How much money do amateur authors really make when they put their webnovels on Amazon?

[Mandark]

Its something I’ve wondered about for a while now, and I know there would be statistical anomalies, but on average when you see an author who has maybe 2 dozen patrons take their books down from site like this, to ‘rewrite’ it and put it on Amazon for 7-8.99, how much money does that person expect to bring in?

 

[hyperkvlt]

Probably not much. Unless you're extremely popular.

 

[Razmatazz]

Realistically, imo, if you don't have a strong enough following to half-way support yourself on Patreon already then you don't have a chance in hell on amazon. You'll be buried under an avalanche of content unless you write in an extremely specific niche or a non-English language

There was a thread here a few weeks ago

So how does publishin a book on amazon work?

Anyone tried publishing their webnovel on amazon in a book form? I know that the "Cinnamon Bun: A Wholesome LitRPG" series is on there, but I was wondering about the process, and if you did that how much time it took, and if it was worth it in general. Also, how do you split it? How many pages...

forum.scribblehub.com

 

[CadmarLegend]

Its something I’ve wondered about for a while now, and I know there would be statistical anomalies, but on average when you see an author who has maybe 2 dozen patrons take their books down from site like this, to ‘rewrite’ it and put it on Amazon for 7-8.99, how much money does that person expect to bring in?

Basically none. There are WAY too many books out there....

 

[KiraMinoru]

Basically none. There are WAY too many books out there....

Amateur author here who makes money on Amazon. Though the amount is a trade secret.

I will say that it’s extremely tough though and you are definitely more than likely going to flop unless you really know what you’re doing.

 

[CadmarLegend]

Amateur author here who makes money on Amazon. Though the amount is a trade secret.

I will say that it’s extremely tough though and you are definitely more than likely going to flop unless you really know what you’re doing.

A trade secret, eh?

 

[WasatchWind]

I concur with most of what is being said here - in my opinion, the only way to make it as a full time author, unless you're writing in a niche genre, is to go traditional publishing. Even if you don't care about getting your story in print, the big thing that a publisher does for you is helps you advertise your story - they get it into bookstores, they get covers made, audiobooks, etc.

They also make a contract with you where you get money beforehand for your story in addition to the money the book will make. Of course, this is a difficult position to get into, but I think if you're putting forth all the effort to make writing your career, this is a far more viable option than tossing your work into the winds of Amazon.

 

[KiraMinoru]

A trade secret, eh?

I think a lot of authors on Amazon prefer to keep that information a secret. If they do reveal it, it’d be in a way that people don’t know the main pen names they make their actual money on. It’s dog eat dog world on Amazon and it’s best not to stick your head out too far lest competition notices you and decides to fuck you over.

Amazon is a big gamble where if you’re a small timer independently self publishing, you’re an easy target to squash for the big players.

I concur with most of what is being said here - in my opinion, the only way to make it as a full time author, unless you're writing in a niche genre, is to go traditional publishing. Even if you don't care about getting your story in print, the big thing that a publisher does for you is helps you advertise your story - they get it into bookstores, they get covers made, audiobooks, etc.

They also make a contract with you where you get money beforehand for your story in addition to the money the book will make. Of course, this is a difficult position to get into, but I think if you're putting forth all the effort to make writing your career, this is a far more viable option than tossing your work into the winds of Amazon.

Nah, the main advantage of what publishers really provide is the term “#1 best seller” that they can freely slap on the cover of your book through bullshit means whenever they want. They can secretly buy up enough of the book themselves so it qualifies for that meaningless title and people see it and think it must be good. It doesn’t even cost them much to do it since they’d practically be paying themselves. They can then just resell those copies they bought. What sells is whatever garbage they want to feed people by making use of that title. They can easily pay off the right people for reviews and bam, people are convinced something is the holy bible no matter what sort of garbage it actually is. They simply make use of herd mentality.

Stories don’t even need to be good to sell, you just need convince people that it was good for it to sell. If enough people say it was good, then you’d just view yourself as an outlier if you didn’t like it and then move on with your life because most people don’t give enough shits to care.

 

[Ai-chan]

Its something I’ve wondered about for a while now, and I know there would be statistical anomalies, but on average when you see an author who has maybe 2 dozen patrons take their books down from site like this, to ‘rewrite’ it and put it on Amazon for 7-8.99, how much money does that person expect to bring in?

If you use Kindle Direct Publishing, it depends on your market presence and your pricing. If nobody knows you, then no matter how much you sell it for, nobody buys it. If you already have a Patreon following, you'd probably get more money from Patreon. If you use Kindle Unlimited, you'd probably get something, if people know you exist.

As for Ai-chan, when Ai-chan first published FSL, Ai-chan had USD700+ on the first month. On the second month, Ai-chan got USD600+, then it slowly went down from there until a year later, Ai-chan made less than USD50 a month. That first month was probably helped by FSL being in the top 50 of fantasy genre beating many other traditionally published novels such as Mortal Engines and Clockwork Prince.

As for the pricing you quoted, don't do that. That's way too high a nobody whose book is probably ridden with grammatical errors or typos with no professional editing. That's the price range of traditionally published electronic books by known authors.

 

[High-in-the-skys]

Nah, the main advantage of what publishers really provide is the term “#1 best seller” that they can freely slap on the cover of your book through bullshit means whenever they want. They can secretly buy up enough of the book themselves so it qualifies for that meaningless title and people see it and think it must be good. It doesn’t even cost them much to do it since they’d practically be paying themselves. They can then just resell those copies they bought. What sells is whatever garbage they want to feed people by making use of that title. They can easily pay off the right people for reviews and bam, people are convinced something is the holy bible no matter what sort of garbage it actually is. They simply make use of herd mentality.

Oooohh, this enlightened me... I always saw this cursed thing and thought the "#1 best seller" is a form of horrible book design. Seriously, I saw them bazillion times even if they're #1! Personally, I prefer them "clean" since those ugly things hide the beautiful book covers even if they're at the corner...

 

[xluferx]

You are more likely to make more money through Patreon or Koffi than on amazon, unless you are a extremely popular author on the internet,