# They're missing the picture...



## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

The true game changer isn't that self published books are now widely available and read, (so much so that they're dominating the best seller lists,) but like Hugh Howey asked for in another thread: all the authors who may never reach those lists yet are making a full time or part time living that most with-publishing-houses-authors' would give their pinky finger for.

If you have twenty books out, each selling only 5.41 copies a month at 2.99 each of which you make $2.00 each.

$4,333.33 a month
each book would need to generate $216.67 a month

108 sold a month which is *3.6 books a day, of each book*.

This is the big news. No-one-ever-heard-of authors, possibly writing under different pen names, can make a living with 20 books out selling 3.6 average across all titles.


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## Will C. Brown (Sep 24, 2013)

It blows my mind every time someone breaks it down like this.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> The true game changer isn't that self published books are now widely available and read, (so much so that they're dominating the best seller lists,) but like Hugh Howey asked for in another thread: all the authors who may never reach those lists yet are making a full time or part time living that most with-publishing-houses-authors' would give their pinky finger for.
> 
> If you have twenty books out, each selling only 5.41 copies a month at 2.99 each of which you make $2.00 each.
> 
> ...


I seem to recall DWS noting this a couple years ago, in one of his many math blog posts. He used 5 copies per book across all channels as a bottom end estimate, and a lot of people thought that was ridiculous. Lots of titles + good price + 5 copies a month ADDS UP. If each title is a faucet and each faucet is dripping a tiny bit of water, add enough faucets to your house and eventually you'll have a trickle, then a stream, then a flood.

Even if you're a total nobody selling 5 copies of each book a month. I'm loving this idea. For those of us who don't give a crap about chasing rankings or superstardom, it's joyous to think of the possibilities.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'd love to know how many people are successfully doing this right now. How many have 20 titles that sell 3-4 a day consistently?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Will C. Brown said:


> It blows my mind every time someone breaks it down like this.


With all the negative responses from industry rags to Hugh's huge news, I wanted to point out that the industry can try and marginalize "well that's just a small percentage of books at the top" well yeah, duh, but so many mid list authors write very good books, and have quantity going for them, along with dedicated readers.

You don't have to constantly be writing new, because of word of mouth, you will get a certain % of new readers every month.

If you gain 5 new readers a day, you can get to the point where the 52k can be sustainable, with a few new releases a year.

Yet these authors are changing their lives, making a living doing what they love. This is the part of the picture they are hiding under the rug, the implications for the smaller sets of sales and how they are adding up.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

I've always been a grinder. Only 1 of my 13 books ever made it to the Amazon top 100, most barely touch 400 upon release and don't stay there long.

Shrug. No one said this was going to be easy.

What can I say... I'm just a Nobody.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> The true game changer isn't that self published books are now widely available and read, (so much so that they're dominating the best seller lists,) but like Hugh Howey asked for in another thread: all the authors who may never reach those lists yet are making a full time or part time living that most with-publishing-houses-authors' would give their pinky finger for.
> 
> If you have twenty books out, each selling only 5.41 copies a month at 2.99 each of which you make $2.00 each.
> 
> ...


Exactly!!! This is one of the biggest things I discovered by watching people in this forum. Its all about the number of widgets you have moving around out there.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

No matter how much you scream at people who don't want to hear the message, they will not listen.

Anyway, why should it be any skin off our nose?


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## Elizabeth Jones (Feb 6, 2014)

JimJohnson said:


> I seem to recall DWS noting this a couple years ago, in one of his many math blog posts. He used 5 copies per book across all channels as a bottom end estimate, and a lot of people thought that was ridiculous. Lots of titles + good price + 5 copies a month ADDS UP. If each title is a faucet and each faucet is dripping a tiny bit of water, add enough faucets to your house and eventually you'll have a trickle, then a stream, then a flood.
> 
> Even if you're a total nobody selling 5 copies of each book a month. I'm loving this idea. For those of us who don't give a crap about chasing rankings or superstardom, it's joyous to think of the possibilities.


^This. It's so freeing! The possibilities are endless.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> No matter how much you scream at people who don't want to hear the message, they will not listen.
> 
> Anyway, why should it be any skin off our nose?


Good point, actually. There is so much shouting going on about this. Who is trying to convince whom of what?
None of this really affects the reader. We know that most don't care about publishers. 
What we should worry about is holding up our end to assure that they get good quality so that the indie name doesn't get tainted in that area.

As for who publishes what, who cares? If authors refuse to go indie because they fear some sort of stigma or because they want the prestige of being published by the Big 5, then why try to convince them? We've got enough competition amongst ourselves.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I've always been a grinder. Only 1 of my 13 books ever made it to the Amazon top 100, most barely touch 400 upon release and don't stay there long.
> 
> Shrug. No one said this was going to be easy.
> 
> What can I say... I'm just a Nobody.


Lol, outlier Joe... my new pen name, Mrs. Nobody. Think it will work?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

JimJohnson said:


> I seem to recall DWS noting this a couple years ago, in one of his many math blog posts. He used 5 copies per book across all channels as a bottom end estimate, and a lot of people thought that was ridiculous. Lots of titles + good price + 5 copies a month ADDS UP. If each title is a faucet and each faucet is dripping a tiny bit of water, add enough faucets to your house and eventually you'll have a trickle, then a stream, then a flood.
> 
> Even if you're a total nobody selling 5 copies of each book a month. I'm loving this idea. For those of us who don't give a crap about chasing rankings or superstardom, it's joyous to think of the possibilities.


Exactly.  
I just want newbies who might read all the negative responses in the in rags (like Publisher's Lunch), or from industry people they had previously looked up to, who might now be thinking, _I could never be in the top 7,000 books so what's the point? _ *to not be discouraged.* 
I think everyone here can imagine or aim for selling two to four books a day and getting twenty of them out there, so maybe that's a more reasonable goal. You can achieve your dream without having what most people would think of as a "successful" book career. Flying successfully below the radar is possible. Yes, it's work, so what?


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## minxmalone (Oct 28, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> This is the big news. No-one-ever-heard-of authors, possibly writing under different pen names, can make a living with 20 books out selling 3.6 average across all titles.


This is the most amazing thing to happen to writers in forever. That you don't have to be chosen to be able to make a living. I've never felt luckier than to be here writing in the midst of this change. Because if it had happened *just a little bit later*, I'd have sold the rights to my series and be screwed. I still get chills sometimes thinking "what if you'd sold these books?"

I'd still be working my day job and spending 10+ hours per week in the car commuting back and forth.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Drew Gideon said:


> Keep in mind that "book" doesn't have to mean a 120,000 word epic saga, either.
> Perhaps "product" would be a better word. Anything from a short story to the next War & Peace can sell for $2.99.
> Holly has over twenty "books" out that are only 20k words each, all selling for $2.99.


