Let’s Be Really Honest - Publishing Books is Tough!

Why Success Isn’t Guaranteed...

Let’s start with a couple of what I think are eye-opening statistics:

1. 33% of self-published authors make less than $500 p.a. from their books (no matter how many books they’ve published)

2.  The majority of self-published books sell less than 100 copies in their lifetime

I mean, WOW.

On the back of that, who the hell would want to be an author? Actually, LOTS of people do:

• A YouGov poll found that 60% of people in Britain (that’s 41.5 million) would like to be an author, higher than the percentage who want to be a TV presenter or movie star

• According to Publishing Perspectives, 200 million Americans (58% of the population) want to publish a book

As we all know, the ability to be able to publish your own novel has driven a revolution in the industry, eliminating traditional entry barriers (agents etc.) and brought literally millions of books to the market which never would have got into readers’ hands otherwise.

However, for authors who lack social proof - particularly reviews, or a strong social media presence, or established credibility - the journey to success is highly challenging.

In this article (part one of two) we explore these challenges in depth, offering data-driven insights into the self-publishing industry.

Photo by Jackman Chiu on Unsplash

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Books, Books, Everywhere You Look, Books

The digital revolution forever lowered the barriers to entry for aspiring authors, but this democratization has in conjunction created a fiercely competitive, jam-packed market. For example, on Amazon, according to Publisher’s Weekly, more than 4,500 new books are published daily, spanning all genres and formats​.

That’s 2 million new books, a year. And some sources say it could be as high as 4 million.

Self-published authors account for a substantial portion of this, flooding the platform with content and making it harder for individual books to gain traction (unless you’ve got very deep pockets for promotional activities). Also, there’s an ongoing concern that as AI technology improves, this will create a stampede of even more new books (if 2 million isn’t already enough).

Platforms like Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Draft2Digital enable anyone with a manuscript to publish their work with minimal upfront costs. And, self-publishing isn't limited to specific regions, meaning authors can publish their work everywhere, all at once (traditionally, your agent would sell your manuscript to a publisher per country).

But, with great success comes great responsibility.

• New books quickly (some might say, immediately) get buried under the weight of daily uploads, making discoverability one of the (if not THE) greatest hurdles for emerging authors

• Standing out requires significant investment in advertising and promotional campaigns, increasing the financial burden on authors.

So, blowout successes from the self-publishing industry, like Andy Weir's The Martian, EL James’ 50 Shades and Hugh Howey’s Wool series, remain rare exceptions, rather than the norm​.

If you’re not already gloomy enough, let’s look at some other sobering numbers from Publisher’s Weekly…

• 77% of self-published authors earn less than $1,000 annually, according to surveys

• Of these, 33% make less than $500, regardless of the number of books they’ve published

A report by Written Word Media revealed that even relatively successful indie authors often struggle to break into sustainable income brackets.