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The economics of selling your book
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
It’s the dream for most authors to profit from the sales of their book.
Choosing the self-publishing route may make this seem like a daunting task, but through proper self-marketing and passion for your book it can be achieved.
Self-published authors take control of their sales and can sell their own books themselves. This is called self-selling. If you self-sell, you get the most profit from the sales of your books as you cut out the retailer’s margin. You can self-sell through avenues such as author websites, your personal business, on social media marketplaces, or through author events like launches and readings. Self-published authors can also easily sell through bookstores—both online and brick-and-mortar—by enabling their books for online distribution and pitching to bookstores to stock their books.
On the other hand, traditional book publishing companies will take your book under stringent legal conditions, then print and distribute your work through the industry’s established channels, including retail stores and online outlets. For all your hard work as the author, you might only get a small percentage (royalty) of the retail price.
So, how much more could you be making if you self-publish rather than using a traditional publisher? Have a look at the figures below:
If you get royalties through a traditional publishing deal:
- Print cost: $4.95
- Retail price: $14.99
- Your profit: 74 cents
If you self-sell:
- Print cost: $4.95
- Retail price: $14.99
- Your profit: $10.04
There’s a huge difference, as you can see. If you sell 200 copies of your book as a self-published author you can breakeven with your production costs, leaving any extra sales as pure profit.
The key to success when marketing as a self-published author is your network. Personal and author dedicated social media profiles are an excellent place to start. If you are a trainer, public speaker, consultant, or have any sort of profile within your potential readership target, you also have the capability of selling hundreds and hundreds of copies of your book at events, meetings, and seminars.
Green Hill can also help you out with marketing. We can write professional press releases, create stunning graphics, organise reviewers, and give you advice on how to best market your book. If this interests you, head over to our Marketing your book page to read more and get in touch!
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Interested in publishing your book but unsure where to start or what is even involved? Tell us about your project and we will post you a copy of our:
The Little Book of
Big Publishing Tips.
In just a quick 8,000 words, this little book will equip you with the knowledge you need to successfully publish your book.
The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.
