Self-Published Author Confessions: Why I Write Even When My Books Don't Sell

The short answer is: I can’t stop! There are too many voices in my head, and I have too many pre-made covers collecting dust in my cloud drive!

I’ll get to the long answer in a minute, but first I want to mention a trend I’ve seen lately.

There seems to be a lot of hype about how easy it is to publish a book. Some people go as far as saying it’s easy to make a living publishing books on Amazon. This has not been my experience, and while maybe it’s that way for some writers, I think it’s important to view writing and publishing realistically.

Self-publishing can be a rewarding path for authors, but the truth is that for many writers, it's not as easy as some gurus or courses make it seem. Many authors, myself included, have faced the challenges of making a living solely through book sales. 

After eight years of writing and self-publishing over 30 books, I average about $50 per month in book sales. Of course, it’s entirely possible I’m a bad writer. I’m always trying to improve and learn. Clearly I’m a bad marketer, but I’m willing to learn and try new things. That’s where my writing and publishing experiments come in.  

The goal of my first book

Since I started taking my writing seriously in 2016, my goal has been to earn a full time income as an author. For me, I’m aiming for about $5,000 per month after expenses. I am fortunate to be able to freelance and that has helped me pay the bills, because, if you’ve already done the math, I need to figure out how to multiply my monthly income from book sales by 100. That’s not 100% which would mean doubling my income, that’s 100 times. So $50 x 100 to get to $5000 and that doesn’t even take expenses into consideration.

My first book was nonfiction, and I mistakenly thought that it would sell well and earn me around $2,000. That was a goal I had set. What I actually earned in the seven years since publishing that book is a total of $20. I took multiple self-publishing courses and followed all the advice to a tee, including the launch plan. I didn’t understand where I went wrong. 

After some reflection and analyzing, I think the book is just too niche. Not enough people are looking for a book telling them how to find an accountant. So I decided to follow the next piece of advice I hear all the time which is, “If you want to sell more books, write more books.”

The realities of self-publishing

There are millions of books out there. This is awesome, because there are a lot of readers anxious to get their hands on new books. This means there are also a lot of good writers (both self-publishing and going the traditional route). If you’re a decent writer, you aren’t going to stand out. You need to be an exceptional writer or if you’re a decent writer then you need to be an exceptional marketer. 

If I’m being honest with myself, I know I’m not exceptional at writing or marketing, but I’m willing to keep learning and improving, so I keep going. I’ve read a ton of writing craft and marketing books and taken just as many courses. I thought I had learned something from all of them, but I’m still not meeting my goal of earning a living by selling my books.  

Business rules and creative careers

The experts say that most businesses fail in three to five years, so I’m happy to still be giving this writing thing a go after seven years. Do I wonder if I should give up my dream and focus on freelance writing or going back to the 9-5 grind? 

Often. More often than I would like. 

I recently watched an actors round table where six of Hollywood’s best actresses were discussing their careers. Over half of them said they waitressed or did various other jobs while acting on the side for about ten years. It took ten years for their success to take off in acting. This inspired me to give myself another two or three years to make a living writing books. It makes sense that creative careers have a different trajectory than the average entrepreneur. 

Celebrating small successes

I recently had some success with an ad I purchased. Up until this point, when I purchased an ad, whether it was on Amazon or a newsletter promo, I tried to be realistic and realize that I might lose all the money I spent on the ad if I had zero additional book sales as a result. This has happened many times. I’ve also had ads that made $20 or $30 or even recovered half of what I spent.

This time though, I advertised a free book in my Seasonal Singles series and changed the price of the other three books to 99 cents. Enough readers purchased the full series that I recovered all the money I spent on the ad plus about another $100. Finally, a success with advertising! So, I’ll be continuing to play around with this strategy with other series. 

Remembering why I started in the first place

Like so many writers, I remember always wanting to write a book. A picture book, specifically. Once I had kids, I thought, I don’t want to wait until I retire to write a book. I don’t want my kids to think they have to put their dreams on hold or that they can’t create a career from what they dream about doing. 

So I took a course and learned to self-publish. It never occurred to me to pitch agents for that first book, because it was so niche I was pretty sure there wasn’t going to be a market for it. I have no idea why I thought I would earn $2,000 from it. 

If I’m going to continue writing and publishing books that don’t sell then I’m going to have fun doing it. That’s why I write and draw in the first place. Creating is fun, gosh darn it! So, I’m going to pair the resources I have (whether it’s a craft book, a course, or a tool) with the projects I’m working on and share the results (mostly via course or book reviews) on my blog. 

I plan to have so much fun that it won’t matter if the books sell. Of course, I’m still going to continue marketing them when I can afford to. That means I need to keep freelancing and ghostwriting or finding some type of flexible part-time job so I can pay my bills.