It’s nearly a whole year since I put my first self-publishing title on Amazon. You might therefore be interested to hear how it’s been. A money roller? New job offers? Lucrative approaches from publishers?

Sadly, the answer—at least in my case—is “no” to all three questions. However, I can identify three core reasons for this, and knowing these might help you with your own self-publishing strategy. (Towards the end, I also reveal how much I have earned from my self-published titles, so stay tuned.)

Firstly, let’s start with the reasons why I’ve “failed.”

1. Low profit margin

Amazon increased its printing charges last summer. This meant that profit margins made on self-pub books were squeezed. Many authors were forced to increase the retail price of their books to compensate for this. However, I felt I had already priced my books fairly for their intended audiences, and I didn’t want to increase those prices. My grammar book, which turns out to be my best-selling title by far, only has a profit margin of ten pence (about 13 US cents). That means unless I sell thousands of copies (not quite there yet!), it’s difficult to make a substantial amount of money from it. In contrast, I have a nearly seven pounds (close to 9 USD) margin on my Resources and Lesson Plans for Teaching Art & Design Students book, which would make a nice income–except that I have only sold around half a dozen copies of this book so far. The book is niche, and because of its “standard color” print format, is not available for sale in Australia, which possibly lost a few sales opportunities.

2. Lack of marketing effort

You can make decent money by selling books on Amazon, as is evident by other self-publishers. But you won’t if you don’t have a good marketing plan. You need to let people know that your book is available for sale. Otherwise, you truly succumb to the algorithms and your book will be pushed down the search results. Your marketing plan really needs to start before you put your book out.

You need reviewers who will rate and add feedback to your book as soon as it goes live. I took the approach each time to find ten people through LinkedIn to review my book. For one of the titles, I secured only one review. You therefore can’t count on everyone who agrees to review your book to do so, with the implication that you need to approach many more reviewers at the start. I haven’t yet tried the mass reviewer platforms such as Booksprout, Free Booksy, NetGalley, and so on. That is mainly because I wasn’t convinced that these would have the most appropriate readership for genres such as grammar books or art & design lesson plans. However, in hindsight, I think it is worthwhile investigating a mass reviewer platform, as you really need lots of reviews to persuade future buyers over the longer-term.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to reach the masses. I spent a whole week this month working through the list of some 2,000 teaching staff of a well-known U.S. arts-based university. I sent a personalized email to each and every one of them to explain the release of my Resources and Lesson Plans for Art & Design Students book. This strategy converted into just two book sales. In another drive last year, I managed to get my Resources and Lesson Plans book into two university libraries as well as on the reading list for the BALEAP Creative Disciplines SIG.

In terms of other strategies that have attempted to gain traction, for my first grammar title, I had a lucky hit by posting the release of the book on the LinkedIn group page ELT Professionals. Around the same time, I posted on several Facebook English language learning and teaching group pages. From these posts, and not doing much else, I generated a fairly decent wave of initial and ongoing sales, so it has been the most successful strategy for the grammar book at least.

I have also offered my books as prize freebies in prize draws (except the prize draws didn’t go ahead for different reasons, so that strategy remains unproven). Additionally, I ordered 250 small color fliers at a cost of GBP20. These fliers contain thumbnails, QR codes, and short summaries of my self-published books. The idea is to take these with me on any trips I go on, in case I pass by any language schools (I can put these in mail boxes or pass them to school directors) or if I manage to attend book fairs (these are always penciled in my calendar, but dates and prices alas rarely align). I’m not sure how many sales conversions the fliers will result in, but again, it’s part of the strategy of letting as many people as possible know your books are out there, and fliers are relatively inexpensive. Something like a TikTok video could potentially work wonders, but I haven’t been in the right frame of mind as yet to produce a high-quality promo video specifically for my books.

For more marketing reach, you could also consider co-exhibiting at relevant fairs with other self-publishers or at major book fairs with organizations such as the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG). If I had more titles, and stronger titles at that, I would pursue this route.

3. Questionable quality

My grammar book was deliberately intended to be something “simple.” However, I perhaps haven’t adequately emphasized that in/on the book itself, and I’ve had some feedback that the book “isn’t much” and is “disappointing.” There is also a 1-star review on Amazon for the grammar book that says it “must be truly embarrassing for the author” (ouch!). I’m open to such feedback (readers need to be honest so as to not deceive future customers—and to keep big-headed authors in check), and I will revisit the original manuscript to find the inaccuracies they hint at (I did edit the book, underscoring why you should never try to edit your own work), but there is a risk that poor feedback on one title will kill off any success for other self-pub titles, as well as impact ancillary work offers or even my whole Z-proof Editorial Services brand. The implication of this is that you need to put out a good initial title, and this means investing more time than I put in. In short, self-publishing a book is a far more involved enterprise than publishing items such as worksheets or a few online activities, and it has a bigger chance to backfire.

These are the titles I have released on Amazon so far (well, the Animals book is not quite out yet):

The book covers for the books I have already published on Amazon KDP.

