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.