Making Money From Self Publishing

Not so long ago, publishing your own book was next to impossible; today it’s easy to self publish on Amazon and several other online platforms. However, writing and publishing your e-book is only part of the process, and making money from book sales isn’t easy unless you work at it. However, there are steps you can take to increase your sales and make more money from your self-published book.

Firstly, your online book should be priced to sell. It’s no good pricing your book at $10 unless you are an established author; a more reasonable price is $2.99 for a book of several hundred pages. Amazon allows you to change the price, based on your sales or anything else, and they also have various promotions that can help you, such as a lower price for a limited time. And it may not seem to make much sense to give your electronic book away for free, but doing so can increase sales, in the long run, get an author some much-needed exposure, and generate positive reader reviews.

Making money from your book is much more likely if you have good reviews, and the more of them the better. Amazon operates a star rating system, and even an unknown author with a handful of 4 or 5-star reviews has more chance of selling a book than an author with no reviews. Reviews are often hard to come by, and as mentioned before, making your e-book available for free for a limited time can make a big difference. It’s also possible to ‘trade’ honest and genuine reviews with other authors.

Once you have your e-book available online for all the world to see, you need to spend time promoting and marketing it to increase your sales and make more money. There are dozens of sites that allow you to post, list, promote or market your book to potential readers; some are free, while others will charge you for their service. Social media is an obvious place to promote your book; take advantage of the author’s pages or any other platform that can help you.

But when it comes to marketing and advertising your book to increase sales, there are also plenty of other steps you can take. Flyers at your local library, coffee shop, and bookstore are easy and don’t cost much, although it’s also worth paying to have your own website or blog and perhaps business cards too. Making money from your own self-published book isn’t going to be easy, but with hard work and imagination, it’s possible.