Over at Romance Divas there’s a discussion about income from indie vs. traditional publishing . A NY Times bestselling author mentioned she was surprised to discover [as were many of us] that indie publishing had made up the lion’s share of her profits for 2011.
Curiosity got the best of me, and I sat down with all my tax paperwork and a calculator to figure out the same. I thought I’d share some numbers with you. The title of the post may be a bit misleading because these are only percentages rather than actual figures, but I think they’re interesting nonetheless.
Total household income: 100%
My husband’s income: 59%
My total income: 41%
My total income: 100%
My part time ‘day’ job: 23% of my income 9.3% of total household income
Traditional publishing: 60% of my income 25% of total household income
Editing: 9% of my income 3.4% of total household income
Indie publishing: 8% of my income 3.7% of total household income
Total: 100% 41% approx.
So, while that NY Times bestselling author is now making most of her income through indie publishing, this year, the lion’s share of my personal income still came from traditional publishers. I have a feeling next year will be significantly different – I wish I could say it would be because I plan to make so much more money from my indie publishing, but the truth is, I’ve cut back on my work for traditional publishers to concentrate on indie because I find I revel in the freedom of it. I’m not sure I’ll get rich, but I like the idea of having so much more control of my product, over my covers, my release dates, etc. I always said I never wanted to be a publisher. I always wanted a partner in publishing to take the burden off of me to make all the decisions, but having had the opportunities I’ve had this year, and despite making the most from traditional publishing that I have in any year since I’ve been published, I still want to pursue indie.
I’m looking forward to next year’s breakdown and I wonder where the differences will be.
If you indie publish, would you like to share what percentage of your income came from that vs. traditional publishing?
4 comments:
Interesting numbers. I get that you enjoy the freedom of indie publishing, but I'm curious if there's ANYTHING you miss about traditional?
I miss the thrill of knowing a manuscript was accepted by a publisher, that affirmation meant a lot to me when I first started out. And as much as it can be fun and empowering to design my own cover, set my own price, choose my own release date, etc, it was nice to know those things would be taken care of for me so I could be free t get back to writing once a manuscript was submitted. And I miss not having someone to go to with a problem - if there's an issue with formatting, or anything, now I'm the one responsible. I can't blame a publisher...LOL...or ask them for help in fixing something.
I miss the thrill of knowing a manuscript was accepted by a publisher, that affirmation meant a lot to me when I first started out. And as much as it can be fun and empowering to design my own cover, set my own price, choose my own release date, etc, it was nice to know those things would be taken care of for me so I could be free t get back to writing once a manuscript was submitted. And I miss not having someone to go to with a problem - if there's an issue with formatting, or anything, now I'm the one responsible. I can't blame a publisher...LOL...or ask them for help in fixing something.
Things are changing and changing fast in publishing. I think that Indie publishing will be a much bigger player in the years to come.
Jai
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