There’s a lot of flashy showmanship and big promises within the self-publishing industry, but a lack of reasonable information and realistic expectations.
At Columbus Publishing Lab, we value long-term, mutually-beneficial relationships with our authors, based on trust.
As you consider self-publishing, we think it’s important that you base your decision on facts. We’re committed to honesty and transparency, and our average author earnings is helpful information as you consider self-publishing with us. When you make a confident choice with realistic expectations, we have a foundation for a successful relationship. And that’s good for everyone.
Of our royalty-receiving publishing clients, the average author received $933 in royalties in 2017.
A portion of our books have very limited sales—these books are family memoirs, books for a specific audience or event, or they’ve been on the market for a long time. In any case, the author isn’t pushing this book and doesn’t want or expect a lot of sales. When we adjust the same data set for these books by eliminating all of the authors who received less than $100 over the year, the average “active” author received $1,530 in royalties from us in 2017.
We encourage all of our authors to think about their book as a two-year investment. On that timeline, greater than 65% of our authors recover more money in royalties than they spent on production with us. I think these numbers reflect that. Most of our authors turn a profit, and these numbers don’t even include books sold directly by the authors, which we don’t track.
In addition to the royalties they receive from us, most of our authors directly sell books (which they can buy from us at the cost to print)—at events, festivals, through their website, on consignment at local bookstores, or through distribution channels they might have set up personally. Our average royalty listed above is only for book sales through conventional distribution methods like Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Kobo and iTunes which are administrated by us. Most of our authors are making money with direct sales as well as the royalties they receive from Columbus Publishing Lab, which means that in reality, our average active author is making significantly more than the $1,530 we’re paying them.
Most of our competitors don’t release this kind of information. In fact, I’m not aware of any that do. I don’t blame them, as I suspect their data doesn’t look this good. At Columbus Publishing Lab, we’re committed to producing books with excellence, and that’s evident in the results our authors achieve.
We encourage all of our authors to follow the step-by-step professional production plan Brad Pauquette, our CEO, created and outlined based on his years of industry experience as a publishing consultant. It works. And our authors who invest in their book and follow all of the plan are profitable more than 80% of the time. Join our mailing list by clicking here and we’ll send you a free copy of Brad’s book so that you can learn all about The Five Key Steps to Professionally Publish Your Book.
Self-publishing is a business. And it can be a profitable one. Contact us today at 614-805-3982 or email us at info@columbuspublishinglab.com to discuss how we can get your book to market with the best chance of success. We can’t wait to work with you and bring your book to life.
