Making Money - How an Author Does It and How YOU Can Help - Monday Musings - Monday, April 16, 2018

 Making Money - How An Author Does It and How YOU Can Help - Monday Musings

There's a common misconception that authors make a good chunk of change selling their novels. That assumption couldn't be further from the truth. Most authors have day jobs, and for good reason. It's very hard to be financially successful as an author

I'm going to give you a financial example from my newest release, Chase for Love. The financial and royalty specifications for my newest book are a pretty close average for most authors, especially self-published ones. So get ready for a glimpse into how an author actually makes money on their books.

So far (in the week it's been available), I have one print book order for Chase for Love. Most of the sales so far have been through eBook sales. Let me crunch the numbers for you:

A Chase for Love print copy retails for $10.99

After manufacturing costs, Amazon and CreateSpace take their cut, and I get the rest. Every print copy I sell of Chase for Love, I make $2.60. I make less than $3 for a print book that sells for $11.

A Chase for Love eBook copy retails for $4.99

Kindle and Amazon take their cut and I’m left with a payment of $3.43 for every eBook copy sold. I make just under $3.50 for an eBook that costs $5

If I’m selling print copies at a book signing or in person, I pay $3.99 for a direct-from-printer copy with a $3.59 shipping charge (For one book, mind you. Shipping costs go up significantly for each additional book I order). If I sell my books in person for $10 (I always lower the price for in-person sales), I make $2.42 for each in-person sale. 

Royalties the author receives depends on the length of the book (bigger the book, higher the manufacturing cost, less revenue for the author) but most authors receive 50-70% of their book’s cost AFTER paying the companies and publishers. I get 70% for both versions of my book and the above revenues are all I make from each sale. 

Another thing authors have to deal with is what print companies, like Createspace, set as minimum purchase price. They calculate pages, manufacturing costs, everyone that gets a piece of the pie, and tells you, before you publish, what your absolute minimum price must be. The cheapest print minimum I've ever had was over $8 and it was for my shortest book. EBook publishers have the same stipulations for minimum prices. With Kindle, for example, if you want 70% royalties, your eBook has to be AT LEAST $2.99. Want to sell a book for .99 cents? You can, but you'll only get 30% of that.

So when you see a print book price or eBook price and wonder what made the author set that particular price, it's usually only a $1, give or take, over the minimum price they are told they HAVE to sell it at.

Keep that in mind when an author releases a book, or when readers complain that it isn’t .99 cents, or even free. An author is making, if they’re lucky, a few dollars from each book sale, on a novel they might have spent six months to a few years creating for you. If the book is .99 cents, the author might be getting .20 cents from each sale. If the author has their book listed free for a promotion, they receive absolutely nothing. 
The author might have spent thousands of dollars of their own money on an editor or cover designer, as well as money on any promotional materials. Unless the author’s name is John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, etc, the author is likely not even recouping what they put into their novel to get it published. An author would have to sell over 500 copies of a book, if not more, to recoup what they put into it. So when you buy that $5 eBook or $10 print book, remember, that the author is only receiving a few dollars from that sale. 

Another way an author makes money is by you doing something that is completely free. The more books an author sells, the more money they make. The best way an author can sell more books, is if YOU, the reader, tells someone else to buy it. This may come by word-of-mouth, or sharing a Facebook post, but most come from reviews left on Amazon and Goodreads. Both sites generate a lot of readers for an author so if you leave a review on one, try to leave on on the other as well. Reviews can be anywhere from a few words about how you liked/loved it, to a complete rundown of what made the book appeal to you. Reviews don't cost anything but a few minutes of your time. But they can have a huge affect for an author. 

Using my own novel's royalties on, say, an eBook, costs you $4.99, giving the author $3.43. Add the few minutes you put into a review and two more people decided to give the book a try. You just helped the author make a total of $6.86 (plus what the author made from your sale) from your review. Your review could get 10 more people to buy the book. That's $34.30 you just helped the author make. Imagine if one or two of those ten people wrote a review with the same results. 

It's a domino affect that is all up to you, the reader. You have the power, in just a few words, to make or break an author. You have the capability to change an author's life.

Here's another breakdown of how reviewing works. The average book only receives 1.5 reviews for every 750 (or so) books read. That's a lot of books read with hardly anything to show for it. And a lot of potential readers that never know what they're missing.

Amazon has made it doubly hard for self-published, indie, and new authors to gain a foothold with new readers already. We've all logged onto Amazon, looked at the book department, and been bombarded with top sellers/new releases/recommended for you adds in each category on the home page. But did you know that in order for an author to even be allowed on those lists, they have to have 50+ reviews on their novel? Fifty reviews is extremely hard to come by without paying a company thousands of dollars to write them. My novel, Dark Mountains was published in 2013, has an average rating of 4.3/5 stars, and still only has 36 reviews. Unless you're a big-name author, those lists seem unattainable.

