Sorry for the delay! Here's my numbers. Actually, it was quite interesting.
2014: Baseline, it was my first full year
2015: -81% (compared to 2014)
2016: -98% (compared to 2015)
2017: -106% (compared to 2016)
2018: +12% (compared to 2017)
2019: +24% (compared to 2018)
2020: +12% (compared to 2019)
Best Year (2014) vs Worst Year (2017): -636% (Yikes)
Some observations:
1. ADVERTISING: The biggest thing (negatively) impacting my earnings is the high cost of advertising/getting visibility. There are many days where the advertisers (Facebook, Amazon) make more money than I do off my books. As far as long-term trends, it isn't so much that my revenue has gone down, but rather that the cost of advertising has gone way up. IMO, the availability of advertising has made life worse for most self-published authors because it's so expensive in terms of time and money.
2. SCAMMERS: The period from 2017 to 2018 was godawful for writers in my genre. This was when scammers invaded the charts with 2,000 page, 99-cent romance "books" that cheated Kindle Unlimited and drove the cost of advertising/visibility to sky-high levels. If I could go back in time, I would've never published a single book during this timeframe. Rather, I would've saved these books for when Amazon finally purged these scammers. During this timeframe, there were MANY months where I would've made more working at Taco Bell.
3. PAY-TO-PLAY REPLACES "ALSO-BOUGHTS": This sort of relates to point #1, but Amazon used to be really great with organic recommendations, both for authors and for readers. I used to find a lot of great books that way. But now, with almost everything being sponsored ads, it's made the book buying (and selling) experience pretty cruddy (and pricey) compared to where it used to be.
4. AUDIOBOOK SUCKERY: A small thing impacting my earnings was Amazon's introduction of a "listen to as much as you want for a flat-fee" subscription package. I actually stopped doing audiobooks for a while as a result, which greatly reduced one revenue source. I jumped back into it this year, but it will be a while before these audiobooks earn out their production costs.
@MTF: Am I recalling correctly that a pretty significant source of your income was the Audible Bonus Program? Has that completely dried up for you? If so, how much of your income-reduction can be traced to that? Do you know? I'm asking because I'm wondering if this one change from Amazon/Audible is making it seem like your success has declined more than it has as far as your readers are concerned.
2014: Baseline, it was my first full year
2015: -81% (compared to 2014)
2016: -98% (compared to 2015)
2017: -106% (compared to 2016)
2018: +12% (compared to 2017)
2019: +24% (compared to 2018)
2020: +12% (compared to 2019)
Best Year (2014) vs Worst Year (2017): -636% (Yikes)
Some observations:
1. ADVERTISING: The biggest thing (negatively) impacting my earnings is the high cost of advertising/getting visibility. There are many days where the advertisers (Facebook, Amazon) make more money than I do off my books. As far as long-term trends, it isn't so much that my revenue has gone down, but rather that the cost of advertising has gone way up. IMO, the availability of advertising has made life worse for most self-published authors because it's so expensive in terms of time and money.
2. SCAMMERS: The period from 2017 to 2018 was godawful for writers in my genre. This was when scammers invaded the charts with 2,000 page, 99-cent romance "books" that cheated Kindle Unlimited and drove the cost of advertising/visibility to sky-high levels. If I could go back in time, I would've never published a single book during this timeframe. Rather, I would've saved these books for when Amazon finally purged these scammers. During this timeframe, there were MANY months where I would've made more working at Taco Bell.
3. PAY-TO-PLAY REPLACES "ALSO-BOUGHTS": This sort of relates to point #1, but Amazon used to be really great with organic recommendations, both for authors and for readers. I used to find a lot of great books that way. But now, with almost everything being sponsored ads, it's made the book buying (and selling) experience pretty cruddy (and pricey) compared to where it used to be.
4. AUDIOBOOK SUCKERY: A small thing impacting my earnings was Amazon's introduction of a "listen to as much as you want for a flat-fee" subscription package. I actually stopped doing audiobooks for a while as a result, which greatly reduced one revenue source. I jumped back into it this year, but it will be a while before these audiobooks earn out their production costs.
@MTF: Am I recalling correctly that a pretty significant source of your income was the Audible Bonus Program? Has that completely dried up for you? If so, how much of your income-reduction can be traced to that? Do you know? I'm asking because I'm wondering if this one change from Amazon/Audible is making it seem like your success has declined more than it has as far as your readers are concerned.
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