The Indie Ebook Scene Is Growing: Here's Over 170 Authors Who've Sold More Than 50,000 Copies
from the success-stories dept
We've written a lot about the incredible new ecosystem of independent, self-published ebooks, which in a few short years (with the help of huge success stories like Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath) has largely eliminated the stigma of what we once called "vanity publishing", to the point that even traditionally published authors are deciding to go it alone.
Though Hocking and Konrath were some of the first names to get some serious attention with their impressive ebook sales, today there are lots of other examples. An anonymous submission points us to a blog dedicated to tracking self-published ebook success stories, which has put together a list of over 170 independent authors who have sold more than 50,000 ebooks, including 33 who have sold more than 200,000. Hocking and Konrath still make the top ten, but they have plenty of company:
Barbara Freethy - over 2 million ebooks sold (April 2012)
Amanda Hocking - 1,500,000 ebooks sold (December 2011)
John Locke- more than 1,100,000 eBooks sold in five months
Gemma Halliday - over 1 million self-published ebooks sold (March 2012)
Michael Prescott - more than 800,000 self-published ebooks sold (Dec 2011)
J.A. Konrath - more than 800,000 ebooks sold (April 2012)
Bella Andre - more than 700,000 books sold (May 2012)
Darcie Chan - 641,000 ebooks sold (May 2012)
Chris Culver - over 550,000 (Dec 2011)
Heather Killough-Walden - over 500,000 books sold (Dec 2011)
The post also points out some encouraging statistics from Amazon:
Kindle Direct Publishing has quickly taken on astonishing scale – more than a thousand KDP authors now each sell more than a thousand copies a month, some have already reached hundreds of thousands of sales, and two have already joined the Kindle Million Club.
Under the old system, many of these authors would likely still be sending out manuscripts, hoping for the lucky convergence of circumstances that puts it in the right pile in front of the right reader when they're in the right mood. There's still some disdain for self-publishing in some circles—but with the open playing field that has been created, the increasing number of authors flocking to it, and a growing roster of success stories, it won't be long before that too starts to change.
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Filed Under: amanda hocking, ebooks, joe konrath, kindle, publishing
Companies: amazon
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Math
Sure, we've got the very high end such as a Stephen King or James Patterson novel or Harry Potter that sells millions, but what kind of numbers could we expect an average best seller to do? I'm a pretty well read person, and I don't recognize the names of about half of the authors for the top 40 books on Barnes and Noble right now.
If those authors listed above are getting even 10 cents per sale after expenses, then they've got a good paying job by most accounts - and I suspect they're getting much more than that per sale.
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Re: Math
Also, if you're putting King and Patterson and Rowling at the high end, which they certainly are, you should also consider that these indie eBook authors are still outliers. The vast majority of self-published books sell fewer than 50 copies.
It's depressingly difficult to be a successful author regardless of the path you choose. The difficulty of finding a publisher has simply been supplanted by the difficulty of finding an audience.
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Re: Math
"Here's what Amazon and B&N pays for self-published ebooks:
Amazon Kindle Publishing Royalties:
$2.99 and above: 70%
under $2.99: 35%
Barnes & Noble Pubit Royalties:
$2.99 and above: 65%
under $2.99: 40%"
So taking Barbara Freethy as an example: a quick look on Amazon shows her ebooks are typically priced at $2.99. Some higher, some lower, but $2.99 seemed typical. 70% of $2.99 is $2.09, times 2 million sales equals almost $4.2 million in her pocket. Even if you were to take it to the EXTREME other end (all 2 million sales at 99 cents each with a 35% royalty) she's still looking at almost $700,000 in her pocket. Not too shabby, and congrats to her on that!
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This seems to be forcing authors to charge more for their work than they may want to. Price fixing ?
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Amazon has some fixed costs (servers, programmers, etc.). Therefore, you get a higher royalty rate when the price is higher.
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Many indie ebook markets pay out higher royalties. OokaBooka.com for example offers:
$1 and above: ~71%
$1 and below: ~65-69%
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Re: Math
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HOW's THIS FOR NEGATIVITY BITCH
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One Problem With Self-Publishing
If the publishers can quit their bitching about digital pennies and start providing quality editing at reasonable costs, they can make themselves "brands" for real.
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Re: One Problem With Self-Publishing
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Paywall!
Maybe soon he'll understand why Amanda Hocking went with a traditional publisher when she had a chance.
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Re: Paywall!
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Re: Paywall!
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Re: Paywall!
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Re: Paywall!
Does whatever a paid shill can
Spins a tale, any time
Munching crap, just like flies
Look out! Here comes paywall man...
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Re: Paywall!
She was highly criticized for going with a publisher. This IMHO was a good move for her. What she saw was the value of having a publisher AFTER she made a name for herself. This is so she no longer needs to worry about finding an editor, an artist for the covers (ebooks have these), promotional venues, and the many other tasks that detracts time away from her writing.
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Re: Paywall!
Math class is this way bro... http://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic?k
N.
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Re: Paywall!
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Re: Paywall!
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Re: Re: Paywall!
He's operating in a different reality with a different language...
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Re: Paywall!
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Re: Paywall!
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As usual, Pirate Mike is making Pirate Tim... er, Pirate Leigh write stuff about stuff, confusedly to confuse us. And paywalls. And shoveling poop!
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Printing Press, like self publishing, must be stopped!
Scribes offer additional value over mass printed books. Scribes carefully hand copy each character of each word, unlike the evil mechanical printing monsters which don't care and are unable to care about the quality of their output.
Furthermore the low price of books from printing presses relative to the high cost of Scribe(tm) hand copied books devalues books!
If anything, the price of books from the new printing presses should be set higher than the cost of hand copied books.
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Re: Printing Press, like self publishing, must be stopped!
Soon nobody will write books anymore!
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i have several publishing sites i keep track of to know what's coming out.
How do i find the same sort of thing for new ebook authors?
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-Janis Joplin
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How sell eBooks
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