If you are just an ordinary person trying to write and publish their first book, it can be so difficult to know what you should really expect. The whole process can seem daunting, and it’s hard to know for sure what exactly you’ll reap from all that effort. So many people will ask us what they can expect to earn after they write, revise, edit and finally publish their book.
Most of the obvious stats available are from Best-seller lists with recognizable names, but most authors are not celebrities or well-known names. We are just ordinary people who want to get our ideas out in the world in a real way. In today’s video and blog, we’ll talk about realistic expectations from what you may earn from publishing, both from potential sales to secondary benefits.
Sometimes when you don’t know how to start, it can stall your dreams for months, even years. We have helped so many writers not only get started but see the project through the very end! We have created a great free resource to help you make a plan to finally tell the story that lives in your heart. Download the free Memoir Method Checklist today to get started.
Some Figures on Book Earnings
There is a lot of available data on how much authors sell and earn out there, but the ranges are so big and the vary so widely, it can be hard to gauge what insights we should take from them. Some of these figures are covered in a bit more detail in our previous post, “How much do Self-Published Authors Make?” Let’s break it down.
From the 2023 Alliance of Independent Authors study, the median earnings for self-published authors that number for self-published authors was $12,749. For traditional, it was less than half of that at $6,080. The most recent averages that we have is from the 2022 survey. For a self-published author, it was $82,600.
Mathmatically, when there’s a big difference between the median (if we take all the numbers in order, median is the middle number) and the mean or average indicates that there are big outliers on one or both ends of the spectrum. This is the case with authorship–some writers make quite a lot and others make next to nothing. Some authors will publish a book and just leave it, with little marketing or follow up, so that low end is not totally surprising. Other authors are well-established and have developed a consistent audience over a number of titles. We can see that how much you put into it will affect your sales numbers, but what many authors don’t always take into account is the many other benefits having a published book can give you in the scope of your overall career.
What else can you earn from publishing
Direct sales can vary quite a bit, but there are other benefits to being a published author. Financially, having a published book can also lead to giving key notes presentations, consulting, coaching, and perhaps expanding your business or career in new ways that will add up to dollars and cents, if not as directly as book sales. It can be hard to calculate this secondary earning power having a published book will give you, and it is going to be very specific to each individual and how they go about their own strategy and goals. It can lead, like a domino effect, to more lucrative opportunities down the road, even if they can be hard to predict or measure. However there are also more things you can earn from publishing that don’t boil down to profits. Keeping these in mind can help motivate you to get that book to the shelves.
Credibility and Connection
When you are a published author, there comes with it a new element of credibility. You have taken your experience and expertise and have done the work of making it tangible, something people can actually hold in their hands as evidence of your credibility. No matter what your field or industry, that credibility is priceless and can open the doors to a lot of potential connections and opportunities.
First, it’s just an amazing feeling when you encounter people in the wild that have read your book. When you think fo sales as a numbers came, you can lose sight of the fact that each individual sale represents a person who’s getting your book. When one of those people may meet you, especially as you network in your field or industry, there’s nothing quite like having your name recognized in association with your book. Our all authors love to tell us the first time this happens because there’s just nothing else quite like it. That recognition can add up and lead to amazing connections both professionally and personally.
Our author Wendy Davis is a great example of how this works in practice. Wendy is a active politician in Salt Lake City, Utah, and her memoir The Fight You Don’t See tells the story of her very near win in her race for Utah State Senate. Wendy wrote her book because she strongly feels how important it is for voters to understand the complexity of behind-the-scenes politics. Publishing a book has given her a way to share that in no other way could, but it’s also opened doors of other opportunities. While networking after her book was published, Wendy made connections with Main Street Alliance, which is a national network of small businesses that aims to give small business owners a stronger voice on public policy issues. Through that connection, Wendy was invited to be part of a group presenting small business concerns to the White House. Money cannot buy that can of opportunity.
Momentum and Excitement
Adam Tank’s Luck By Design is about how little unexpected moments can have big impacts in your life. It is an entertaining read full of examples from both Adam’s life and the lives of people whose names you’d recognize, but might not know about the little twists of luck (and design) that made them who they are. Adam is also a regular speaker for entrepenurial conferences, and one strategy that has help him drive the momentum of getting his ideas out there has been working with conference holders to make bulk orders for those attending the conference. This gives those attending a great value, and also helps create more buzz around the ideas he is sharing, makes his name more memorable with the tangible take-away of the book, and gets many more eyes on his book.
Helping others
How much money you’re going to make is often not what pushes people to write a book in the first place. When you want to write a book, it’s because you have a story or a set of ideas that you deeply believe that people will benefit from knowing and sharing. When you can get evidence that those ideas are out there, helping others in the world, there is nothing more valuable that you can earn from publishing.
Victor James Hill’s The Ignorant Man’s Son is a memoir about Victor’s time growing up in the projects in Pontiac, Michigan, outside of Detroit, and really working with the kids in that area to form these social programs. He helped a lot of them join basketball teams, play basketball. He had a league so that he was really uplifting the kids from his community and helping them find things that they loved and that they could invest in. His close-knit community generated a lot of buzz when his book first came out, and that buzz spread. Victor received a letter from a prison near to where he grew up. The man was inspired to Victor’s story–and not only his story, but that someone from the environment he grew up in could grow to become a published author. Victor’s story, and his book out in the world, was proof that dreams were possible.
Writing a book can be one piece of a lucrative career, but it can also be valuable in so many other ways that don’t boil down to dollars and cents. The influence, connections, and impact you can make are bigger and more real than just sales figures. When you keep that purpose in mind, it’s going to move you forward so much more quickly and with so much more joy.
