Last month, Tracey Edwards self-published to the Amazon Kindle Store a nonfiction book about the stock market. She’s previously published nonfiction titles through a traditional publisher, but as this is her first time going the DIY Kindle route, she’s documenting the experience on her blog.
Her July numbers are modest, but she’s happy with them so far:
Well the month has just finished and while 5 Simple Rules has only been up since the 8th July I thought I’d report on my progress so far.
As of today I have sold 10 copies.
10 copies that I’m actually pretty thrilled with given it’s my first month (indie authors usually notoriously have low numbers in the first few months) and that it’s a book on the stock market (not exactly a hot topic right now).
So for 10 copies at $2.99 my royalties are: $18.34 (8 @ 70% + 2 @ 35%).
$18.34
Edwards adds that she’s now working on getting more titles up, to see if she can exploit the backlist effect that seems to work so well for authors like Locke, Hocking and Konrath:
What does this mean? Does it mean that you can make money being a nonfiction indie author or not?
Ahh do not give up grasshoppers because like I said this is my first month. Plus it’s the only book I have up on Kindle so far (actually that’s not entirely true – I just uploaded a romance erotica short story under a pen name – just to see – too early to tell about this genre yet though).
The real key to making money with the Kindle is to have lots more books up. So this month I’ll be working on the second of my simple rules books. This one will be more a general personal finance topic rather than a specific stock market title.
Read the full post at Tracey Writes Books (via Publetariat)
Thanks for being so upfront about numbers. It sure it hard to know whether to keep trying or throw in the hat. Best to you!