Mark Terry

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

e-Publishing Royalty Trends - The Big Huh?

Today I received notice of my latest Amazon (US) royalties. It's for 2 months ago (that's how it works). Sometimes I'm in the mood to share numbers and sometimes I'm not. Today, I'm not.

But I am willing to discuss trends.

Because, you see, I've listened to Joe Konrath and Kristin Katherine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith and Blake Crouch and John Locke, etc., discuss how their e-book sales gathered momentum and took off.

Is this happening to me?

Well. Sort of. Yes. Okay, really, I think so.

Not to the extent that Joe et al. has. At least not yet. You'll know, because you'll hear about this lunatic in Michigan running screaming "Eureka!" through the streets of Oxford.

But I think it's sort of illustrative to note that in the first 6 months of 2012  (technically 7 months, I suppose) I have made 3 times the amount of money in royalties than I made in all of 2011.

Yes. Three times to-date. So it's possible that I will have made, by the end of 2012, oh, let's go with 5 times the amount of money on book royalties than I did in 2011. Or more. Or  less. It's hard to extrapolate.

Now, granted, I've also included royalties from some traditional publishers I've worked with, although those aren't big enough for me to get excited about. But... holy guacamole, Batman! Five times!???

I don't believe I can extrapolate that indefinitely, but I'd like to consider the possibility, if I continue to publish 3 or 4 more ebooks a year that I'll have the possibility of an additional increase like that. Or even more. And if that did, it wouldn't be too long before I could probably focus primarily on writing fiction.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Maybe I'm just a Yankee at heart, I had to have this be proven to me. But there does seem to be some validity to:

- write a lot
- publish a lot
- there's a snowball affect
- there's some value in occasionally having a book for free for a period of time, because it generates a lot of POTENTIAL book buyers/readers
- this is sorta fun

1 Comments:

Blogger Mary or Eric said...

I am a hard sell when it comes to self publishing ebooks or anything else. I've tried for so long to get a publisher, and not just a small publisher, but a big publisher. I hate to give that up. Seems like admitting defeat. But the more I hear, the more I have to wonder. So congratulations and keep bringing on the good news.

4:07 PM  

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