Self Publishing - Part Two Royalties

I thought I would cover royalties tonight since so many were shocked when I explained how a self published author gets paid tonight on my Facebook post.

Again, I am keeping this SIMPLE.

S.I.M.P.L.E.

I'm only going to cover eBooks, because paperbacks are a beast all their own.


You've finished your book, paid for the cover, editing, and copyright. Now what?

It's time to publish.

You need to enter in the basic information - Title, Author, Description, and upload the cover and actual book file.

Next, you move on to pricing. What should you price your book at? $.99? $3.99?

There is no right or wrong answer for this. It's YOUR choice and yours alone.

One thing to remember is ROYALTIES. This is how a self published author makes their money. That pretty little $3.99 price tag? The author doesn't get that.

Royalties through Amazon are divided at the $2.99 mark. Anything below this price will ONLY EARN 35%. Yeah, you read that right. 35%

So if you price your book at $.99, you will only make around $.35 a book.

Now, if you price your book OVER $2.99 you will make 70% in MOST countries. There are a few that are just straight 35%. 

So at $3.99 the author makes roughly $2.79 per book at the 70% royalty rate.

But you must remember that you have to pay taxes on what you make so they end up with even less. See Part One on that.


Again, I am just giving you the basics on this. There are things like KDP select that I'm not going to cover. Also, different platforms give different percentages. I'm simply using Amazon because they are the most popular.

I am in no way bashing the platforms - they need to get paid too. They help us reach all of you and they work hard to do it. I wouldn't be where I am today without them. Am I a huge author? No. But I have managed to build a fan base through them that I am forever grateful for.

I hope this helped any new authors with questions. I promised to do a few of these for you.

And for any readers that are looking at this right now, I hope you understand why most authors charge at least $2.99. We spend months and HUNDREDS (editing, cover design) of dollars to get these books ready to go.

We're not being greedy, we just want to get paid a fair amount. :)