
My self-published book: 11,000 copies, $19,000 royalties, only $3,000 profit!? - kadavy
https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/is-self-publishing-worth-it/?refer
======
amayne
“Advertising: $15,422.60”

I think I’ve found your problem.

Your reviews are great. The endorsements are fantastic.

I’ve sold over 250,000 self-published books on Amazon and as many
traditionally published. However I’ve never paid more than $1,000 to promote a
book.

Buying ads is a way to bring readers to a book that is getting ignored, but in
my experience it’s not going to drive sales. Every book is different. I’ve
serialized them in podcasts, spent day-after-day livestreaming and done
everything else I could think of.

If I had to guess why it hasn’t been getting traction it might partially be
the page count. 138 pages for an ebook feels steep to me. I’d also keep
playing with the description. That is extremely key. I had one novel go from
well-reviewed but modest-selling to a 100,000 in sales (and getting me in an
Amazon press release as one of the top 10 selling indie authors that year)
after I changed my cover and description to better represent the book.

Side note: The title sounds a lot like Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start and may
confuse people. I’d hate for what sounds like a wonderful book to get looked
over.

~~~
tsniam
Wow! That is insane. About to self-publish a novel about driverless cars. Can
you point me to your blog or other resources on this?

~~~
Mathnerd314
His website is [http://andrewmayne.com/](http://andrewmayne.com/).

> I’ve sold over 250,000 self-published books

I interpreted this as he wrote and published umpteen-thousand books, but his
Amazon lists only 30. I'm guessing he meant copies of the books.

~~~
PaulRobinson
When you see a number that looks unreasonable based on your assumptions (how
many books would he publish a day if that were accurate? What percentage of
books on Amazon would he have published?), it is often useful to challenge
your assumptions and ask if there is another way to frame the statement that
makes more sense.

If English is not your native language, this can be subtle and catch you off-
guard. I know that.

However, to "sell over 250,000 [...] books", would idiomatically be considered
a number of copies, not a number of distinct titles.

Your response comes across - completely unintentionally, I presume - as a
little obtuse in the "being slow to understand" sense, and if this is
something you find others commenting on you might personally benefit from
doing some work on it.

------
PhilWright
The author starts with 'David Kadavy is bestselling author of The Heart to
Start'. I find this odd, because he only managed to sell 11,000 copies. Don't
get me wrong, 11k is nothing to be ashamed and 11k more than me, but surely
that does not constitute bestselling, does it?

Then I read on and 'Selling more than 11,000 copies in the first year is great
(okay, 8,000 if you don’t count the 3,000 I gave away)'. Wow, so actually you
sold 8,000 and not 11,000. Apart from this one line the author repeats over
and over again about selling 11,000. But he didn't be sold 8,000 but
constantly misrepresents that number everywhere.

I don't know if his books are great or not but the hyped headline, inflated
numbers and spammy feel of the blog post make me unwilling to try it.

~~~
kadavy
Thanks for reading. I'm pretty open about the fact that "bestseller" is
relatively meaningless, but that I use it anyway.

Some people will say that you only have a "real" bestseller if NYT or WSJ say
so. And, as described in the article, you could sell 3,000 99¢-cent ebooks in
a week and be a WSJ bestseller. Well short of 11k or 8k for that matter. No
guarantee you'd sell another book after that timeframe. Authors manipulate
these lists all of the time. Especially NYT, which is curated.

Just about anybody can get a "bestseller" tag on Amazon. Is that somehow not a
bestseller? It's an argument in semantics.

I talk about it more in this article: [https://writingcooperative.com/yes-
your-amazon-best-seller-i...](https://writingcooperative.com/yes-your-amazon-
best-seller-is-a-real-best-seller-185832c8fcc4)

------
apo
The steep marketing spend ("more than $15,000") may have something to do with
the title/subtitle. Specifically, it doesn't say anything to me at least:

The Heart to Start: Win the Inner War & Let Your Art Shine

This is a book for procrastinators then? For people who doubt themselves? For
the timid? Artists only? Start what?

Assuming the book is for me, it's not clear how actionable the advice it
contains will be given the lack of specificity.

I would consider re-titling the book with a clear message for a specific group
of people. I think it's even possible to A/B test this on Amazon, but I'm not
sure.

What process _did_ the author use to choose the title? Control-f on "title"
gives no hits.

Compare this with the author's previous book, Design for Hackers. Are you a
hacker? Do you need help with design? This book is for you. Sold!

~~~
kadavy
Thanks for the input! I may experiment with the subtitle. I had other
strategies in mind with the current one – but that was a whole year ago, and I
know much more now.

------
jammygit
In the article he basically describes how his profits were swallowed up by
marketing expenses. I wish he had broken down in more detail the $50,000 in
royalties from his other traditionally-published book since it was such a
drastically different deal for him

"After selling more than 11,000 copies in its first year, The Heart to Start
has earned a little more than $3,000 profit. That’s a barely twenty-nine cents
per book.

By comparison, I’ve sold about 16,000 copies of my traditionally-published
book, Design for Hackers. That has earned nearly $50,000 in royalties (plus at
least twice that in related course sales)."

later:

"Here’s the basic breakdown of my earnings and expenses for the first year of
The Heart to Start:

    
    
        Copies sold: 11,374 (3,099 were free)
        Total Royalties: $19,173.31
        Fixed Production Costs: $431
        Advertising: $15,422.60
        Total Profit: $3,319.74

"

~~~
kadavy
Thanks for reading and commenting. As for breaking down the $50,000, what did
you have in mind? It was simply selling 16,000 copies.

I suppose I could break down every foreign rights deal and what was ebooks vs
paperback, but given the reporting of my publisher, that would be like reading
tea leaves. Would that be helpful in some way?

------
fxfan
Fixed title: Author sells 11k books for 19k after 15k in ad spending via self
publishing.

There is absolutely nothing else to the entire long article.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
8k books. "Author nets 37 cents a book after years of writing"

