[Nice]

I have a few questions if anyone is willing to share. Forgive my boldness.

Are you making $100+/month?
What genre are you writing in?
How long are your books?
How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point?

Sorry if this is a bit intrusive, I'm just incredibly curious and starved for numbers. Thank you in advance.

Sent from my SM-T210R using Tapatalk

 

[Salvador Mercer]

Welcome to the boards!

I'll be brief.

Month 1, $20
Month 2, $70
Month 3, $190

I just hit one year this month (3 days ago) and have never dropped back to double digits. Key? Write the second book. My genre is mainly fantasy with one Sci-Fi/Techno-Thriller. My shortest book is 65k, my longest is 130k. It helps to read Kboards for a year too, I'd credit the knowledge on these boards for a lot of what I'm doing right.  All that I'm doing wrong, is all on me. 

Good luck!

 

[PermaStudent]

Are you making $100+/month?
What genre are you writing in?
How long are your books?
How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point?

Yes.
Urban Fantasy.
My novels are 60-90k words, but I recently started also writing novellas that are 30-35k.
It took more than 3 years to hit $100 dollars a month. But after I found Kboards and started making an effort to apply what I was learning here, it only took about 4 months. (I did a data post about my experience back in October. Warning, it's long: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,224503.msg3142146.html )

 

[J.T. Williams]

This will be my first month. This is not counting sales directly from my promotion but my sell through since the promotion ended. (and normal sales/borrows from before)

From when I published my first novel it took exactly a year. I now have a complete trilogy in the fantasy genre and my books average between 80k - 100k.

Stabilize? I can't really say but from what I've seen on Kboards, you have to keep releasing new books. In March I start a new series in the same genre with releases scheduled for the next 6 months. I think I would've seen better results my first year with a more rapid release (at least every 30-60 days.) Waiting a year between book one and book three was an unfortunate event of unforeseen circumstance.

Write novels people enjoy and release often. In my experience, (which is very limited mind you ) this seems to help reaching 100.00 per month. Now onwards and upwards!!

Russel Blake's advice may be from a few years back but it seems spot on: http://russellblake.com/how-to-sell-loads-of-books/

 

[Guest]

Since the first book I released, month one, with some bad months along the way during times of medical issues.
I write paranormal romance (all age groups, but I started with the 18-30 audience). Mostly full length (80k+)
I attribute a lot of it to having an audience before I released my first book.

 

[Allyson J.]

I think by month 3, I earned $100/mo. I've been publishing for a year and a half now. I've never had a month fall below $100, though some months are better than others. I write longer romance novels hovering around 100k words.

 

[Guest]

I do all the wrong things (no series, don't stick to 1 genre, etc) but since you are starved for numbers, I'll answer anyway even though mine are small and pathetic versus a lot of others because hey, flip side of the coin

Are you making $100+/month? Nope, not even close. Released my first book last year in March, second one went out a few weeks ago. I made just over $130 last year, offset by $2k or so in expenses.

What genre are you writing in? Any and all, really, though first two books are YA: YA fantasy love story and YA LGBT romance. #3 isn't. No idea if the next ones will be either.

How long are your books? 80-100k or so

How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point? Well, technically until this last month (yay a few sales), they were stable at 0 for most of a year...but suffice to say, I'm hoping this isn't the stable point :-D

 

[Guest]

From book 1 and month 1, I've been making in excess of $100/month.
I write fantasy historicals, full length (80k) novels and some spin off novellas (30-50k).
December 2014 I quit my job and from January 2015 I've been a full time author, last year (first year full time writing) I cracked 6-figures.

 

[Nic]

Are you making $100+/month?

Yes.

What genre are you writing in?

Erotica, erotic romance and literary fiction.

How long are your books?

Shorts of 8k up to novels of 120k.

How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point?

£200+ the first month, and from there it went up. The culprit for these numbers is the erotic romance, not the litfic.

 

[Jordan Rivet]

I hit $100 in my second month, but that was a December so I'm not sure it really counts. After that, I didn't hit $100 again until I launched Book 2 in my series. That month I made $500, and I haven't slipped below the $200 mark since.

I write post-apocalyptic novels ranging from 73k to 96k words.

 

[Gone 9/21/18]

I first published Rottweiler Rescue (cozy dog mystery) 2/7/2010, made $127.40 that month, and more than that every month since. However, I think things are very different now than they were in 2010. There are a lot more indie books, and it's harder to get noticed. Some things are better now - when I started Amazon was paying 35% regardless of the book's price, Smashwords was the only way to get to non-Amazon vendors (no D2D, no way to go direct), and there was no KU.