True. And your *book-like products* don't have to be just on Amazon. Maybe you are only selling one each a day on Amazon, one in the Apple store, one a day in the Nook store, one in Kobo, one on Google Play, and one in all romance. Gee, you're not going to look very succesful to most people, but the ETFs into your bank account look like real money, and seems to spend the same way...


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Monique said:


> I'd love to know how many people are successfully doing this right now. How many have 20 titles that sell 3-4 a day consistently?


Genre influences this as well.

Even though my erotica writing career has tanked... mostly due to my laziness.. my guess it there's a truckload of e-romance and erotica authors doing exactly that. Which is one reason we see so many posts from those genre writers, stating how well they are doing.

I can say from experience that if you pick a popular genre, write reasonably well, and put out a good product, selling a few copies a day isn't inconceivable. If you add a large catalog of 20 or more books.. then ka-ching things can get interesting. Erotica writers used to call this "the dirty thirty". The theory being that having out about 30+ short to novella length works was almost guaranteed to turn into a noticeably reliable income. Things have changed and that's not as true as it was before. But that doesn't mean there aren't authors out there, who are not still doing this... it's just a little harder now-a-days.

I would add.. a hot genre doesn't have to be erotica or romance. It can be any type of work that big publishing overlooks... if they can't be bothered to fill niche.. one of us can.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Monique said:


> I'd love to know how many people are successfully doing this right now. How many have 20 titles that sell 3-4 a day consistently?


Or 3-4 titles that sell 20 copies a day consistently? My two have sold 1737 copies since 1/1/14 as of last night, or 38.6 copies per day combined. It hasn't replaced my income from my day job, but it's getting there. Third will launch in March, fourth in June and then Independence Day will have a whole new meaning.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Vicky Foxx said:


> Even though my erotica writing career has tanked... mostly due to my laziness.. my guess it there's a truckload of e-romance and erotica authors doing exactly that. Which is one reason we see so many posts from those genre writers, stating how well they are doing.
> 
> Genre influences this as well. I can say from experience that if you pick a popular genre, write reasonably well, and put out a good product, selling a few copies a day isn't inconceivable. If you add a large catalog of 20 or more books.. then ka-ching things can get interesting. Erotica writers used to call this "the dirty thirty". The theory being that having out about 30+ short to novella length works was almost guaranteed to turn into a noticeably reliable income. Things have changed and that's not as true as it was before. But that doesn't mean there aren't authors out there, who are not still doing this... it's just a little harder now-a-days.


Si, I'm sure those genres have a much higher percentage of people successfully selling a few copies of a lot of product. Is there any noticeable shelf life for them or is it a set it and forget it? Do older titles decay without promotion?


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Monique said:


> Si, I'm sure those genres have a much higher percentage of people successfully selling a few copies of a lot of product. Is there any noticeable shelf life for them or is it a set it and forget it? Do older titles decay without promotion?


Like with any genre, you have to keep releasing. I'm making more than what they say the "average writer" makes, after six months writing in those genres. It's not pay off my student loans and go to Hawaii money, but enough to take my books to the next level.

I notice that complete serials sell better than incomplete works, and the older works have greater traction. People download free samples and then don't read them for a long time. Still, I think if I stopped releasing anything new, I'd see a decline.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

4 copies per book a day is actually pretty good IMO, rather than marginal/easy peasy.

I think it was Lilliana Hart who said that most of her money comes from a small percentage of her books. I find that to be the case with mine, too. Four copies a day for a book is 120/124 copies a month. For January on Amazon US, I had 16 that didn't reach that # for the month (a couple at .99, one at 7.99, one at 4.99 (it only sold 7 and is in the bundle that is the 7.99 price point) and the rest at 2.99). But I had 2 books at the 4.99 price point sell 560 and 653 copies; one at 6.99 point that sold 146; one at .99 that sold 836 (and another sell 275); 2.99 price included titles that sold 671, 674, 338, and 231 (plus a lot that came close to 100 copies). (And adding all platforms, my # that didn't reach 124 for the month was probably very small.) (Aside: I have a neglected pen name that managed to sell a whopping 27 on Amazon US among ELEVEN titles. (eek!) )

But, you never know which 2.99 title you write is going to be the one that sells in the 500s copies sold for months on end before finding a lower average or sell 7 a month. Which is a big reason on why I advocate high volume in titles released. You also never know which platform is going to be that month's (year's) money maker, so I also advocate being (direct) on as many platforms as possible.

I record my sales daily -- from 2d to end of month, I usually hit Amazon first to make sure the bottom hasn't fallen out of my world. But the first of the month I like to do an exercise that is similar to Lisa's OP. I input my smallest platform first. The cells are designed to give me my forecast for the month. And that STUNS ME every time. Four platforms that I track daily (Amazon, Apple, BN, Kobo) -- the smallest is usually around $20-30 a day (Kobo or B&N <--which used to be so much better - please, B&N, stop publicly stepping on your d*** and killing everyone's sales!). Let's say that is $20 on a 31-day month. My forecast column is $620 for the month! That is rent on a 3 bedroom apartment or house in a lot of the U.S. Heck, today's real estate market, that is a monthly mortgage in a lot of the U.S.! So across all platforms, you only need to make $20 a day (provided you have low creation costs, which is why I'm pro-DIY as much as your skill set allows). If you make $100 a day (e.g. a backlist of 25 that averages 2 copies a day, even if it's one book selling 20 copies a day and the rest cumulatively bringing in another 30).

Then I put in the next smallest platform's #s. Before I've recorded my third platform, I'm looking at an income that is above the poverty level.

It really is an awesome time to be a writer. These negative articles never realistically focus on how positive SP is for authors. That is where all the article writers' fail comes from.

[ETA - I write short! My 2.99s are mostly from 10k to mid 20k. My 4.99 titles are bundles of short serials. I've had ultra short pieces earn me $1 per word -- more than $5,000 and still climbing on literally a day's work!]


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Monique said:


> Si, I'm sure those genres have a much higher percentage of people successfully selling a few copies of a lot of product. Is there any noticeable shelf life for them or is it a set it and forget it? Do older titles decay without promotion?


We have as much job security as anyone in the publishing business, none. But authors who go with publishers can lose a contract, or not ever get signed to another because of low sales. We at least have the advantage that we can publish what we like as often as we like.