The (bothersome) legal deposit system

One unexpected factor that has affected my enjoyment of self-publishing is that of the UK Legal Deposit Libraries. This area was not included in my Print Proof Press! title (my second book that consolidated all of my learning notes about how to self-publish, and which I’d recommend as an accessible guide for any new-comer thinking about self-publishing), purely because I wasn’t aware of the requirement to submit self-published works to the Legal Deposit Libraries. That is, until I got an email from a Legal Deposit Libraries agent.

The Legal Deposit Libraries comprise The British Library, The Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, The Library of Trinity College Dublin. These libraries collect pretty much every published item in the UK (although Trinity College is ex-UK, so it might extend to Ireland as well), from every single daily newspaper to corporate documents, as well as donations made to the libraries (I’ve seen the Ryan Giggs painted portraits stored in the National Library of Wales, for example). However, it is the authors and the publishers who are obliged to send their material. The libraries don’t buy your books for their collections.

The Legal Deposit system is only applicable to those publishing from within the UK (you’ll be publishing from “within the UK” if you have ordered ISBNs from Nielsen in the UK). The general process is that if you have print-only versions of your book, you need to order six copies of your book(s), and send one to the British Library, and five to a Legal Deposit agent. You’re supposed to do this within 30 days of your book going live. This irritated me for two reasons: 1) the cost to order and mail out six copies of my books potentially exceeds the likely return I can make on them, and 2) the fact that I am an unwilling contributor to increasing carbon emissions (the Legal Deposit Libraries are continually building physical extensions to accommodate their growing collections, and the construction industry closely follows agriculture in being the biggest culprit for carbon dioxide emissions).

Now, if your books are available as ebooks, with their own ISBNs, you can bypass having to order and mail out physical book copies by creating an account with the British Library legal deposit submission portal. This way, you only need to upload your ebook to their portal, and that satisfies the requirements of ALL the Legal Deposit Libraries. The caveat, though, is that not all British Library staff agree that you can do this. One employee told me that because my pdf file for my ebook is not the actual file format that readers will receive, then I couldn’t submit my ebook for the legal deposit requirement. This information was apparently confirmed by their manager. And yet, it is completely counter to what is cited in Simon Whaley’s web post here.

Anyway, the short story is that I submitted my books as PDF files (you, in any case, submit ebooks to Amazon KDP as PDF files), but it serves as a caution to anyone who is thinking of self-publishing a costly print-only format—you might incur a hefty cost to mail out physical copies to the Legal Deposit Libraries.

Earnings

So, you all want to know how much money I am making from self-publishing. This month, I am set to pass the GBP350 mark. Yes, that’s for the entire year. It’s not an impressive figure, and in fact, it’s only slightly surpassed the expenses I have incurred to self-publish (GBP160 for ten ISBNs plus around GBP150 for ordering and mailing out sample review copies). This (anticipated) lack of return is a key reason why I bypassed the expense of hiring an external editor, and even if I had hired an editor, I’m not convinced it would have translated into a bigger profit for my particular books.

Learning curve tips

  • It seems people still want more grammar books, so if you have a good idea for a grammar book, go for it.
  • I also sense (from what I’ve heard other people say, as well inside knowledge of the shortcomings of traditional publishers in this list area) that teacher training titles form a good area for self-pubbers.
  • A minimum spend for a completely DIY self-pub book is GBP50. If you want to employ editing and mass review services, be prepared to spend GBP1000+ for each book you publish.
  • If you’re in the UK, buying more ISBNs to release your book in ebook format in addition to print, will work out less expensive than mailing print copies to the Legal Deposit Libraries.
  • Don’t just think of Amazon KDP. Not everyone can access Amazon, plus libraries don’t favor Amazon as a purchasing outlet. While I have only sold about half a dozen books on Google Play Books, it offers the most straightforward alternative platform, and it also allows you to distribute free ebook copies, either for review or for gifts to readers who don’t have the income to purchase books.

What the self-publishing future holds (for me)

I have enjoyed parts of the self-publishing process, and I feel glad that I have tried out self-publishing, as it’s one of those things that you never know whether it can work (or how it can work) until you try it for yourself. I certainly feel like I have learned a lot about the self-publishing industry. However, with the combination of underwhelming actual earnings and the recognition that unless I can produce something that is genuinely better than the competition, I have decided to suspend self-publishing when I have used up all ten of my ISBNs (the remaining ones are assigned to two upcoming reading comprehension books, in print and ebook formats, but I’m on the fence about when/if to release these–I should perhaps remind myself that the main intent with these reading books is that they are going to be free for refugee learners). While I have a LOT of (wildly wide-ranging, from coloring books to children’s story books) ideas that I would love to put out as self-published titles, I want to feel sure that they are of adequate quality. But with quality comes time. And, it’s not going to be worth my time if my revenue is going to continue to be comparable to what I’ve made so far. In sum, my thinking at the present moment is to park my self-publishing plans until I have more time available. Maybe it could be a venture that I resurrect in my retirement or if all other income sources stop. The thinking cap remains on.