" 40 self-published authors “make money” "

" “Making money” here means selling more than one million e-book copies in the last five years. "

^^^

If selling over a million books is the benchmark by which you determine that someone is making money, I think the person who wrote that blog has an inflated idea of what it means to have a successful publishing career.

The notion that there are only 40 successful Kindle authors is absurd.

Sure, it's a tough business but with good content, some promotional skills, branding (especially in the context of creating multiple books within one genre), there have been MANY Kindle publishers who have gone on to make a full-time income and beyond.

This post tickles me so much, heh.

Regards,
Daniel

I'm just fine selling a few hundred of each book. If it's successful or not, who cares?

There is a lot that comes with being a bestselling author. One of which is content, and another exposure. Many people miss it in one category. Obviously if your content is uninteresting to the masses but loved by Oprah, it will be a hit :-)
Successful is subjective as well, but there are ppl who make decent money monthly on there. I still get paid from books I put there years ago, and forgot about!

What do you consider successful? This headline was more misleading than a lot of the Kindle coaching programs.

I don't doubt most authors don't make anything notable. I'm also willing to bet most authors don't publish from a business perspective - publishing fiction books (which are competing with every other single fiction book for the purpose of entertainment, with no real marketing plan) rather than proven in-demand topics.

I have never published a book that wasn't worth my time.

Hi go in deep:
I use to make a lot of money on amazon. Sadly, they keep changing the rules of the game. Always in their favor not ours. This news should surprise no one. Well, I still remember how they rolled out their Kindle Unlimited and said it would help us. Actually, it cut my sales in half, but that was not enough for amazon. They then change the formula on how they pay us. Sadly, it is now per page.

Jeff Bezos is a genius; Yeah, a genius at finding new ways to not pay us. First it is 10% or more of the book must be read to pay us. Then it is per page. What next is my question, and I do not want to hear the answer,

Here is a good, up-to-date resource regarding the opportunities in Kindle fiction ;-)

February 2016 Author Earnings Report: Amazon’s Ebook, Print, and Audio Sales – Author Earnings

And, I might add, a lot of members in Geoff Shaw's Kindling are happy to have you believe it can't be done, while they laugh their way to the bank ;-)

And here is a good post by a Warrior with numbers that further discredit the theory.

How I Sold 978 Fiction Ebooks Per Day in 2014… (The Complete Breakdown) – MikeShreeve.com

Now... Is it easy? Nope. It takes work and focus and work, but... It can be done.

If you do your own writing, it can be done with a minimal financial investment beyond Butt In Chair time...

The two elements that appeal to me --
1) You end up with Intellectual Property that can be used/reworked for years to come... As opposed to AdWords sites, for instance <wink, wink>

And...

2) Fiction is entertainment, so, unlike NF where you solve a problem and they move on, your Fiction Fans generally purchase multiple books. ;-)

Isn't it great there are options out there for everyone.

I'm happy to have a far better shot at a long term fiction business than most folks have with IM. But each of us is different and we need to follow the path that is best for us. ;-)

Writing may be a poor man occupation before but nowadays it has great value. A writer gets good payment at current time by writing a quality piece of content! If you write low quality content you'll get reputation of poor author that's for sure.

So the Amazon Kindle authors are all great writers and they've worked hard to become successful in their career.

This is absurd. I felt the need to weigh in here because there is a lot of speculation, but no one seems to be providing an experienced point of view from the trenches of Indie publishing... So here is mine.

I have not sold a million copies in the last five years, but I was shocked to discover that Amazon doesn't consider me to be making money. My first thought was... Only 40??? Who are the other 38? Because I KNOW I make money writing fiction. I have published 7 independent novels since late 2013, and I will pull 6 figures NET this year solely from book sales. Last year was over 90, and the year before wasn't far behind that. I'm publishing 3 quality novels a year and making what I consider to be a GOOD living. I have a close friend I KNOW also makes money writing nonfiction, also about 3 quality books a year. I also have plenty of friends whom I ASSUME make money in fiction. I haven't seen their banks statements, but I can make a good guess.

The key is that you can't churn out garbage and expect to make money. If you can't write or produce quality content that people want to buy, then you're going to have to choose a different way to make a living. But I am right here, and I can vouch for the reality of indie publishing. If you write what people want to read, you CAN make money.

***My Advice:

If you have any writing or storytelling talent, sit down and squeeze out 50,000 to 100,000 words. 80-90,000 is the sweet spot for fiction novels. It won't be easy, but you can do it! Choose a sub-genre that is slightly off the main parent genre but has a number of books in the top 2,000 on Kindle. Hire an editor if you can for a few hundred bucks. Good editors are used to all kinds of writers. As long as you're good at story/structure OR grammar/style, they can fix you right up. Join a large Facebook group about your chosen genre with plenty of READERS, and make a post asking for beta readers. Many readers who love your chosen subject will jump at the chance to give their input. Find a quality pre-made cover. There are plenty of designers offering them for about $60-$120 each. A great cover is gold. And finally, Kindle Unlimited is terrible for income and I have no experience with it myself, but I see other authors using it to build a following. There is DEFINITELY a ranking benefit with KU.
***
That's all I can think of right now. Maybe my words will give some hope to those of you who truly have a dream of publishing, but who are discouraged by the conflicting or downright negative things you hear. There is no quick and easy get-rich-by-publishing-crap opportunity, but there is a REAL opportunity for people who make the effort to do it right instead of trying to cut corners and game the system.

I'm sure there are plenty more making 3-5k+/m that no one knows about.

Interesting thread; as someone who started writing for Kindle over two years ago I've connected with a lot of authors. I personally know ten authors who are earning well over 75k per year from their writing and 3 who earn well over 200k.

All of them have shared that it was a lot of HARD work and going through a period of doubting themselves. I can relate to that because I worked my ass of with all writing, editing, proofing, coming up with blurbs and book covers that CONVERT and sometimes changing it up to see if I could beat the control group.

Self-publshing isn't for the faint of heart or people looking for the fast buck. I think now and today is one of the best times to get into the writing business as long as you treat it like a business and write what your audience wants to read.

One book isn't going to cut it, six is probably a good start, and having a long term view and a marketer's mindset is what separates the authors who SELL and the ones who don't.

RoD

It's probably more then 40 but very few in % just like most jobs. Authors (most of them) are poor just go on forums and you can figure it out in 5 minutes. I'm sure that 1% of them are very rich on the other side.