And frankly, if we build dedicated readers, they will buy as long as you publish and deliver the quality and genre they expect.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> We have as much job security as anyone in the publishing business, none. But authors who go with publishers can lose a contract, or not ever get signed to another because of low sales. We at least have the advantage that we can publish what we like as often as we like.
> 
> And frankly, if we build dedicated readers, they will buy as long as you publish and deliver the quality and genre they expect.


Well, yeah, but I wasn't talking about that stuff. I was just wondering how different genres behave, well, differently. And this model of many books selling a few does seem to be more likely to be successful in the e/erom world than others. Ymmv.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2014)

After leaving my small press publisher, my first SP book has sold 1100 copies it's first week. Granted it's part of a series, but still, I'm happy about it. As people find out it's been released, the numbers get better each day.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

While this is technically true, I think it's very rare to have a book that consistently sells three copies a day, because at that rate, you're in the #40,000-50,000 range where you don't have a lot of visibility. In my experience, you can get a book to consistently sell 10-15 copies a day (for a while, anyway), or you can get a book to consistently sell HUGE numbers of copies a day (again, for a while), but if it's not selling at least that much... then it's probably not selling much of anything. Maybe more like 3 a _month_. The ebook selling biz is kind of all or nothing, unfortunately.

However, I do think this strategy could work with hundreds of books. (I'll get there by the time I'm 43, maybe... In the meantime, I've got to do promos, same as most other people.)


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2014)

The trick is getting those 20 books to sell 5 copies a day.  I've got 28 and several titles get 0 sales a month.  Still, I'm pretty sure my power company is happy with the sales I do get.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Monique said:


> Well, yeah, but I wasn't talking about that stuff. I was just wondering how different genres behave, well, differently. And this model of many books selling a few does seem to be more likely to be successful in the e/erom world than others. Ymmv.


The purpose of this post was to point out to those who may not be selling or who are not selling huge amounts, to not be discouraged. That's it.

That small numbers can add up to a decent paycheck. We have at least six viable bookstores right now: Amazon and all its countries, Nook Press, Kobo, iTunes/iBooks, Google Play, All Romance, Drive Thru, Big Fish, Smashwords, etc... (oh, there might be more than six..)

This thread was not written to bring up the fact that some genres sell better than others, there already are tons of threads about that here on the WC.

I'm not worrying about what genre(s) authors' write in, and I'm not looking at numbers that are more than 1 a day at some platforms and zero at the rest, as long as it adds up to 3.6 (not 4) a day. That would give an author approximately 52K a year, US.

Of course, sales aren't steady, some books sell more than others. I'm looking at averages across a wide range of books in yearly increments.



valeriec80 said:


> While this is technically true, I think it's very rare to have a book that consistently sells three copies a day, because at that rate, you're in the #40,000-50,000 range where you don't have a lot of visibility. In my experience, you can get a book to consistently sell 10-15 copies a day (for a while, anyway), or you can get a book to consistently sell HUGE numbers of copies a day (again, for a while), but if it's not selling at least that much... then it's probably not selling much of anything. Maybe more like 3 a _month_. The ebook selling biz is kind of all or nothing, unfortunately.
> 
> However, I do think this strategy could work with hundreds of books. (I'll get there by the time I'm 43, maybe... In the meantime, I've got to do promos, same as most other people.)


As I stated earlier, this post is to give new self publishers hope. They do *not* have to sell huge quantities to make a living. You can be in the 40,000 - 50,000 range and still be in the top ten for your sub sub genre, so no, while this maybe true for you, it is not true for all.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Monique said:


> Well, yeah, but I wasn't talking about that stuff. I was just wondering how different genres behave, well, differently. And this model of many books selling a few does seem to be more likely to be successful in the e/erom world than others. Ymmv.


The various genre series the Self-publishing Podcast guys do are all over the place in rankings and sales, I think. Lots of titles, lots of series, not all of them with huge rankings (I think the Yesterday's Gone series is their big one).


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Monique said:


> I'd love to know how many people are successfully doing this right now. How many have 20 titles that sell 3-4 a day consistently?


That would be me, but I am not good at math. I think I am selling about 4 a day of 26 books. Like Mr. Nobody, I've never hit the top 100 except maybe once. No big NYT bestseller list, but Amazon knows me, which is all I need.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Christa Wick said:


> 4 copies per book a day is actually pretty good IMO, rather than marginal/easy peasy.
> 
> I think it was Lilliana Hart who said that most of her money comes from a small percentage of her books. I find that to be the case with mine, too. Four copies a day for a book is 120/124 copies a month. For January on Amazon US, I had 16 that didn't reach that # for the month (a couple at .99, one at 7.99, one at 4.99 (it only sold 7 and is in the bundle that is the 7.99 price point) and the rest at 2.99). But I had 2 books at the 4.99 price point sell 560 and 653 copies; one at 6.99 point that sold 146; one at .99 that sold 836 (and another sell 275); 2.99 price included titles that sold 671, 674, 338, and 231 (plus a lot that came close to 100 copies). (And adding all platforms, my # that didn't reach 124 for the month was probably very small.)


This reminded me of the 80-20 rule, aka the Pareto Principle, which holds that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle gets applied to all kinds of things. I'm a golf nut, and you often hear pro players stating that 80% of their winnings come from 20% of the tournaments they enter. In business, it's claimed that 80% of a company's sales come from 20% of its products. Since we are each individual businesses, I would not be surprised if the 80-20 rule also applies to us.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Mine generally sell about the same overall, once they're not new (or, of course, unless I'm doing a promotion), which is pretty interesting. (Other than the first one, the 99-cent one.) The rankings of the others tend to be pretty close to the same.

ETA: But my oldest 3 are only 18 months. It's probably a lot different after a few years have elapsed.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Like everyone, I can only speak for my own books, but mine do taper over time. My dog mystery, which is now over 4 years old, sold 300 in its best month (soon after release) and is now down to 30 a month. My bestselling romance, which sold more than 1,000 a month several times will be 4 years old in April and is now down to 100 a month.

Admittedly this is without any of the promotional stuff most of you guys do. I have a website and a blog and started a mailing list this past June, but that's about it. The dog mystery was supposed to be first in a series, but since the romances sold better, I never got around to writing a second one. The romances are all standalones except for the last one, which is a sequel, but there won't be a series. And I've only been putting out one book a year since the first year.

