It's finally happened. The book you've devoted every free minute to for months, if not years, is finally finished. You know it will be a best-seller, but what do you do now?
Take a breath, sit down with a hot cup of coffee or tea, and have paper and pen ready. Ask yourself these questions:
Do I want to be traditionally published?
Do I want to self-publish?
Today, I will touch on one aspect of publishing. I think it's probably the most important. Royalties. Millions of books are published each year. However, the average book sells fewer than 200 copies annually and under 1000 in its lifetime.
Will your book make you rich? Or, will your book sales support your writing career? Let's do the math.
The book standard I'm using is a 240-page paperback book. I used Amazon's royalty calculator and checked publishing websites for royalty payouts.
If you publish traditionally in print, your net royalty would be between $.67 - $.77 per book. Let's be generous and make it $1 per book. Do the math. 200 times $1 equals $200.
If you publish your books independently and use Amazon (for example), your royalties are much higher. Print book royalties are 60 percent of the net sale. The royalty calculator on a paperback that sells for $18.95 will earn you roughly $7.64 in royalties. Multiply $7.64 by 200, and your earnings would be $1,137.
That's a big difference.
Where do I get my information? Google. Amazon KDP, and the multi-talented Book Shepherd, Judith Briles. https://thebookshepherd.com/
Happy writing!
Deborah