I stumbled across an excerpt of Indie Author Survival Guide by author Susan Kaye Quinn, which posted an interesting chart of sorts to gauge your success as an indie author.
I fall under the categories of #3 (based on personal / solo achievements) and #5 (because of my involvement in Billionaire Bad Boys). I find that weird and cool. :D
One statement had my eyebrows raising ---
- 1. Breaking Even
- 2. Breaking 1000 sales
- 3. Reaching tens of thousands of sales - over 1000 sales a month - indie midlist
- 4. Amazon Top 100 - Indie Rockstar - tens of thousands of dollars a month
- 5. NYTimes Bestseller
I fall under the categories of #3 (based on personal / solo achievements) and #5 (because of my involvement in Billionaire Bad Boys). I find that weird and cool. :D
One statement had my eyebrows raising ---
...the royalty on 10,000 sales for a 99cent self-pub novel is the same as the $3,000 advance on the 10,000 sales for a "successful" traditionally published novel noted above.
I feel like traditionally published authors should be earning more, when you consider that they have paperbacks in bookstores AND ebooks while indie authors like me mainly rely on web retailers and POD sites like CreateSpace for paperback sales that rarely enjoy shelf life.
*shrug*
I know how to do the math for royalties for indie sales, but when you compare it to trad sales...funny what you get to find out thanks to the Internet and the growing culture of transparency among authors nowadays. Veteran indie author friends would probably rag me about being surprised at all but I really am.
Discussing sales figures used to be taboo - I think it still is here in the Philippines - but I love how indie publishing / self-publishing has changed this abroad. :) I hope it continues and when I have sufficient data, I promise to do the same as a way of paying it forward.
*shrug*
I know how to do the math for royalties for indie sales, but when you compare it to trad sales...funny what you get to find out thanks to the Internet and the growing culture of transparency among authors nowadays. Veteran indie author friends would probably rag me about being surprised at all but I really am.
Discussing sales figures used to be taboo - I think it still is here in the Philippines - but I love how indie publishing / self-publishing has changed this abroad. :) I hope it continues and when I have sufficient data, I promise to do the same as a way of paying it forward.