So perhaps the tapering wouldn't be as marked if I were in gear and either wrote more or promoted more. I'm trying to convince myself to do both this year and see. However, my situation is different than many of you since I only set out to earn needed supplemental retirement income, and my books have provided several times what I need every month since June 2010. I couldn't devote the energy and hours to this some people do even if I wanted to.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

_The purpose of this post was to point out to those who may not be selling or who are not selling huge amounts, to not be discouraged. That's it. 
_ *And that's good. I was having a side conversation about genres. Threads do that. They vere. You can't control them. LOL I'm not here to destroy your thread. Nor discourage anyone. I was curious about how genre plays a role. It clearly does. If that doesn't interest you, that's cool. Just ingore that part of the convo. I think discussing genre details in threads like this and Hugh's are imperative.*

_That small numbers can add up to a decent paycheck. We have at least six viable bookstores right now: Amazon and all its countries, Nook Press, Kobo, iTunes/iBooks, Google Play, All Romance, Drive Thru, Big Fish, Smashwords, etc... (oh, there might be more than six..)_ 
*I'm living proof of how spreading yourself out can lead to good things. *

_This thread was not written to bring up the fact that some genres sell better than others, there already are tons of threads about that here on the WC. 
_ *It's part of the picture though. Why pretend it isn't?*

_As I stated earlier, this post is to give new self publishers hope. They do *not* have to sell huge quantities to make a living. You can be in the 40,000 - 50,000 range and still be in the top ten for your sub sub genre, so no, while this maybe true for you, it is not true for all. _ 
*This is true, but candy coating stuff isn't helping anyone. People can and do have great success with this method. It's just not as easy as posting 20-30 random things and waiting for the ducats to roll in. I think we do a disservice to our fellow authors when we make sweeping generalizations about success or failure. The devil is in the details and it's better to know what those might be. How else can you plan to succeed?*


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Lol, outlier Joe... my new pen name, Mrs. Nobody. Think it will work?


(humming that old song) Nobody knowssss the trouble I've seen...


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Rosalind James said:


> Mine generally sell about the same overall, once they're not new (or, of course, unless I'm doing a promotion), which is pretty interesting. (Other than the first one, the 99-cent one.) The rankings of the others tend to be pretty close to the same.
> 
> ETA: But my oldest 3 are only 18 months. It's probably a lot different after a few years have elapsed.


The way ebooks are sold (the rise of Amazon and other ebook stores) is a fairly recent development, so its hard to say how books/authors will need to market/promote/write to keep readers discovering their ebooks months or years from now.

This is where building up a dedicated fan base that will tell their friends about your books comes in to play. No one knows yet which ebooks are growing slowly but organincally. No one know what sleepers are going to rise in a big way.

Remember the book Typee? No? That's the book that made Herman Melville temporarily famous during his life. Moby Dick came out next and tanked. He died broke. 
Moby Dick didn't make it big until 50 years after his death. And Typee?


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

What is Big Fish? I see Big Fish Games, but they don't have an ebook store that I can see.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2014)

Monique said:


> *This is true, but candy coating stuff isn't helping anyone. People can and do have great success with this method. It's just not as easy as posting 20-30 random things and waiting for the ducats to roll in. I think we do a disservice to our fellow authors when we make sweeping generalizations about success or failure. The devil is in the details and it's better to know what those might be. How else can you plan to succeed?*


*nods*

Cheerleading is all well and good. But what we need are more coaches. No team ever got to the Super Bowl on the strength of its cheerleading squad.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Lisa,

I can appreciate that you want to motive people, though I think you're giving them false hope when you suggest that the small numbers model works. It's so easy to slip into believing that selling 4 books a day is more "doable" than selling 20 books a day. But markets don't work that way. Valerie gives a good illustration of the reality you'll find in business:



valeriec80 said:


> While this is technically true, I think it's very rare to have a book that consistently sells three copies a day, because at that rate, you're in the #40,000-50,000 range where you don't have a lot of visibility. In my experience, you can get a book to consistently sell 10-15 copies a day (for a while, anyway), or you can get a book to consistently sell HUGE numbers of copies a day (again, for a while), but if it's not selling at least that much... then it's probably not selling much of anything. Maybe more like 3 a _month_. The ebook selling biz is kind of all or nothing, unfortunately.
> 
> However, I do think this strategy could work with hundreds of books. (I'll get there by the time I'm 43, maybe... In the meantime, I've got to do promos, same as most other people.)


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Drew Smith said:


> I don't know if we're some sort of outlier or what but we have several books that have averaged 3 to 4 sales a day for the last few months. I don't know how they sell so consistently since their rankings are always low -- maybe it's through keyword searches.
> 
> Anyway, they aren't ever going to be bestsellers but added together they definitely add to the income stream and help provide a good living. So I don't think it's false hope to say that it_ is _doable -- because we're doing it every month.


I'm not disputing what you're saying: I'd be downright nutty if I suggested that no one could sell 3-4 books a day over short periods of time. I'm talking long-term sales, returning consistent small numbers year over year. That just doesn't work. Everyone has a curve that goes up and down, fast or slow. Writers like Stephen King are on a high and long curve. He's into a range where each new book preserves or adds to his momentum. But the closer a writer gets to zero, the more unstable that curve becomes. Like an engine, you have to reach and maintain a certain RPM or you stall out. That's why you just can't count on small numbers the way you can on big ones.

Thanks for keeping your cool, by the way.


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## minxmalone (Oct 28, 2012)

Drew Smith said:


> I don't know if we're some sort of outlier or what but we have several books that have averaged 3 to 4 sales a day for the last few months. I don't know how they sell so consistently since their rankings are always low -- maybe it's through keyword searches.
> 
> Anyway, they aren't ever going to be bestsellers but added together they definitely add to the income stream and help provide a good living. So I don't think it's false hope to say that it_ is _doable -- because we're doing it every month.


I have an erotica pen name that I do no promotion for that sells a handful per day across all platforms (Amazon, Amazon UK, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks) for each of it's titles.

My theory is that once they've been out for a certain amount of time, you are getting sales solely from your Also-Boughts. I know it's not through promotion since I don't even acknowledge the name. I'm curious how this would hold up if I had more titles under the name.

By my calculations, if I had to survive off that pen name it would make sense to just focus on short stories and novellas at $2.99 with some 99c loss leaders thrown in there. I don't think anyone is saying it's a guarantee but I think it's a much safer bet that a lot of authors are having success with this slow-and-steady approach as opposed to having a huge bestseller.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Drew Smith said:


> I don't know if we're some sort of outlier or what but we have several books that have averaged 3 to 4 sales a day for the last few months. I don't know how they sell so consistently since their rankings are always low -- maybe it's through keyword searches.
> 
> Anyway, they aren't ever going to be bestsellers but added together they definitely add to the income stream and help provide a good living. So I don't think it's false hope to say that it_ is _doable -- because we're doing it every month.


