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Calling all science fiction authors: 2017 survey

1K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  WDR 
#1 ·
Hey everyone!

Once again my 2017 science fiction survey is up. We're getting feedback from authors, specifically about if they are wide and what percentage of revenue comes from page reads and non Amazon sources.

If your a scifi author, answer 5 questions and take a look at the results.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YZYPN67
 
#6 ·
Hey everyone,
So sorry about the lack of results.
I'll post them here in a few days. Have had 45 people respond. I'll give everyone the breakdown before the weekend. That's on me. My bad.

And yes I capped some of the numbers because I didn't expect a lot of high incomes, which I was correct about.

I'll post something soon!
 
#7 ·
I tweeted it for others, but was a DNF. For someone with a lot of books across several genres with some in KDP and some wide, it would be pretty time consuming to get the data just for the scifi books. Just mentioning this as others in the same boat might feel the same way and stop halfway through. I know some people are meticulous bookkeepers and use all sorts of tracking software, so maybe they could get the information with a few clicks, but I'm not. I just look at cumulative monthly income totals and make sure I make a lot more than I spend. :p

Good luck with it!
 
#8 ·
TobiasRoote said:
show off!¬ :p
I'm in and out of the Amazon Top 100 sci-fi, which means there are around 100 authors on Amazon that sell more than I do, of which about half are indie and some are on KBoards. I also figure we KBoarders aren't the only ones filling out the survey. The survey as written skews low because the higher data isn't being captured. It's as if general income data on citizens didn't take anyone over $1M in income into account. 1% of people, but what, 50% of the wealth?
 
#9 ·
Jeff Tanyard said:
Just a thought: a logarithmic scale might work better than one of equal dollar increments. For example, you could have the following income brackets:

$0-$1
$1.01-$10
$10.01-$100
$100.01-$1000
$1000.01-$10,000
$10,000.01-$100,000
$100,000.01-$1,000,000

...and so on until you get to a "David VanDyke" level of wealth. ;)
He'd actually need to add another level...not for me, though.
 
#11 ·
I'm curious about the results, but I'm not a science fiction writer. Is there a way to view them without filling out the survey? I remember a survey for writers making 100k+/year awhile back. It seemed to suggest that many of those authors had 30 books out. Maybe this survey is specifically targeting smaller authors and trying to exclude the bigger fish.

If I had 30 books out and were making $200,000/year, I would open the survey, see it isn't intended for me, and then close it without filling it out. I assume it's the creator's deliberate way of excluding anyone with 26 books / $51k out of his survey results, right?
 
#12 ·
Thanks for being patient everyone.
Here are the raw results. I'm battling to find time for promoting new books, writing and the Christmas holidays. It's a hectic time of year.

Here are the results. They are anonymous. I was hesitant to provide them, but the reality is that each writers journey is their own.
You will find that most authors make less than 12,000 a year.

Key thought here: The larger the standard deviation, the wider the distribution of people's answers. When you see a small SD, it means that the average is even more accurate.

Check it out and post your thoughts!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-KKVPLD3R8/

if you are a scifi author, feel free to fill out the survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YZYPN67
 
#13 ·
Once the survey is complete (and you have time to tabulate all the results) will you be able to break it down into earnings as compared to the number of books published by an author?  In other words, do earnings rise as the number of books published increases?  As the number of books published increases, do earnings per published book increase, decrease or stay the same?
 
#14 ·
David VanDyke said:
Why is income capped at 50K and number of books at 25? You're losing a lot of data at the upper end.
This. Your average earnings are gonna be artificially skewed downwards by the lack of higher brackets.
 
#16 ·
Felix R. Savage said:
This. Your average earnings are gonna be artificially skewed downwards by the lack of higher brackets.
True, but I think this reflects a more realistic look at what most writers will be able to earn, especially in the early stages of their writing career. It might be more accurate to include higher incomes and then cut out those outside the standard deviation, but for a simple survey I think this works.

If you have 9 writers out of 10 who earn $15,000 per year and one who earns $1.5 million, the average income would be calculated to be $163,500 per year for all writers, which does not reflect the reality that most writers in this sample earn only $15K per year.

Seeing what the outliers can earn certainly gives positive motivation to others in that they see what they could possibly earn if the gods of writing smile upon them. As writers, we are professional daydreamers. But it is equally important that writers see what the reality is so they don't make poor decisions due to incomplete data.

I think this survey is a great idea! It educates us and enlightens us so we can make better decisions going forward with our writing careers.
 
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