When people think about financially successful authors, they usually imagine someone selling millions of copies, landing on a bestseller list, and collecting royalty checks for the rest of their life.
This recently happened with Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden, giving aspiring self-published authors hope that it’s still possible.
While it’s technically possible for your unknown, self-published book to go viral, what’s much more likely is that you’ll write a book in your spare time while working your “real” job, hustle to sell a few thousand copies, and hopefully make enough money to write the next book. Maybe you’ll even open a few doors along the way.
The writer living in a cabin in the woods, writing full-time and living off royalties, is incredibly rare. And for most aspiring authors, it’s an outdated business model.
The bad news is that in a crowded market, it’s harder than ever to sell books to the general public. But the good news is that you don’t have to. In this post I want to show you the math of non-fiction self-publishing, and hopefully encourage you to see your book as a worth investment and business generation.
So let’s start here: You don’t have to write a bestseller to make money as an author.
Sure, it would be great if your book was selected for Oprah’s book club, but all you have to do is sell a few thousand copies to make a profit, and generation other revenue streams.
