Inspired by Chris Fox’s discussion of his 2016 self-publishing financials {link below}, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at mine, which are on a much smaller scale but perhaps more typical of small-time self-pubbers. I’ve never had a wildly successful book, but they chug along bringing in income every day.
To start with, let me recap my self-pubbing career to date. I published my first epic fantasy book in September 2014, and by the end of that year, I’d made royalties of $263. Sadly, my accumulated expenses at that point were $4,000. It can be expensive self-publishing; I spent money on top quality covers, professional proofreading and paperback copies, as well as a number of books and software to help improve my writing, but virtually no promotion at that point.
In 2015 I did rather better. I published three more epic fantasies, and made $12,800 royalties from sales and borrows/pages read under the Kindle Unlimited subscription scheme. That looks good, but expenses that year were $6,800 (which included a new writing computer), so, combined with the $4,000 debt carried forward, I made virtually no profit.
And so on to 2016. This year was a bit different. I released another three epic fantasies, making seven in all, although the release program is going to be slower in future. I also had a new project – Regency romance, in the style of Georgette Heyer. Short, light, fluffy and quick to write, I published four and a companion novella from June to November, and the last two in the series are ready to go next year. So seven books published this year, which finally put me into decent profit. Hooray!
Let’s look at income first:
| FANTASIES: | ROYALTIES: |
| F #1 | 3600 |
| F #2 | 5200 |
| F #3 | 2800 |
| F #4 | 2800 |
| F #5 (Jan) | 5000 |
| F #6 (May) | 5800 |
| F #7 (Sep) | 1200 |
| TOTAL: | $26,400 |
| REGENCIES: | |
| R #1 (Jun) | 2600 |
| R #2 (Jul) | 2200 |
| R #3 (Sep) | 1800 |
| R #4 (Nov) | 750 |
| TOTAL: | $7,300 |
| TOTAL ALL BOOKS: | $33,700 |
Which sounds good, doesn’t it? Until you take off expenses:
| EXPENSE: | COST: |
| Covers, betareading, proofreading | 2900 |
| Print books, formatting | 1900 |
| Amazon ads | 1800 |
| Other promo | 2700 |
| Hardware (new desktop computer!) | 1600 |
| Software, subscriptions, books | 640 |
| Website | 132 |
| Tax (estimated) | 4400 |
| TOTAL EXPENSES: | $16,000 |
So (tada!):
NET PROFIT: $17,700
This is quite a comfortable profit for me. I’m not a full-time author, nor aiming to be, so I don’t need to stretch for every last cent or try to minimise my expenses. In 2015, my royalties bought my new writing-only computer, and in 2016 they paid for an upgrade to my desktop system, which is where I do all my editing, website maintenance, planning and admin. I don’t charge anything for a home office, since I can write pretty much anywhere, and I don’t claim general computer software (like Word or my finances program or my broadband connection, because I use them for mostly non-writing things). I do claim for anything that’s purely book-related, like BookReport (which analyses my Amazon sales numbers), the awesome brain.fm (music designed to help with focus while writing) and the costs of the two websites I have (one for each pen name).
For 2017, I’m hoping to publish a couple more epic fantasies, plus perhaps four Regency romances, which (if it comes off) would give me 17 books. I expect the royalties to increase, but there’s no knowing how changes within Amazon might affect that. There have been changes these past few months that have seen some authors lose huge swathes of revenue from books within the KU borrows system. I haven’t been affected by that, as far as I can tell, but some little tweak deep in the Amazon basement could knock my royalties for six at any moment. So, fingers crossed for a good year and nothing untoward happening.
For comparison, you can read Chris’s (somewhat bigger) numbers here. For anyone who can’t watch the video, the basic numbers are: gross earnings $170,000; expenses plus tax set-aside $100,000; net take-home $70,000.
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