Blog home

How to leverage the 4 reasons publishing game works in your favor NOW more than ever before

books marketing Feb 05, 2024

For the previous few posts, we’ve talked about the publishing industry— and talked about why NOW it’s never been easier than ever before to share your message with the world.

The reality is this: the industry has changed (making NOW one of the best times— and easiest periods in history— to get your message to the masses).

Consider the data:

📙 The top 5 publishers now account for less than 20% of the best-selling eBooks.

📙Less than 1/2 of author earnings come from traditional publishers.

📙The average authors sells less than 100 books, while the top 1% of authors make most of the $$$ in traditional publishing.

📙Long-term the money is in self- publishing, whereby you can earn more (re: $.50/book vs. $6/book).

Throughout our training resources I use the $6 profit per book number— since it seems consistent (if you choose to sell the book at retail). You can easily extrapolate the numbers.

And, though the numbers don’t seem radically different in the beginning, notice the difference in income when you compare 10,000 copies of self-published books to 10,000 copies of traditionally-published books.

For sure, if you self-publish the book you won’t receive and advance.

But, though we regularly read of celebrity authors receiving massive advances, the average payment is about $10,000— of which initially royalties go towards repaying.

For this— and other reasons, many first time authors (especially) lean towards self-publishing.

Plus, as we highlight in this video, four major changes have caused the publishing industry to now work in favor of self-publishing.

🚛 Distribution has changed— the only way to sell a book in the past was through a bookstore. That’s no longer the case. 70% of sales now occur online.

💵 Royalties have adjusted… and the game changes when you sell 1,000 copies— if you market it correctly and do upsells.

💵 The cost to publish has dropped. The traditional outlets will cover all of your financial costs on the front end, but the total “cost” of this might be greater…

⏰ Time. Self-publishing wins, every-time, at “speed to market.”