Show Me the Money: Large Publisher v. Small Publisher v. Self-Publishing
A Literal Literary Loser Talks Making a Profit
After 30 years in the writing trenches, I’ve done it all. I’ve had books published by major publishing houses and their imprints, including HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Avon, Dell, Berkely, etc….
I’ve been published by a micro-press, and I have self-published.
So let’s talk money!
I am not going to talk about the hardcovers I’ve had published by Big 5 presses. Those advances were in the six figures (though the respective agencies who negotiated those deals took a 20% commission, which put the actual earnings in the high five figures).
What I want to compare today is being published by a micro-press, versus going it on my own.
My most recent book, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” was released by History Through Fiction in November of 2022. It went on pre-order in September 2022.
History Through Fiction edited the book, formatted it for print and e-sales, had the cover designed, and arranged the promotional blog tour. I spent absolutely no money out of pocket, though I did and continue to do promotional appearances, guest blogs, podcast interviews, and more.
For the sales period of July 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” has earned a total of $1,392.25 in royalties.
Now let’s compare my self-published sales from the same time period.
In fiction, my best-selling title is “The Figure Skating Mystery Series (5 Books in 1).” Because all five titles were originally published by Berkley Prime Crime, I did not pay to have them edited. I formatted them myself (OK, my more tech-minded husband did it; but he works for me - cheap), and I paid to have new covers made. I also outlined the money I spent promoting it during the 2021 Olympic season, here.
For the sales period of July 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022, “The Figure Skating Mystery Series (5 Books in 1)” has earned a total of $92.72. For the entire 2022 year, it earned $844.88. (And 20% of that goes to The Ice Theatre of NY, which provided the videos to make the books multimedia.)
But that was fiction. I wrote here about the differences between marketing fiction and non-fiction.
My best-selling non-fiction title is “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten.” For this book, I edited it myself, my husband, once again, did the formatting, and my then 13 year old son designed the cover, with my then 6 year old daughter as the model.
For the sales period of July 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022, “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” earned a total of $585.96. For the entire 2022 year, it earned $1,018.09.
Since its publication in April 2015, “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten’s” lifetime earnings are $12,040.04. I spent no money to publish or promote it, but I have spent countless man-hours and will continue to do so indefinitely.
“My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” has only been out for seven months. I do not count the money the publisher spent on publishing and promoting it as a profit on my end, but I do consider it an expense saved.
Will “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region’s” lifetime earnings ever match those of “The Figure Skating Mystery Series,” which is $1,861.09? (In this case, I am not counting money earned from the individual titles sold separately, or, naturally, the original Berkley advance. You can see the full breakdown, here.)
Will lifetimes sales and the royalties I make on them ever match “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten?”
Stay tuned for the answer!
At BookLocker.com, we have had several authors land traditional contracts after self-publishing through us. However, many have returned to us because their earnings through traditional publishers were so low. Most traditional publishers expect new authors to do all of the promotional work. If a book takes off, only then will the invest marketing dollars. Those authors were doing the same amount of work, but earned higher royalties through BookLocker than they did later through the traditional publishers.
I had one title published through St. Martin's Press after self-publishing it for years. It sold extremely well. I earned more than $700 selling it through my own website, WritersWeekly.com, on the very first day. It was only available as an ebook at that time. I was still working on designing the print files. The advance from St. Martin's was nice but the publisher made me take my self-published edition off the market while they worked on their edition. I lost over a year of sales while they worked every so slowly (and their editor made mistakes over and over again that I had to keep telling her to fix). Also, by the time they got their edition on the market, some of the information was old and some links no longer worked. Was I going to go through the whole process with them again? No way!
They even tried to tell me I had to hand over my website, WritersWeekly.com, to them. Ha ha ha. That was NOT in the contract! After it finally hit the market, they did essentially nothing to promote the book. I never made another dime on that book. If I had kept self-publishing it, I'd have made a LOT more money.
Years later, I self-published a book on a very similar subject and sales have been consistent and strong. I update it on a regular basis and my royalty percentages are much higher through self-publishing than those offered by St. Martin's Press.
Thank you for the transparency.