This. It's being done.  By lots of Indies. Many who are doing it, don't want to come here and share because of the attitudes exhibited in this thread by Monique, Sithwitch, and WHDean; just because the pattern of your book sales isn't fitting into this model, only means: your books aren't. Plenty do though. Maybe it comes down to genre, or keywords, also boughts, word of mouth, rabid cult followings, or sub sub genres. But I know of several who are.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> *nods*
> 
> Cheerleading is all well and good. But what we need are more coaches. No team ever got to the Super Bowl on the strength of its cheerleading squad.


It's not cheerleading; it's happening to several indies. Just because it isn't happening to you, doesn't mean "it's not viable."


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Monique said:


> *This is true, but candy coating stuff isn't helping anyone. People can and do have great success with this method. It's just not as easy as posting 20-30 random things and waiting for the ducats to roll in. I think we do a disservice to our fellow authors when we make sweeping generalizations about success or failure. The devil is in the details and it's better to know what those might be. How else can you plan to succeed?*


 I know of several indies who are working this model quite successfully. It's not candy coated. Nobody said it was easy. Why would you assume that? Hope isn't a "sweeping generalization" and selling low numbers and still making five figure income is a reality.

The devil maybe in your details, but the data of an average of 3.6 books a day across 20 books still adds up to real money. Selling one of each book a day across several platforms happens everyday to lots of authors. I'm not sure why you think it doesn't.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> While this is technically true, I think it's very rare to have a book that consistently sells three copies a day, because at that rate, you're in the #40,000-50,000 range where you don't have a lot of visibility. In my experience, you can get a book to consistently sell 10-15 copies a day (for a while, anyway), or you can get a book to consistently sell HUGE numbers of copies a day (again, for a while), but if it's not selling at least that much... then it's probably not selling much of anything. Maybe more like 3 a _month_. The ebook selling biz is kind of all or nothing, unfortunately.


Yes, I think that's true. My experience is that there are several plateaus. I think most of us have experienced a leveling off period followed by a slide into the ooze. It's one of the reasons we promote. I would think that might be more complicated with lots of books, esp. lots of shorts, but I'm only speculating there.


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## GUTMAN (Dec 22, 2011)

I don't think Lisa was sugar coating anything.  There are many writers I KNOW OF who are living this model. But you know what? I doubt they'll come here and tell us about it, because the last time they did they were met with the same disbelief and challenges, from some of the same voices offering these same arguments again.

As some of our friends who have left this forum have said, "who needs it?"

Believe or don't believe.

Or try it for yourself.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Did anyone say it wasn't possible?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mad H said:


> I don't think Lisa was sugar coating anything. There are many writers I KNOW OF who are living this model. But you know what? I doubt they'll come here and tell us about it, because the last time they did they were met with the same disbelief and challenges, from some of the same voices offering these same again.
> 
> Believe or don't believe.
> 
> Or try it for yourself.


Exactly. I've heard from several too. I get emails from those that run across my IndieAuthorChat shows, Jason Matthew's shows that I've been on for the Hangout Network, and various podcasts I've done. While WC has lots of lurkers, some come out of the closet privately to those of us who seem open to talking about self publishing.

Again, the reason I posted this thread is because I know this is working. Not for all, but nothing applies to absolutely everyone. Either way, writing good fiction stories is work, which ever model your book sales are fitting in to.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Monique said:


> LOL I'm not here to destroy your sacred thread. Nor discourage anyone.[/b]
> 
> _As I stated earlier, this post is to give new self publishers hope. They do *not* have to sell huge quantities to make a living. You can be in the 40,000 - 50,000 range and still be in the top ten for your sub sub genre, so no, while this maybe true for you, it is not true for all. _
> *This is true, but candy coating stuff isn't helping anyone. People can and do have great success with this method. It's just not as easy as posting 20-30 random things and waiting for the ducats to roll in. I think we do a disservice to our fellow authors when we make sweeping generalizations about success or failure. The devil is in the details and it's better to know what those might be. How else can you plan to succeed?*





Monique said:


> Did anyone say it wasn't possible?


Insinuating that getting 1 sale a day on twenty books across 3.6 platforms, is "candy coating", or "posting random things waiting for the ducats to roll in" or suggesting that that is a "sweeping generalization of success", while ignoring that I said it takes quality works that fit what your dedicated readers expect, yes, I came to the conclusion that you pretty much are suggesting you think it's impossible.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Drew Smith said:


> I saw it as more implied that it wasn't possible than stated.


I don't think either of those people said or implied it can't be done, but rather that it's difficult to maintain over long periods of time. We're talking years. I think that's probably true. It's one way to approach selling and sales, and the small seller, heck even the midlist sellers are lost in most indie v trad debates. It's true that you don't have to sell oodles and kaboodles to be successful or make a living doing this. How and how much are matters for debate.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Drew Smith said:


> I stand corrected.
> 
> I do understand the concern over this as a long-term approach over a period of years. And I agree with those concerns if the author simply publishes 20 books over the first year or two then settles in to rest on his or her laurels expecting the money to continue flowing in over the following decade. I guess that I always figure that the author continues to produce quality works and put them out there. That way, when a really old book is no longer capable of maintaining the 3 to 4 books a day sales pace, there are newer books ready to assume its position.


Si, is possible. And keeping a fresh stream of new content is very important, I totally agree. Part of my concern with the strategy is based on the slip-sliding away of sales as books get into that one or two sales a day range. That's why I asked the initial question, as unwelcome as it was. Our greatest challenge is discoverability and the lower your rank the fewer opportunities and that makes it harder to maintain any sort of average.

It would be interesting to know if there are generalized selling plateaus or if we're all on our own hamster wheel.

We may not know the answers to any of the questions posed here for a few years.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

I guess I wasn't posting with new indies in mind, and thinking of giving them hope.

I was trying to give hope to the indies who've published eight books and often only sell about 20 copies a month, with ten of those being from one book, and two of their books not selling anything.

I wanted to say them: Hey, it's rare for every single book to sell a teensy bit a day consistently. It's much more likely to have one book selling a lot and the rest of your books languishing.

The advantage, if you have lots of books (and especially lots of different series), is that you have more books to promote, so that you can always have one series out there, pulling for you, being the thing that sells a lot and keeps you afloat.

However, I'm only speaking from my own experience here, so I could be wrong. There are at least two people who claim to have a title that sells between 1-4 copies a day consistently, so maybe it's more likely than I think. It may very well have to do with also-boughts. My also-boughts are almost always for other books that I wrote, which really does nothing to draw new people to me.

