Indie or Legacy Publishing?

How to Earn a Living from Your Books!

I am a mid-list author. I don’t have huge breakout books, best-sellers or anyone knocking down my door to create a movie from my books. What I have going for me, financially speaking, is that I indie publish. It’s why I can earn a living.

Laura Purdie Salas, a children’s book author does a yearly breakdown of her income. Here’s the post that summarizes her income from 2007 to 2023. She’s a literary success, with many award-winning books. And yet, she had to take a part-time job at a grocery store this year. Astounding. Heart-breaking. Read the post for an honest look at legacy publishing from the POV of the author’s finances.

This may be generally true. The most recent (2023) Authors Guild survey supports this bleak outlook.

- For those who consider themselves to be full-time authors, they earn only half of their "writing related" income from books, and the other half from activities like speaking, teaching writing, editing, copy writing etc.

- The median for all authors was $20,000 a year from writing related sources and $10,000 from books. For those who had been writing for over 4 years the incomes were higher. When you look at just commercial books (ie trade) the median income is $25,000 from all writing sources and $15K from books.

It looks bleak. Read the full report for other details.

Let me just say: indie publishing can be far more successful financially, even for this mid-list author. I pay myself a modest salary, and make a yearly profit.

Here are my numbers for 2023.