How Much Do Best-Selling Authors Earn?

The e-book industry has proven that reading books can be a whole new experience for customers. It has turned into a billion dollar industry, with over 300 million e-books sold in the U.S alone. E-books have proven to be useful for nearly all target audiences, including students and research has shown that over 326 million digital books have been borrowed from libraries and schools in 2019.

Being an author can have many benefits, just like any other profession. Writers have the chance to showcase their creativity to the world and even have the opportunity to have their storyline come to life, which readers can see through visuals such as film.

According to Forbes, one of the highest paid authors is James Patterson, who is worth $560 million. Another best selling author who has also been on the Forbes 2018 is J.K Rowling, who is now worth $1 billion. 

However, authors in general earn money every time they sell a copy of their book and can earn a 10% -12% percentage of the royalty if they sign with an agency. This means that if they do not become best sellers, they have less of a chance of earning the same as the authors listed above.

But the best selling authors don’t only come through agencies, they come through self-publishing companies too. Writers are welcomed to the self-publishing industry without agencies and this strategy has proven to be successful for many best-selling authors.

Self published writers can actually earn anywhere between 40% to 60% of royalties through a single book sale and can even earn over $10,000 as a first time author. Many major publishing companies are now accepting manuscripts without an agent, because the self publishing industry has proven to be in the lead in comparison to hiring an agent.

There are companies such as MindStir Media that now offer mentoring and handling of all the difficult tasks that new authors have to face. Writers now have the flexibility of being guided by a professional team that helps with book designs, copyrighting, distribution and sales. J.J. Hebert is an author who has won 9 awards and has had 4 books in first place on the biggest digital selling platform, Amazon. He is also a mentor at MindStir Media and has collaborated with many writers who soon became major authors. MindStir Media provides its authors with royalties up to 100%.

Many writers prefer to seek advice from experienced authors and see them as mentors, knowing that they can use them as an unlimited source of information for success. Best-sellers were once first time writers in the same situation, only they had to face challenging obstacles that have been eradicated for writers today. 

While it may seem like it is easy to self publish without any help, it actually isn’t and it has proven to be effective to seek professional advice first. Read more if you are a writer who wishes to self-publish and is seeking guidance on how to become successful in this industry.

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