But for new indies, I guess I'd say to hope for the best and expect the worst--assuming that's even possible, lol.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Exactly.
> I just want newbies who might read all the negative responses in the in rags (like Publisher's Lunch), or from industry people they had previously looked up to, who might now be thinking, _I could never be in the top 7,000 books so what's the point? _ *to not be discouraged.*
> I think everyone here can imagine or aim for selling two to four books a day and getting twenty of them out there, so maybe that's a more reasonable goal. You can achieve your dream without having what most people would think of as a "successful" book career. Flying successfully below the radar is possible. Yes, it's work, so what?


Thank you for starting this thread, Lisa.

I don't want fame. I'd be perfectly happy being a Nobody with an audience and to make a living doing what I love.


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## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

RichardWolanski said:


> Thank you for starting this thread, Lisa.
> 
> I don't want fame. I'd be perfectly happy being a Nobody with an audience and to make a living doing what I love.


Amen and amen.

I like being anonymous and functioning in my own way, swimming in my own goldfish bowl. Lol


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Mike McIntyre said:


> This reminded me of the 80-20 rule, aka the Pareto Principle, which holds that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle gets applied to all kinds of things. I'm a golf nut, and you often hear pro players stating that 80% of their winnings come from 20% of the tournaments they enter. In business, it's claimed that 80% of a company's sales come from 20% of its products. Since we are each individual businesses, I would not be surprised if the 80-20 rule also applies to us.


I was going to see if I could figure percentages for Amazon -- but in looking at my compiled 2013 spreadsheet, I see I have April in twice and no December. : crestfallen :

I need to get an excel VBA how-to book. I don't imagine the time spent to learn how to automate would be lengthier than all the time I've spent for one year's data doing it by hand.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Oh, and again, what is Big Fish (other than a novel by that name and Big Fish Games, which does not appear to have an ebook store).


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Christa Wick said:


> Oh, and again, what is Big Fish (other than a novel by that name and Big Fish Games, which does not appear to have an ebook store).


I'm curious, too. I can't find anything and the name doesn't ring a bell. Maybe it was an autocorrect gone wrong or a nickname?


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## burke_KB (Jan 28, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Anecdotal as all the responses are here, but I was tracking 116 titles in January.
> 
> Every title sold at least 1 copy during the month, and we sold 10,000 copies of our best seller - so a pretty broad swath.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the real numbers and the genre information. Envelope math is nice, but real numbers are best. I'm curious if you've seen a change over titles that have been out for a couple years? I'm assuming it is a bell curve, but I haven't seen any real data. I doubt writers can kick out 20 titles and have predictable income forever. I'm guessing the best performers continue to release new works to juice their backlist.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Monique said:


> I'm curious, too. I can't find anything and the name doesn't ring a bell. Maybe it was an autocorrect gone wrong or a nickname?





Christa Wick said:


> Oh, and again, what is Big Fish (other than a novel by that name and Big Fish Games, which does not appear to have an ebook store).


Big Fish is a common idiom for "the big company/person/force" that has large influence in its area. For example, Apple and Android are the "big fish" in the cell phone OS market.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

VydorScope said:


> Big Fish is a common idiom for "the big company/person/force" that has large influence in its area. For example, Apple and Android are the "big fish" in the cell phone OS market.


True, but in this case Big Fish was used in a list of retailers.



LisaGraceBooks said:


> That small numbers can add up to a decent paycheck. We have at least six viable bookstores right now: Amazon and all its countries, Nook Press, Kobo, iTunes/iBooks, Google Play, All Romance, Drive Thru, *Big Fish*, Smashwords, etc... (oh, there might be more than six..)


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Monique said:


> True, but in this case Big Fish was used in a list of retailers.


Ops. Missed that. I blame my son who is supposed to be working on his math test and instead is bugging be about the tractor out the window.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

VydorScope said:


> Ops. Missed that. I blame my son who is supposed to be working on his math test and instead is bugging be about the tractor out the window.


LOL, no worries. Can I blame him for something later?


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Monique said:


> LOL, no worries. Can I blame him for something later?


Sure! He is an only child, so he is used to getting blamed.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> ....Hey, it's rare for every single book to sell a teensy bit a day consistently. It's much more likely to have one book selling a lot and the rest of your books languishing.
> 
> The advantage, if you have lots of books (and especially lots of different series), is that you have more books to promote, so that you can always have one series out there, pulling for you, being the thing that sells a lot and keeps you afloat.
> 
> However, I'm only speaking from my own experience here, so I could be wrong. There are at least two people who claim to have a title that sells between 1-4 copies a day consistently, so maybe it's more likely than I think. It may very well have to do with also-boughts....


I suspect it's keywords driving those 1-4 sales per day, perhaps along with also-boughts. I suspect that many of us have neglected to optimize our keywords. Let me see if I can find that keyword optimization thread...

Ah! http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,177897.0.html

I'm excited about this! I'm going to revamp my keywords on my next day off!


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

LBrent said:


> Amen and amen.
> 
> I like being anonymous and functioning in my own way, swimming in my own goldfish bowl. Lol


_Here! Here!_


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

I know of this one author who wrote a gay coming-out story in the seventies. For decades it was out of print. He never wrote (to my knowledge) another one. When self publishing came around the author put it on Amazon.
He sells about 25 copies a month. Of one book, written over forty years ago. Without any publicity or promotion at all.

This can't be just nostalgia of a few sexagenarian gays. New readers are buying this book.

And, by the way, nobody seems to think that quality (and I don't mean editing, formatting and cover) is a factor.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I think it was Monique who asked how many people are actually selling 3-4 a day of each title.

I only have 3 selling books, and I have to promote like crazy, but I'm getting close to that for the books in the series. I think I hit that number last month -- but Pixel of Ink picked me up, and as we all know, that's an uncontrollable factor. 

Something I've noticed, each time I release a book sales grow exponentially. Last year in January I had two titles in my series, and sold about 60 books total. This year I had three paid titles in the series and one freebie. I sold over 575 ebooks. (One of those was an anthology too--I sell it at $7.98 and sold 26 of it...considering I'm an unknown, it blows my mind that people actually took that risk).

Anyway, to those who are just starting out, I think the "exponential growth" factor has to be mentioned. 

...I think it would help a lot if my books weren't so cross genre and difficult to describe...but then again, my readers like that they don't fit any particular convention, and I've been steadily building a small but very loyal fanbase.


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## Scott Daniel (Feb 1, 2011)

With the way things work on Amazon, or the way they seem to work, new authors looking for sales would seem to be better off until they have three or four titles ready to publish and then release them one per month.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Drew Smith said:


> I think I see what you're saying. And I would be the first to say that we've only been at this for a year so we don't know what the long-term results are going to be when it's all said and done.
> 
> What I'm not seeing is why Stephen King's superior curve means that each new release adds to his momentum, but because our curve is so lowly (comparatively speaking) our new releases won't add to our momentum. We may only be working with a two-stroke lawn mower engine while Mr. King is revving a large-block V8, but adding fuel to each engine keeps them each running to the best of their potential doesn't it? What am I missing?


