Hmm…interesting.
Partially, it is discouraging. When you see a low number like 40, why bother?
Partially, it is validating. I always beat myself up for not fully going for it as a writer – i.e. I tell myself “If you’d of just thrown caution to the wind and gave writing your all instead of playing itself and getting a day job…”
Then another part of me asks what is the definition of success? If I can take in an extra $10,000 in income, that’d probably be enough to motivate me to write in my spare time into perpetuity.
I hope there will be a rise in middle class writers – i.e. people who are able to take in 50,000 a year with their writing. They won’t get rich but they won’t be in the poorhouse either. Writing seems like a rich or poorhouse proposition without much middle in between. Hopefully that changes.
The cat is out of the bag, finally we know exactly how many self-published authors make it big: 40.
Yes, that’s not a typo.
40 self-published authors “make money”, all the others, and they number in the hundreds of thousands, don’t. This interesting statistic, recently revealed in a New York Times article, applies to the Kindle Store, but since Amazon is in fact the largest digital publishing platform in the world, it is a safe bet that self-published authors are not doing any better elsewhere.
“Making money” here means selling more than one million e-book copies in the last five years. Yes, 40 authors have managed that, and have even gone on to establishing their own publishing house, like Meredith Wild. Her story is fully reported in the New York Times, here, and well worth pondering over.
That story reveals some further nuggets about the current…
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Bookshelf Battle 
one million is ridiculous. That’s big boy numbers and so the fact that 40 people have hit that is awesome! Clearly self publishing is gaining traction on traditional publishing. I’d be happy to sell 1000? hell even 500 would make me smile.
I would too. I hate to say it though a lot of this, at least for me, depends on money.
I have limited free time. I do most of my writing late at night when all of the various people in my life who need me are fast asleep.
Money coming in would turn the reaction people around me have about my writing from, “God that lazy selfish dork sits around writing about zombies when he could be…I don’t know…moving my sofa…dusting my lamp…driving me to the podiatrist…you name it.”
Money coming in would change that to “Shhh leave him alone so he can write more, he’s making zombie money.”
People should maybe have reasonable expectations. Don’t get your heart set on becoming a millionaire. It isn’t likely.
But, if you could write and sell enough books so that your job is you get up and you’re pursuing your dream all day, getting paid to do it, getting paid enough that you’re living comfortably…well that isn’t so bad.
Hell, I’d be happy just to make back the money I spent on creating the damn book.
I don’t buy it. First of all, you have to sell millions to “make money”? Please. I didn’t sell anywhere near a million last year – or a hundred thousand, or fifty thousand, or… and I made enough to quit my day job. Second, this is reported by the New York Times, a publication famously on the side of the Big 5. They’re the same guys who said ebooks were dying and print was king because traditional publishers saw a dip in their ebook sales – a designed dip.
I hope this doesn’t discourage anyone. It kind of makes me mad.
It all really depends on a definition of success. A person who won’t do something unless there’s a guarantee of becoming a millionaire probably would have a hard time being a writer.
On the other hand, there was some mention that the median income for writers was 8-10,000 and that it’d slipped.
Well, that is chump change but an extra ten grand a year could motivate me to keep writing in my spare time.
Technology, I think, will expand the number of writers who can make a living doing what they love. They won’t be buying mansions like James Patterson, but they won’t be on the street either.
You’re right; success is a fluid definition. I’d still call 10K “making money”, but maybe that’s just me. LOL. 😉
And that’s the median, so half made more than that. Of course, that’s not enough to make a living, but geez – 10K+ times half of all indies is certainly not chump change. I doubt Amazon would say the money they paid to indies who sold less than a million didn’t count.
I’m still fairly new to self-publishing (started in late 2014, restarted in 2015) so the money I make from sales isn’t all that high. While deriving a primary income from doing what I love the most has an appeal, it’s not my sole motivation because I rarely do anything merely for the money.
I’m not discouraged! I have a day job and I write at night and on weekends, because I love doing it.
As Allison Maruska said above, the NYT is on the side of traditional publishing, so of course they would have some confirmation bias. I take this report with a grain of salt, but thank you for posting about it.
Publishing is going the way of music and filmmaking – things got REALLY interesting once independents got more clout. Think of young George Lucas, Sam Raimi, and Stanley Kubrick, or all those young punk/grunge musicians living out of their cars. That’s what I think of when I’m having a case of the ‘why bothers.’
Don’t give up! Stay with it!
Yeah the article could have been titled differently. “Only 40 Have Sold Over a Million in 5 Years” or something.
I’d be curious if there are any stats as to how many people make $40,000 a year or more selling their books. That’s success too. You get to do what your want and your relatives can’t really give you crap at Thanksgiving
Right! ‘Success’ for some people (like me) would be just supporting myself by writing – paying my meagre rent and bills, and keeping food on the table without accruing debt. It just depends on what they mean – success for some might ONLY mean ‘able to afford a swank apartment in downtown Manhattan.’
Thanks for posting this … I need to check out the article. And I agree with other commenters that selling a million of books doesn’t qualify as “success.” I think if you can support yourself by selling books, that’s how success should be qualified. You can, as others have done, quit your day job and make a living out of what you love to do.