Can you really make money selling books on Amazon?
The answer is a resounding yes. The internet is filled with stories with people selling books on the side for extra cash, or even turning it into a full-time career. This is because the profit margins can be really good. It's possible to buy a book for a few dollars and sell it for ten times that amount or more.
Is selling books on Amazon worth it? Yes, selling books on Amazon is definitely worth it if you can find a good source of profitable books.
The average earnings for Amazon authors and publishers are different! Indie Authors: On average, self-published authors really don't earn all that much. Most new authors earn less than $500 per year, while experienced authors with multiple titles and strong marketing strategies can earn over $10,000 annually.
To make $100.000 / year, you have to sell 50.000 books, which equals to 50.000/12 = 4.667 books per month. After the first year, you'll have 12 books published. To make $100k with those 12 books, you'd need to sell 348 copies of each book each month.
Small companies often struggle to achieve profitability in their first few years, but Amazon SMB sellers see healthy profit margins. Over half of sellers (57%) see profit margins higher than 10%.
Most Amazon sellers make at least $1,000 per month in sales, and some super-sellers make more than $100,000 each month in sales. 40% of Amazon sellers make $1,000 to $25,000/month, which could mean $12,000 to $300,000 in annual sales.
The number of books needed on Amazon to achieve bestseller status can vary significantly depending on the category and the overall sales volume at any given time. In some niche categories, selling as few as 100 to 500 books in a short period can propel a book to the top of its category.
Fall in Love with Romance
Through the years, romance continues to be the most popular and profitable book genre. How well does it do? The romance world rakes in $1 billion a year, covering a third of the entire fiction market. From an outside perspective, this best-selling genre is also considered easier to write.
There's no cost to self-publish on Amazon! (Learn more about the costs of self-publishing.) Your book will be distributed on Amazon's Kindle subscription service right away. You are entitled to payment per each page of your book that is read via Kindle's service.
Selling books can be a great way to turn your passion into a profit. In this blog, we'll explore the different ways you can make money selling books, from leveraging online marketplaces to setting up your brick-and-mortar store.
How many books do you need to sell to make good money?
the maximum level of the 70% royalty, you only need to sell 504 copies to make your money back for a 40,000 word book and 737 for a 80,000 word book. To make a comfortable average wage you need to sell between 6171 and 7731 books.
Less than 0.003% of books published will ever sell a million copies. This article will show you exactly what it takes to be in that 0.003%.
How new sellers start making a living on Amazon. Sellers are making an average of $11,671 in sales each month — or $140,052 in sales per year. Considering the average profit margin of sellers, 21%, new sellers are averaging $2, 451 per month or $29,412 in annual profits.
Product sourcing is hard work.
As an Amazon seller, you likely understand the struggle of sourcing products. The process can be tough, time-consuming, and requires a lot of effort to find products that will sell well on the marketplace.
An Amazon side hustle can be a way to make extra money. Different models include retail arbitrage, wholesale selling, and private label selling. Starting an Amazon side hustle has pros like high earning potential and cons such as intense competition.
- Sell on Amazon. Reach millions of customers in over 180 countries as an Amazon selling partner. ...
- Fulfillment by Amazon. Leverage Amazon's fulfillment network, and we'll ship your orders for you. ...
- Amazon Advantage. Self-service consignment program to sell media products directly on Amazon.com.
It takes a decent amount of time and money to start, and contrary to popular belief, it isn't a set-it-and-forget-it type of venture. Navigating an Amazon FBA business requires learning, perseverance, and hard work. But is selling on Amazon worth it? Ultimately, that answer is up to you, but we say yes.
Conclusion: 12-18 months to $10,000/month
You could get to the income target faster if you invest more time, invest more money, or take a higher percentage of profits out as income (not recommended, but it's up to you). Considering these factors, a reasonable range to get to this target is 12-18 months.
Best Seller and Category Ranks are based on customer activity of your book relative to the activity of other books. Books can be ranked in up to three best seller category lists, regardless of how many categories the book may feature within.
In short, The New York Times Bestseller list requires an author to make a minimum of 5000 book sales (higher, depending on the list) in a single week across diverse retailers and from multiple geographic locations.
What is considered a successful number of books sold?
For a first-time author, selling a few thousand copies can be considered a success, while for a well-established author, selling hundreds of thousands of copies might be the benchmark. However, a general rule of thumb in the publishing industry is that a book that sells more than 5,000 copies is considered successful.
According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed. Sales estimates for other printed religious texts include at least 800 million copies for the Qur'an and 190 million copies for the Book of Mormon.
Romance. Romance books are easily the most profitable genre, with no sign of slowing down. The most recent data confirms that this genre pulled in $1.44 billion in sales in 2021. This genre is easy to write because romance books usually follow a pretty simple formula.
The least popular fictional genres were Spanish language novels (2%), chick lit (5%), and erotic fiction (6%).
Krout, who is now 30 and lives in Kansas, was enjoying these books as a reader, so for fun, he decided to write one, titled "Dungeon Born." He completed it in October 2016 and immediately published it on Amazon, not bothering to hire a copyeditor or cover designer.