Since you're being civilized about it, I'll illustrate. Take two improbable sets of weekly sales figures for seven books for reference. Note that I've simplified a little to make the pattern clearer:

(a) 10,000, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 3.

(b) 10,000; 9,990; 8,999; 9,897; 8,006; 9,993; 9,885.

Both _a_ and_ b_ are anomalies at opposite ends of the spectrum. Both are possible under certain circumstances, but the trend won't last. Here's a more realistic big numbers seller pattern (note again, however, that I've made the numbers more uniform than they'll be in reality):

(c) 10,000; 4,000; 6,000; 400; 1,000; 3,000; 2,000.

You'll find an even more chaotic version of this pattern if you look at high-ranking writers. Even series will play out this way. Compare Stephen King's and Lee Child's books-compare anyone's rankings.

The small numbers mistake comes about in this way: People divide pattern _c_ by 1,000 and come to the conclusion that this pattern is realistic:

(d) 10, 4, 6, 0, 1, 3, 2.

But the inference is false because it doesn't take into account the magnitude between the numbers in pattern _c_. For example, the difference between 10,000 and 4,000 is 6,000; the difference between 10 and 4 is 6. Small numbers actually work out the way Phoenix and Valerie describe:

(e) 126, 0, 0, 1, 9, 0, 0.

This isn't "napkin math" either. You can confirm all this by looking at rankings on Amazon and listening to writers talk about small numbers sales here in the WC. Time and again people will something like, "Two of my ten books sell 20-30 copies a week, but the others barely move at all." They're describing the reality of small numbers.

Now, I'm not saying that pattern _d _doesn't happen ever. I'm saying it's not normal and that there has to be special conditions behind it. So the burden of proof lies on people claiming that _d_ is real when everything else says it's anomalous, temporary, or that it happens only under special conditions.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

This is a spreadsheet graph of my first novel's (released Dec 2011) Kindle ranking history on Amazon. The ranges are between 500's and 30,000.
The peeks correspond directly with new releases of the series (7th just released today). I've put out a new title every 4 months on average.
You can see that even during the months where I've not pumped out a new volume, it bottoms out in the 30,000 neighborhood. 
There have been zero promotional or marketing events for this specific book, but later volumes were pushed - a little.
It is, and always has been, priced the same since being published 26 months ago.
I'm not sure if/how this contributes specifically to this thread, but I thought I would throw it out there for the discussion.


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## Elizabeth Jones (Feb 6, 2014)

I, too, appreciate this thread, Lisa. Fame and fortune are nice, but so is doing what you love and making a living doing it. Whether I'm writing for someone else or myself, I'll still be writing. 

If I can make it to the middle of the list, however, I'll be perfectly happy with that. Thanks for sharing - I appreciate what each of you have to say.


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## Samantha Fury (Jan 20, 2011)

I like your numbers Lisa, and I agree. I have four books out right now, and I'm selling about two a day of most of them. I know as I get more and more out there that the revenue's will keep growing. It just takes time. Can it be done sure it can. Will we all be write our own Wool? Maybe, maybe not. But I figure I'm going to be writing books why not make some money while doing so. 

Samantha


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

The book selling business is a retail business, which is by its nature promotions intensive. No promotions, few or no sales. I see that with my titles, mirroring Phoenix's experience, albeit with a smaller sampling of 25 titles.

I'm also now seeing some decay in month two of no perma-free, so much as I kind of hate to keep giving away free books, I'm going to make one free soon to see whether the numbers on that series increase again. I'd expect so, but will promote it heavily once it's free, because that's just how the business works.

If there's a way to put out a bunch of books and then just lay back and think of England while the money rolls in, I haven't seen it.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> If there's a way to put out a bunch of books and then just lay back and think of England while the money rolls in, I haven't seen it.


Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> If there's a way to put out a bunch of books and then just lay back and think of England while the money rolls in, I haven't seen it.


I can see it working with useful nonfiction books on topics people are searching for, supported by excellent keywords. Unfortunately, most of us are not experts at a bunch of useful nonfiction topics (like Joe is).


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> ...I'm also now seeing some decay in month two of no perma-free, so much as I kind of hate to keep giving away free books, I'm going to make one free soon to see whether the numbers on that series increase again.


Back in November, when I was uploading changes on a title (adding NYT/USAT to the cover  wheee ) to Apple on itunes producer, I didn't realize that I also would be republishing the prices originally listed on the upload. I had since gone perma-free by editing the prices on the web interface. So I accidentally overwrote my perma-free to a .99 price. Despite new releases, I went from Apple months of 2500 on average to 1483 the first month of the overwrite and 1063 the second month of the overwrite. I realized about 2 weeks into the third month of the overwrite and fixed it and sales for Apple recovered that month at 1743. February, at only 28 days, while be around 1850 (not bad since I'm now several months out from the last new release).

I probably haven't sufficiently established myself to get away with eliminating perma-free (ETA: as my silly goof so clearly demonstrated). Also, my perma-frees are "first in serial" installments -- not novel-sized works. So less pain to give away free.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

There was an old joke that went around in the army:

"Let me tell you about the worse sex I every had... it was wonderful!"

When I think about book sales, I think of the worse month I every had... it was wonderful, at least from the perspective that Lisa is addressing.

I was in a release-lull and the person handling my marketing had been on extended leave. The perfect no-sales-for-Joe storm.

Now days, I often refer back to that month and use those numbers. We were off 60% from our average. 

If I take those numbers and expand on them, I need 22 books to retire. Which reminds me of another joke:

"Now days, I get Social Security sex - a little every month, but it's not enough to get by on."

I figure at 22 books, each selling 2-3 per day (the bad month referenced above was actually much more than that), is enough to get by on.

My math looks like this:

(22 x 2) x 30 =  1320 books per month.
1320 x $5.61 = $7405 per month. (my average royalty per book is $5.61 - all outlets, all media) 

That will keep me at bare-minimum levels of ammo for my gun-cane and cleaning supplies.
Even as an old(er) fart, I outta be able to string together a book once every couple of years or so, just to add to the fray.

How's that for a retirement plan?


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## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

Joe_Nobody said:


> How's that for a retirement plan?


I'm thinking along similar lines.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> How's that for a retirement plan?


