The Economics of Independent Publishing

In case you were interested, I figured I’d explain the economics of publishing a book independently.

I am a finance guy by trade. Some of you may know that. So, even though every author should consider the costs to publish a book and the profits made after publishing it, I tend to take it a step further. I’m also a bit fan of open transparency, so I thought I’d share the economics of Species Seventeen, the first book in the Humanity’s Leap series.

Have a look at the (admittedly quickly constructed) table below as an example, and for reference.

As of this writing, I’ve sold 2,258 copies of Species Seventeen, counting all formats (Kindle, audiobook, paperback, etc). Royalties on Kindle sales are the lowest, and on hardcover books are the best. But the vast preponderance of sales are on Kindle. That means the mix of royalties is lower, and that is as I expected - so it’s not a surprise.

Total royalties on the book - since the November 2024 release - have been $4,878, which comes to $2.16 a book. That will continue to increase in total sales, but the revenue-per-book will stay the same. But more books means more sales.

Fixed costs (one-time costs) for the book amounted to $9,000, but those don’t recur. So the fixed cost per book (just shy of $4 a book) will decrease as more books are sold. The variable cost - which is marketing - will stay roughly the same, because marketing is a continued expense, every month, unless you want sales to fall off. So once the sales $$ hits $9k, I will have covered those one-time fixed costs. Then I just have to worry about the variable cost. Said another way, although I get royalies of $2.16 a book, $.80 of that is eaten by marketing, and that will never change.

I need to sell another 6,600 books (roughly) just to break even on the work. That’s just how it functions.

Sometimes I get flak from folks on Facebook for using AI trailers to market my book. They’re mad because I didn’t hire a digital artist to do the work. They’ve got a personal mission against everything AI, and that’s fine - they’re welcome to it. But to ask me to spend thousands more dollars on hiring someone to do the marketing (many of which will just use similar AI tools) is just bad ROI. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game. Sure, I’d love to hire yet another person to promote the book, but until Amazon wants to share more royalties with me (fat chance), it’s not going to happen. Big publishers can do that sort of thing. Indies, can’t. That’s just economics.

-CS

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Happy Release Day!