But even worse for self-published authors, Amazon itself seems to be out to get them, by removing reviews based on a perceived bias. All authors have family and friends that will read their book and leave a review, most of the time, a favorable one, but sometimes, not so much, as was the case for me on my debut novel. See my post: Handling Negative Feedback for proof that a family member's review doesn't guarantee anything positive. But Amazon doesn't agree.

Amazon has, in recent months, begun deleting user's reviews if they get any hint of a connection between the author and reviewer. It isn't just family members and friends feeling the heat from Amazon. Even perfect strangers (to the author) that have liked their Facebook page, or followed them on Twitter or Goodreads, are feeling the burn. Amazon is currently on a witch hunt for any connection, regardless of how remote or above reproach it is, and is removing reviews from author's books. 

Currently it's a big scandal, as Amazon seems to only be removing favorable reviews and not negative ones, even when they are found to be an author's competing rival or vindictive family member. Amazon has also been having major issues with some authors cheating the system but purchasing reviews, creating fake accounts and writing their own reviews, padding books with extra pages to gain more revenue from KDP select/Amazon Prime, etc. It seems an uphill battle for self-published authors trying to be successful in the right way, with so little options given to them.

My advice for leaving a review is to make sure you don't link any of your social media accounts to your Amazon one. Even with Goodreads, it's best not to link accounts. Goodreads itself is not at all strict with its reviews and ratings, but Amazon will check the reviews on Goodreads to search for author/reader connections.  Don't mention that you know the author personally. But be honest about the book. If you didn't like it, say it. If you loved it, tell people, and let them know why you loved it. 

There is a silver lining to Amazon's review process. Amazon currently offers reviewers to 1) vote whether the review was helpful or not and 2) let the reviewer comment on other reviews. What's so great about that? 

If you took a peek at my Handling Negative Feedback post, you'll see that my debut novel, Dark Mountains, received a 2 star review (from a family member) because it had cursing and described sex scenes, although it is categorized as a romance novel and clearly states on the book's sale page that it's recommended for 18+ due to mature scenes. The reviewer also went as far to point out how my personal beliefs made her judge the type of book I had written. (My author bio page said I liked singing at church.)

I also have a one-star review from someone who was shocked at the graphic sex scenes halfway through the book. To be fair, there are some fully explained sex scenes (though I wouldn't consider them graphic... they're a lot more tame than erotica books, and even Shades of Grey), and they are about halfway through the book, but the story centers on two kids and their journey to fall in love as they grow up. Obviously two kids can't have sex in a novel, and as the story progressed to them being adults, so did their physical relationship with each other. Beneath that review was two comments thankful to be warned about the sexually graphic content.

Of course, I'm glad that potential readers are being warned of what they're getting into before they start a novel, as I'd likely have a few more bad reviews if they hadn't been made aware. But having a romance category that points out on the purchase page that it contains adult content and recommended for reading over 18, should have been clear enough. 

This is where the reviewer and Amazon account holder can save the day. A reviewer that had enough common sense to know what the novel was going to be about before starting it can comment and rebut a negative review. A reviewer that knows an author's personal beliefs shouldn't be held in account to the fiction they write, can defend an author's work. You, the reader and reviewer, can save an author's day.

So being a successful author isn't all about writing a great novel. Having readers and reviews plays a huge part in whether an author has financial success, or even breaks even, with the novels they spend so much time and money on.

My favorite analogy to use is this:

Most people would go to a coffee shop, say a Starbucks, and spend $5 or more on a cup of coffee. A barista takes a few minutes to make it and you shell out the money without batting an eye. You might even tip the barista for the few minutes of coffee making. There are some people that do this multiple times a day.

Yet a lot of readers complain that a book is too expensive, or even that the book isn't free. 

An author spends a bare minimum of six months on a book. Usually a year or more perfecting it for publishing. They spend hundreds or thousands on cover art, a cover designer, an editor, someone to format it, on ordering copies. Thousands of hours on a keyboard, researching, editing, rewriting. 

An author's book is that cup of coffee that makes you sigh on the first sip, that warms you on the inside, that makes you smile, that gets you through the day, that helps you to escape the world for a little while. An author's book is a one-time purchase for you, but one you can come back to and enjoy over and over again without having to pay any more money. As if that coffee kept magically refilling itself for you. And the review you leave is the barista's tip for a job well done. 

So please, don't shy away from buying that author's book and make sure you don't forget to tip your author.