I was thinking along those lines too! Although lately, I feel like, if things keep going the way they're going, I might be able to "retire" to only writing, in less time than I expected.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

My goal is to not need a job after I come off stay at home mom status.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Trinity Night said:


> My goal is to not need a job after I come off stay at home mom status.


My goal is to stay at home and just write everyday.


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## Elizabeth Jones (Feb 6, 2014)

Drew Smith said:


> I see your point. I suppose that this whole self-pub ball game is so new that none of us can say what will happen long term. It seems like everyone is agreeing that the sell-a-few-books-across-several-titles approach does work _in the short term_, but some have doubts as to how it will perform over the long term.
> 
> I'm not sure that's a big concern. We all agree (I think) that to make career out of this thing you have to keep writing and publishing new titles. That means by definition that you're always going to be in the "short term" period on some subset of your works. So even if the books you first published slip to only producing 4 or 5 sales each per month, it doesn't matter too much because you're in the short-term sweet-spot with your newer books.
> 
> Which should mean that this is in fact a model that new authors can use to make an ongoing decent income without ever having a breakout hit.


As a new author, this is exactly what I'm thinking of. After researching, the business model shows that writers must continue to write and release new books on a regular basis in order to make a sustainable living. If this is indeed true, I'll be over the moon. It's what I'm shooting for by releasing new books weekly and distributing to as many channel as possible (that make sense for my books). For the series I'm currently creating and publishing, it makes good sense. For future releases? Not so sure.

We're in the infancy stages and who knows where everyone will be a year from now, much less five years down the road? It's an exciting time and I'm glad I got the nerve to self publish. If nothing else, I can say that I did and I've sold a few books!


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## Chris P. O&#039;Grady (Oct 28, 2013)

Joe_Nobody said:


> How's that for a retirement plan?


LOVE IT!


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

1) Feed the Beast.
2) Feed him daily.
3) Feed him whenever you can.

The beast is in writing to self publish. 

A very wise fellow once told me that the difference between those that work their "A" off and those that don't are the lines that form around a person's face from worrying about how they would make it financially each week. 
How many times have we heard someone "out there" proclaim they can't do something because they are broke? It certainly can't be that they are broke from making a great income but simply because they refuse to manage their money as a tool.
Whether we make a lot of money from book sales or not, it is how you manage what you do take in as revenue that matters. We all should always remember that just because we might have had a great past month that it by no means will be a better month in the future for those profits.

It is one thing to be writing but add the marketing into it and BAM, you are in the retail business. A salesman or lady honing their craft looking for something new to try to do what? Sell More Books! Its a never ending cycle that will never ever let us slow down until one day, finally we find that we can't do it anymore because of age or health reasons.
It is that hope that gives each one of us the drive to continue to push ourselves each day to be doing something "inside our business."  We do this from our past experiences from working for others. Most of us come from backgrounds where we worked for another person.

A ton of money can be made from writing. In Books, it is finding that successful formula that works. In Freelancing, its finding the right clients to be working for that pay the best on that market. You will find those that can never find that "Secret" to make money in writing. No matter what anyone does, time is a best friend by their side. Whether its writing Ebooks or writing for others, nothing will happen without time invested.
It would be nice if all we had to do was write, publish and repeat. Everything that we touch with keyboard and ink made us rich, famous or both. Anyone can do anything if they invest the time and commit themselves to the task. Very few have taken self-publishing and without due time made any decent money.

This is a marathon and not a sprint. It takes a few years to build any type of business into something successful. Those that jump onboard that think in six months the gold will be there will wake up to realize that they will need more time to progress. They will find out about 'pain." Those long nights invested in writing to publish yet another book. The pain of having to market their wares.  Between time, pain and throwing in that "learning curve", most self-publishing writers will be looking at least at a three year window. There is no sugar coating to this. Unless you give it your very best, your chances are going to diminish greatly. Until you invest those "Three Key Parts," time, pain and the learning curve, it just never happens unless it was a lucky break.

You're going to need more than sales off of one or two books to make a living with this in the future. The handwriting is on the wall by the sheer number of new books being published monthly. Many people out in the world STILL have no idea that they can write, buy, sell or even read books online yet. As those numbers constantly continue to grow, many will still need more time, increased pain and continuing the learning curve with whatever new changes that markets like Amazon or the others incorporate.

BM

BM


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Talk about a coinky-dinky! I recently posted on my blog about this very subject - how to make a living selling 3 books per day: http://kevinhardman.blogspot.com/2014/01/making-living-selling-3-books-per-day.html

I don't think anyone's saying that it's easy, but it's certainly doable.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I can only dream about selling one book a day - just one book, not even one of each that I have published.


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

beccaprice said:


> I can only dream about selling one book a day - just one book, not even one of each that I have published.


Becca,

It's hard for me to read that message. I _know _how passionate you are about your books. I did get your book when you were doing a promo.

I think Book Master makes a good point. A lot of this will take time, and truthfully a dose of luck. Chances are as this self-publishing thing gets more well known more people are going to get into the business which also means more competition. It's not an easy road, however compared to being a neurosurgeon (the debt, ample years of schooling, and insane insurance) I'd rather take my chances with this. This business really simply requires you to put in the time, the marketing and the product.

That's it. There's very little start up costs compared to other businesses.

*For people who are writing serials*

How do you handle advertising?

The books I've already released are short novellas in a serial. However, the book that I'm releasing in March is a novel for many reasons but a smaller reason is because many of the advertising sites require the book to be a certain "length" for a feature.

So, does anyone have experience getting features with books less than 250 pages?


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

beccaprice said:


> I can only dream about selling one book a day - just one book, not even one of each that I have published.


Becca, I would say that it took me two years and eleven books published before this started happening to me.

It's now two years later than that, and I'm still _nowhere close_ to every single one of my books each selling one copy a day. Most of my books sell less than 10 copies a month, and some don't sell for months a time.

However, I'm still managing to make a living doing this, so I'm finding ways to make it work.

Of course, as you know, selling children's books is a whole 'nother ball game in general. I wish you the best of luck. Try not to get too discouraged, and remember to have fun.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Assuming a pareto distribution, 20% of title do the heavy lifting of sales. Well then, all you need to do is publish 100 titles


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> So, does anyone have experience getting features with books less than 250 pages?


Actually, BookBub's cut off for advertising is 150 pages in length. From their site:


> Novels should be at least 150 pages in length, works of nonfiction at least 100 pages, and children's picture books at least 32 pages. We currently do not feature novellas or short stories.


Is that the length of your novella?


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

Sorry, that's a typo I meant 150 pages. 

No, my novellas range 50 to 60~ pages. 

I'm just interested in knowing the advertising experience of writers with shorter works.


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