This will be a short post with an update to the information posted previously about Royalties. It looks like on Amazon, I'm earning $1.02 for every $2.99, so that's about 34%. Dramatic difference, no?
Monday, September 12, 2016
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Royalties aka Getting Paid
Okay, totally blasé post title, but I'm not feeling especially brilliant regarding titles at the moment. The content, however, I'm much more passionate about... money!
How do I make money off of this eBook? It's actually very much the same as in traditional publishing - royalties. In my case, with the exception of Amazon, my publishing site is Smashwords. While they call me the publisher, the book is still on their site, they process the fees, and they also provide IRS documents, etc. This means that they are taking on some liability and a lot of accounting, so I won't receive all the money from my novel, I receive a percentage.
The difference here is the exact percentage. At Smashwords, I'm selling my eBook at $2.99. Of that $2.99, I receive $2.21! That's almost 74%. Of course, I've also priced the eBook at $2.99. I could have chosen a higher dollar figure and the amount per eBook would seem even more dramatic, why? In traditional publishing, most fiction authors receive somewhere in the neighborhood of a $1 per book sold (after the book earns back any advance money, if there was an advance).
Nice? I think so. This is heavy on my mind because if my account meets the minimum dollar figure, Smashwords will pay me royalties quarterly.
Note: The other sites that Smashwords has distributed to, such as Barnes & Noble, iTunes, etc. pay at different percentages. If a book is purchased as Barnes & Noble, they'll take a portion of the cost, and then send the rest back to Smashwords, who will also take a percentage. I'll receive the remainder. This is not a complaint; both sites deserve their cut for their work. I'm merely sharing with you how the electronic distribution and royalties are managed.
I'm so pleased to report that I actually made the minimum as of yesterday, so I'll get paid this quarter. Special thanks to my friends who talked about my eBook to other people. Word of mouth is my main sales driver.
Anyway, after the end of this month, I can expect to be paid for my work. That means I'm not just a published author, but a paid author. Will I ever be making living at this? I don't know, but the truth is, I very much hope so.
How do I make money off of this eBook? It's actually very much the same as in traditional publishing - royalties. In my case, with the exception of Amazon, my publishing site is Smashwords. While they call me the publisher, the book is still on their site, they process the fees, and they also provide IRS documents, etc. This means that they are taking on some liability and a lot of accounting, so I won't receive all the money from my novel, I receive a percentage.
The difference here is the exact percentage. At Smashwords, I'm selling my eBook at $2.99. Of that $2.99, I receive $2.21! That's almost 74%. Of course, I've also priced the eBook at $2.99. I could have chosen a higher dollar figure and the amount per eBook would seem even more dramatic, why? In traditional publishing, most fiction authors receive somewhere in the neighborhood of a $1 per book sold (after the book earns back any advance money, if there was an advance).
Nice? I think so. This is heavy on my mind because if my account meets the minimum dollar figure, Smashwords will pay me royalties quarterly.
Note: The other sites that Smashwords has distributed to, such as Barnes & Noble, iTunes, etc. pay at different percentages. If a book is purchased as Barnes & Noble, they'll take a portion of the cost, and then send the rest back to Smashwords, who will also take a percentage. I'll receive the remainder. This is not a complaint; both sites deserve their cut for their work. I'm merely sharing with you how the electronic distribution and royalties are managed.
I'm so pleased to report that I actually made the minimum as of yesterday, so I'll get paid this quarter. Special thanks to my friends who talked about my eBook to other people. Word of mouth is my main sales driver.
Anyway, after the end of this month, I can expect to be paid for my work. That means I'm not just a published author, but a paid author. Will I ever be making living at this? I don't know, but the truth is, I very much hope so.
Friday, September 2, 2016
Qualms and Quirks
In a previous post, I mentioned my concerns about supplying my bank account number to Amazon in order to self-publish my ebook. The concerns revolve around hacking, not Amazon, but I just don't want my numbers out there. My solution: open a new bank account
That's what I did today, and I have since submitted my ebook to Amazon. It should appear in their catalog in 48-72 hours. That will complete my distribution to the ebookstores that I consider most important. I'm quite certain that there are other ebookstores that do a great deal of business and I'll be missing them, but for the moment I'm accepting that. If you happen to have a favorite online store other than the ones I've listed, please leave a comment. My greatest limitation for distribution is lack of knowledge of all the outlets.
That was all for qualms, now on to quirks.
The theme for my day was upsets and embarrassments, though the majority of those had nothing to do with my writing or publishing. I found a monstrous error in my ebook, the Title Page had the title for my next book! This wasn't true in the early distributions (I updated it once due to a dislike in formatting) but I found it today. The only word I can think of is mortifying! The wrong title!
While I will puzzled on how this happened, I set to correcting it immediately. A fresh upload to Smashwords has been completed and hopefully will distribute rather quickly. I don't have a rush of sales right now, so I'm not too worried anyone will stumble on it. But still...
Another quirk I ran into was on Barnes&Noble. They don't use ISBNs for ebooks. Instead, they assigned an EAN to my book. Searching by title will bring up the book, as will searching by EAN... but not the ISBN. I'm more than a little befuddled, but there it is.
So future self-publishers, you've been educated... not everything in publishing uses the ISBN after all.
It's the Labor Day weekend, so I'll sign off by wishing you a good holiday. I plan to relax and write. :)
That's what I did today, and I have since submitted my ebook to Amazon. It should appear in their catalog in 48-72 hours. That will complete my distribution to the ebookstores that I consider most important. I'm quite certain that there are other ebookstores that do a great deal of business and I'll be missing them, but for the moment I'm accepting that. If you happen to have a favorite online store other than the ones I've listed, please leave a comment. My greatest limitation for distribution is lack of knowledge of all the outlets.
That was all for qualms, now on to quirks.
The theme for my day was upsets and embarrassments, though the majority of those had nothing to do with my writing or publishing. I found a monstrous error in my ebook, the Title Page had the title for my next book! This wasn't true in the early distributions (I updated it once due to a dislike in formatting) but I found it today. The only word I can think of is mortifying! The wrong title!
While I will puzzled on how this happened, I set to correcting it immediately. A fresh upload to Smashwords has been completed and hopefully will distribute rather quickly. I don't have a rush of sales right now, so I'm not too worried anyone will stumble on it. But still...
Another quirk I ran into was on Barnes&Noble. They don't use ISBNs for ebooks. Instead, they assigned an EAN to my book. Searching by title will bring up the book, as will searching by EAN... but not the ISBN. I'm more than a little befuddled, but there it is.
So future self-publishers, you've been educated... not everything in publishing uses the ISBN after all.
It's the Labor Day weekend, so I'll sign off by wishing you a good holiday. I plan to relax and write. :)
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