nobble your book, thankyou 😉 And I must’ve sourced my copyright info from the same place, it’s word for word, some were a bit lengthy. I’m only doing an ebook, so cost is negated thankfully. My biggest issue is the quality of photos are poor but essential to the ‘story’. I should get away with that with some poetic licence. Busy ‘enhancing’ the hell out of them right now 😉 I shall insert, upload and cross my fingers 😉

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