There is money in self-publishing

[James North]

I just released a sequel to my bestseller, and I have gone from $3,300 a month to $1850 in the first 10.5 days of December. I have been self-published through CS and KDP for 13 months now, and the last 5 or 6 months is when I started making real money. It just keeps getting better. Some self-published writers are being hounded by agents and publishers out of New York, but their offers are just insane. If you are earning $6,000 a month (I know two who make nearly $500,000 a year), why take a few thou in advance, knowing they will give you a lot smaller royalty on the ebooks and jack the price up to the point fewer copies sell, and then claim there was not enough copies sold to ever give you a dime in royalties? One writer I know turned down a $100,000 advance because he only wanted to give them the rights to his paperbacks and they insisted on stealing his ebook sales at 25% royalties. I have seen self-published writers fall for the New York publishers’ lies and watch their income dwindle. All they did was make money for agents and publishers. The advantage of having your books in bookstores is becoming less and less of a factor and is not worth going from 70% royalties to 25% for your ebooks with FEWER sales because of the publisher hiking the price from $3 or $5 to $10 or more. I know of one writer who saw his Kindle books go from a ranking of 1,000 on Amazon to 40,000 because of the publisher hiking the price up and not promoting his books at all. On top of that, he got 25% instead of the 70% KDP pays. What a price he paid just to be able to say he was published out of New York! He could have bought a home with the money he lost. His paperbacks did NOT sell any better either, because the publisher did not promote at all.

If you can write, you can make money by self-publishing, and that’s with zero promotion! If you can’t make it self-published, you will never make it going the agent/publisher route anyway.

[Frank Baron]

I know a guy who knew a guy who's cousin's sister-in-law found a penny worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let's all look for pennies!

It's very nice that things are going so well for you, James.

[Kitty Foyle]

Yes, it certainly is, James. Do your books have a lot of sex scenes in them?

*_*

[James North]

Baron, what I posted is true. There is also the woman who dumped her publisher at the book release party. Look it up. I have two books on Amazon's list of 100 bestselling Kindles under action and adventure right now. If not for the fact WNers tend to be spiteful losers who will most likely post fake reviews on my books, and the last one has been out only a couple weeks with no reviews yet, despite being high up on the 100 bestsellers list, I would post by pen name and titles. I am tempted, but there is just too much money at stake. What I have done is actually more proof, because anyone can claim to be the author of any self-published book as long as the real author does not see the post on WN and put the lie to it. Posting my KDP reports which are only available to the author, and KDP keeps them protected as well as the author's real name if he uses a pen name like I do, is the best proof I can possibly give. Posting my titles or pen name could cost me tens of thousands if a few WNers post spiteful reviews and I have seen how lowdown some WNers are. The last time I was here, you had quit WN because you did not like what you saw here.

Kitty Foyle:
No. They do have a lot of killing though. The first two book-series is a dystopia, a story of future America. The other series is a post apocalypse story.

[jayce]

Here's a related article from the Wall Street Journal .

Five years ago, I would have dismissed this sort of thing as a fluke. Not anymore.

[Kitty Foyle]

Wow, talk about a success story (WSJ). The comments were interesting too.

*_*

[Frank Baron]

James, I have no doubt what you post is true. My own modest treatise that I never pimp anymore even though it's in its 7th printing, What Fish Don't Want You to Know (available from all fine retailers) has been an Amazon Best Seller many, many times.

It's fun. It's exciting.

But my point is, was and remains - self or traditional - it ain't easy.

[jayce]

Thanks, Kitty, I didn't think to read the comments. Interesting, indeed.

[Kitty Foyle]

In the greater scheme of things, what's it all about when you sort if out...Alfie?

*_*

[jayce]

Uh... do what?