Hi Reader,

Writing books is a lot of work.

And it doesn't always pay off.

Instead, try something else...

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Story of the Day

I've spent the past few days describing my experiences as an indie author of several books.

Here’s the painful truth about writing a book:

Unless you’re a celeb, athlete, or politician, book writing doesn’t pay well, if at all.

Penguin says out of every 100 books published, only 35 are profitable.

And 96% of books sell less than 1,000 copies in their first year.

If you’re self-publishing, you’ve more control. But Amazon KDP will still take a 40% cut.

So, most authors are outliers if they earn four figures, let alone five, from their books.

That’s below the minimum wage in most countries.

Of course, outliers exist.

I've met a few romance authors who earn six and seven figures a year selling directly to their readers.

Joanna Penn of the Creative Penn also does quite well.

"But I’m not writing a book for money!"

I get that.

I wrote a few books for fun.

Well, writing and publishing a good book still takes six months or longer.

How many will read your book?

Let’s say 1,000 people buy the book in year one.

That puts your sales above most indie authors.

It’s not easy, but it’s doable if you have an email list, spend money on ads, or promote your book on a podcast tour.

Now:

Goodreads says the average book completion rate is 60–70%.

So, assuming you sell 1,000 copies, only 600–700 of those people will read something you spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours working on. And that’s before factoring in time spent promoting it.

I don’t know about you, but I dislike those maths.

600–700 readers for six months or more of work?!

So what should you do instead?

At the time of writing, 25,000 people subscribe to this newsletter.

Over the years, 100k+ people have subscribed and unsubscribed. I regularly clean my list, removing people who don’t open or read the newsletter.

It takes about 20 minutes to write an email like this one. I send daily emails, and my open rate averages 30%.

So, 6,000–7000 people read this newsletter every day.

That works out at 20,000–30,000 readers per month or over 200,000 per year.
Some subscribers are repeat readers, while others are new.

But whatever way I crunch the maths, a newsletter is easier and faster for sharing a message with readers. With YOU.

And that’s all before I factor in how a newsletter can drive revenue.

I interviewed Elle Griffin about this exact topic a while ago. She uses her newsletter to write online, earn money, and share her stories.

I use ConvertKit for my newsletter. They help creators grow faster and get paid via sponsorships. You can sign up here.

I’m also considering running a workshop about starting a newsletter. If you want to join the waitlist, reply to this email.

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Write on,

—Bryan Collins