The Tough Reality of Book-Selling. Might Substack Offer An Alternative?

I have one book and numerous book chapters on my CV, but I have shied away from writing books regularly because of articles like this by Jane Austen Doe (a pseudonym) in Salon way back in 2004: “Confessions of a semi-successful author: I’ve published several books, won adoring reviews, and even sold a few copies. But I’ve made almost no money, and had my heart broken. Here’s everything you don’t want to know about how publishing really works.” A companion piece was a plea: “You can save the endangered midlist author.”

I was hoping self-publishing would make the field more financially attractive, but the average self-published author makes around $1,000 per year, according to the (UK) Guardian. “That’s including authors with multiple books and huge lists of fans.” Nearly a third of authors made less than $500 a year and 90 percent of books sold less than 100 copies.

Academics write books as part of their research and publishing requirements, but these books are rarely read beyond the academy.

The truth is that books don’t sell themselves. Constant marketing is necessary. There are lots of opportunists out there telling you your books will sell if you pay them a consulting fee and follow their advice, but my advice is to be skeptical of those who encourage dreams of great financial success from writing.

In traditional publishing, an author is lucky to receive 10 percent of the list price of the book in royalties. A “successful” first-time author might make $5,000 to $10,000. In other words, don’t quit your day job.

Maybe lightning will strike and your books will find a significant audience. But most of us writers write not for the money but out of compulsion and creative expression.

One’s chances of making a significant income from writing are probably better, or less labor-intensive, from trying to build an audience through an online platform like Substack than through traditional publishing. Or maybe a combination of Substack, self-published ebooks and print copies for those averse to reading online will work for some.

More on Substack from Google News.

My thoughts on Substack follow.