And It Has Nothing to Do with a Lack of Talent
I admire the enthusiasm of new authors. They only see possibility.
Unfortunately, after 35 years of professional writing, editing, and document design experience—including having produced over 40 books—I understand that the world of publishing is harsh indeed. It’s a demanding environment with high standards and even higher expectations. In short, success in publishing isn’t easy.
But then, nothing worth having is ever easy.
The Odds Are Against You
Statistics show that over 90% self-published authors earn less than $1,000 in royalties annually and that the average self-published book earns less than $200 in royalties annually. That’s discouraging, especially when one considers the aggregated expense of professional editing, book design, cover design, and proofreading. It’s going to take a lot to recoup your expenses.
What Can You Expect to Earn?
Generally, self-published authors earn greater royalties than traditionally published authors.
A traditional publisher—which is a publisher that pays authors—employs professionals to produce books meeting the standards of quality that readers demand, expect, and deserve. Those professionals—editors, artists, designers, proofreaders—need to be paid while a book is in production and regardless of whether the book produced turns a profit. Therefore, most traditional publishers pay authors 7% to 15% of the profits earned. Some small presses offer much higher royalties.
The most popular example of self-publishing royalties comes from Kindle Direct Publishing, owned by Amazon. Royalty tiers depend upon format (e-book, paperback, hardcover), retail price, and distribution choices. They range from 35% to 70%.
Only if an author pays for production and distribution does the author receive 100% of any profits earned from book sales. Because the costs of production and distribution are high, most authors don’t opt for this labor-intensive pathway. It’s much easier to let a distribution platform like Amazon handle all that.
Why Isn’t Your Book Selling?
Of course, the only way to earn royalties is to sell your book. The Field of Dreams scenario doesn’t apply: just because you publish it doesn’t mean that people will want to read it or buy it. Commercial success involves several variables.
An Appealing Cover
The cover is your book’s most important marketing piece. It informs potential readers of your book’s genre and attracts their interest. An effective cover inspires a potential reader to pick up the book and read the back cover copy.
Intriguing Back Cover Copy
The back cover copy (or the copy on the inside of a dust jacket) serves as a lure. It intrigues a potential reader’s interest and persuades that person to buy the book, becoming a customer.
Legible Page Design
Page design directly affects the reader’s experience with the content. Design that impedes the eye’s travel through paragraphs or that breaks the flow of reading detracts from the reading experience. Poor page design probably won’t prevent a potential reader from buying the book, but it will discourage that reader from buying another book from that same author.
Writing Quality
Good writing engages the reader’s interest and holds it. It draws the reader through the pages. Poor writing fails in that task, whether through the reader’s boredom, clunky expression, implausibility, or other factor that ejects the reader from the story. Poorly written content likely won’t prevent a potential reader from buying the book, but it will deter that reader from buying another book by that same author.
Editing Quality
The best story in the world won’t hold a reader’s interest if it’s littered with errors, inconsistencies, discrepancies, and other flaws. Competent editing not only corrects the copy errors, it also helps the author refine expression, correct breaks in logic and continuity, and ensure verisimilitude. Poorly edited content likely won’t prevent a potential reader from buying the book, but it will deter that reader from buying another book by that same author.
Effective Marketing
With over 2 million books published each year, in addition to the millions of books already published in previous centuries, the competition for readers is overwhelming. To rise above the competition or at least distinguish your book from competitors, the author must build awareness of the book’s existence and intrigue potential readers sufficiently to explore further.
Effective marketing requires both strategy and consistency. Marketing being a field of study all on its own, book marketing makes for a complicated niche expertise. Unless you’re willing to learn how to best market your book and to commit to the time, effort, and expense necessary to market your book effectively, consider hiring a book marketing firm. Understand that when you hire a marketing firm, you will not only pay that firm’s fees for expertise and service, but you’ll also pay for expenses related to advertisements and promotions.
Keep Your Customers
As noted above, issues of quality in writing, editing, and page design don’t necessarily deter initial sales, but they do leave a bad taste in customers’ mouths and will deter future sales. Authors who enjoy commercial success understand that enduring success is built upon repeat customers. This is one reason why most successful authors are not one-hit wonders: they produce popular series or have backlists of books, so readers who liked one book can easily acquire others by that author to read, too.
It’s also worth mentioning, too, that readers disappointed by poor quality can and do leave scathing reviews warning other potential customers away from the book. There’s no way to count those lost sales.
Through professional ghostwriting, editing, page design, and proofreading services, Hen House Publishing helps authors attain and maintain the quality readers demand, expect, and deserve. Are you interested in publishing a book? Contact us. We’ll be happy to answer your questions.