 

[Patty Jansen]

Funny thing is I don't remember. I started publishing short stories, so probably quite a while, like a year or so. Although my first published short story did really well, for short stories at least.

When did I start earning more? When I decided that self-publishing was what I really wanted and started to take it seriously.

I write Science Fiction (Space Opera and hard SF) and dark fantasy. No romance.

My books are all novels and they're all in series. I'm currently in the land between "I probably won't fall below $1000 per month again" and "I'd LOVE to make $10,000 per month". I'll get there. Probably within a year.

 

[MMacLeod]

I can't speak to long term success as my first book has been published just under a month, but it took about 48 hours to hit $100, and it has averaged about $100 per day. I write in a genre that doesn't get a lot of high quality new releases regularly, which I think makes people more likely to take a chance on a new author. The book is about 70k words. Over the month sales and rank have slowly tapered downward. I expect that if I did nothing, I would not see this level of earning for very long on just the one book as the market is not very large. I plan to have a new book out at the end of March.

 

[Howietzer]

1. Are you making $100+/month?
2. What genre are you writing in?
3. How long are your books?
4. How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point?

1. As of last November, yes (Thank God). Third book did the trick, released in September 2015.
2. High/Dark Fantasy
3. 130k, 54k, 56k
4. Just shy of two years...we write really slow.

 

[AltMe]

Are you making $100+/month? Yes

What genre are you writing in? Sci-Fi Space Opera

How long are your books? Novels are 67k to 86k.

How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point?
Book 3, which was 2 months after book 1 was released. 1 & 2 were 1 or 2 sales a day, until 3, when it shot up to 16, and really didn't look back.

Of my Hunter Legacy series universe, only the shortest short story doesn't make $100 a month on its own. But its also priced at 99c, so even performing at the same level of sales as the rest, doesn't bring in the $.

 

[Caddy]

Are you making $100+/month? Yes
What genre are you writing in? Psychological Thriller/Drama and 1st series was Historical Fiction/Drama. Pen name writes m/m romance.
How long are your books? First series, all were well over 100,000. Since then I've committed to 60,000 for 2nd and 3rd series. I'll stay there.
How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point? For $100 a month about 1 1/2 for it to be every single month. It took 4 years to earn a living that is modest, but a living. It's too early to know if it will continue this year.

 

[Steve Vernon]

I made over $100 a month back in October and November of 2015. I blew a horn and beat on a drum and got excited. Since then I've been hitting about $70-$80 a month. So no, I'm not doing it regularly -yet. But I've been trying to work this all a little harder and a little smarter and I am hoping to change that all soon.

 

[LadyG]

Are you making $100+/month?
Not always, but more often than not.

What genre are you writing in?
Contemporary romance and humor

How long are your books?
Right around 38K-45K, with one novella at 18K

How long did it take for sales to stabilize or reach that point?
I think I earned $100 the entire first year! I just hit my two-year mark in February, and my sales really didn't pick up until I released the third in my series last November. And by "pick up" I mean I hit $100 per month for three months and then bottomed out again in February.

I've got the first in a spin-off series almost ready to go, and a standalone humor collection coming out in April, so I'm hoping sales will continue to go up. If not, it's all still a good learning experience.

 

[PearlEarringLady]

I hit $100+ on my fourth month, after discovering the delights of promotion (thank you ENT and Bknights!). I put out a second book in the fifth month, and after that it's never dropped below $100. I write epic fantasy, long (137K to 220K).

 

[Sara C]

Yes.
Urban Fantasy.
My novels are 60-90k words, but I recently started also writing novellas that are 30-35k.
It took more than 3 years to hit $100 dollars a month. But after I found Kboards and started making an effort to apply what I was learning here, it only took about 4 months. (I did a data post about my experience back in October. Warning, it's long: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,224503.msg3142146.html )

This, exactly. Urban Fantasy (started out with YA). Floundered for many years with no guidance. Found Kboards, and:
May 2014: went permafree on book one (had three books in the series at the time).
June 2014: went from making almost nothing, to around $300 that month.
July 2014: had my first bookbub, and made $1,800 the following month (it was at the end of July).

(My income of course did not stay at $1,800 per month initially, but has been fairly consistent since then, with my lowest point [a $600 month] right after KU1 hit.)

Oh, also, my YA series that I initially started making my income with are all around 50K.