: Re: How Much Can You Make From Writing a Book? Obviously this question has a lot of different answers. I'm interested in the typical total profit that a writer might expect to see from: A NYT

@Bryan361

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Selling 5000 copies of a self-published book is pretty optimistic. I've self-published two books and between them, last I added it up, I'd sold about 600 copies. I'm probably up to 650 or so by now. I understand that's fairly typical.

How much you make per book depends on the royalty arrangements. The formulas can get complicated but if you self-publish you may end up getting about 20%-30% of the cover price, but then out of that you have to pay for any marketing yourself. If your published by a traditional publisher you get a significantly lower percentage, 10% or less, but that's all yours.

So in my case, well, one of my books sells for .85, and I get between .50 and for each copy sold (depending on the marketing channel). My other book is and I get about .

After subtracting expenses -- mostly an ad in a magazine and some modest costs to maintain a web site -- last year I made 0 from my writing.

I used to write magazine articles. I once added up how much time I spent writing an article, and I figured that, even if you didn't count the articles that I never sold, I was making about an hour writing.

So seriously, if you're looking for a way to make money, you're better off getting a job at your local hamburger place.

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