How to Make Money as an Author: Learn What Authors Make in 2024

Last updated: January 23, 2024

Believe it or not, you can still make money writing books. From ebooks to audiobooks, authors can publish their content in countless formats for people to enjoy, giving you endless ways to earn a living. Focusing on the types of books you write can help you build a loyal fanbase, become an expert on a topic, and encourage people to snatch up every book you create. Beyond just the hype and marketing of your books, you can make money as an author in various ways.

In this article, we will share how to make money as an author in 2024.

1. Write a niche book
2. Spend a lot of time writing multiple books
3. Make a marketing plan
4. Build a personal brand as a writer
5. Earn cash from bulk sales
6. Make money by getting a good royalty rate
7. Find multiple ways to obtain money from your books
8. Find a good publishing company
9. Hire the right people
10. Make your books accessible
11. Reply to fans
12. Do a book tour

How much can authors make?

Self-published authors can make 70% royalties on their books when using platforms like Amazon. However, when they self-publish on their own websites, they can make 95% royalties depending on their credit card transaction rate. When choosing a traditional publishing house, authors typically make 10-12% in royalties and may receive some payment upfront. How much an author makes will depend on how many books they publish, how hard they market their books, their ebook pricing, and how big their audience is. The longer you publish books, the bigger your name becomes, allowing you to make more money.

How to Make Money and Earn More as an Author

1. Write a niche book

Niches are more profitable than broad-ranging topics. Having a singular niche that you stick to for years to come will allow you to attract a relevant audience who will continue buying your books, allowing you to earn more money along the way. It’s also a great way to gain experience in a category and run wild with new and unique ideas. For example, if you’re a sci-fi writer, you can write books about life on other planets, meeting aliens for the first time, space disasters, and more. If you’re a romance writer, you can write all sorts of unique love stories from people from all walks of life. If you prefer technical writing, you can write journals, case studies, or research papers and position yourself as an industry expert. So, when it comes to finding the right way to make money as an author, there are many avenues. But when you pick a niche, choose one you can create unique angles with.

2. Spend a lot of time writing multiple books

Writing full-time can be a rewarding experience. You get to live your dream of being an author while having the chance to write many books. The secret to making money from your books is publishing as many as possible. Your first book probably won’t be as successful as your tenth or twentieth book. If your goal is to keep selling books to earn a living and profit from your books, you need to be a prolific writer. The most successful authors have multiple books in their collections. The more you write and publish, the more you’ll earn as an author. Plus, you’ll begin to add new fans with each book, so you’ll grow your profit and make way more cash by writing series or multiple unique books. Authors like Liz Lawson often write series to help sell more books and make money as an author.

3. Make a marketing plan

Authors sell products and books, which require a marketing plan just like any other product. Authors can earn money in a myriad of ways. Your marketing plan can be as simple as going on podcasts to promote your new book, building a social media presence, sharing quotes from your book with reporters, building a blog with SEO content, radio interviews, sending an email newsletter, and more. You’ll earn more royalties with a solid marketing plan covering all the bases. Most people do media interviews, such as speaking at conferences, going on podcasts, and pairing up with journalists for elaborate news articles.

4. Build a personal brand as a writer

An author can make some money if they invest in their personal brand. Having your own website using a digital products website builder like Payhip is crucial to your long-term success as a writer. On your own website, you can earn 95% of your royalties, which is higher than Amazon and any other publishing deal out there. And the only reason why you’ll lose that 5% is in credit card transaction fees. If you want to know how to create your author website, focus on designing a beautiful site where you can blog, sell your ebooks, and build an email list. Making a brand around yourself by creating a website, building your social media, and more is crucial to an author’s success. But you need more than book writing to make sales. You’ve got to put yourself out there in a big way for people to know you exist and to create those serendipitous moments.

5. Earn cash from bulk sales

Authors earn income by selling as many books as possible. One hack to end up on those big best-seller lists is to sell your books in bulk. That means finding people who will buy your books in sets of 10 or more. You can ask your fans if they’re interested in buying your books in bulk to share with others. You can also distribute to small shops that sell books, and of course, your standard bookstores will also buy bulk copies of your book. You can make money by promoting your book to multiple stores nationwide. Shops can be instant messaged via social media or emailed with a pitch to check out your book and sell it to their customers. A local cafe may be interested in selling your book alongside their coffee. You never know unless you reach out. When it comes to learning how to make money, the secret is telling as many people as possible about it and shooting your shot. Asking people if they want to order volume copies of your book in return for meet and greets or other perks can help you launch your book to success.

6. Make money by getting a good royalty rate

The royalty percentage you get from your publisher will ultimately be what allows you to earn money profitably. A publishing company doesn’t want to give you a good royalty rate after all, and they’re taking the risk on you, so they want to earn as much as they can from your book sales. All the risk of success falls on their shoulders. But a publishing company has deals and relationships with bookstores, editors, designers, and marketers who will help your book become an international success. You’ll need an agent to help you negotiate a good deal with them. And that agent can help you shop around your manuscript and secure things like movie rights and more. Who you choose as a publisher can make or break you. However, you can earn a higher royalty by self-publishing on Amazon or your website. But then all that effort of marketing will be up to you. Your long-term success and the amount you earn over time can skyrocket, though. So, ask yourself, do you want to sign with a traditional publishing company, or will you create your own opportunities?

7. Find multiple ways to obtain money from your books

Your books are just one of the many products you can sell as an author. However, your success as an author can allow you to earn more from other income streams beyond full-time writing. Your career as an author doesn’t have to be limited to selling books. You might do speaking gigs where you travel the country, sharing stories, expert knowledge, and more to position yourself as a reputable public figure. You could also sell digital downloads, courses, or even create a membership site for exclusive access to other short stories.

8. Find a good publishing company

There are many good publishing companies out there. You can reach out to the standard publishing houses you’ve heard of, like HarperCollins, or go the self-published route by hosting your book on your own website. A good publisher will connect you with the resources to help your book succeed. However, you can’t leave everything up to publishers. You also need to promote yourself. If you’re good at self-promotion and sales, you might realize the traditional publishing route isn’t actually for you. So, the idea that you can publish your books on your own is also a good option if you know how to sell ebooks.

9. Hire the right people

Authors need to have the right team around them. You might need someone to help you with book coaching to help you along your journey, an editor to help your book read well by editing it, a book designer, and more. When starting out, you might not have the budget to invest in these things in great detail. However, you can hire better editors and team members along the way as you grow your profit.

10. Make your books accessible

To reach a broad audience for your books, you’ll need to make them as accessible as possible. Most authors don’t think about accessibility, but it allows you to reach fans in underserved markets. You might translate your books into multiple languages to reach international bases where you have many fans. Beyond languages, you’ll also want to make your books available in audio format for those who are visually impaired. You might also create an ebook so people can control the book’s font size if traditional book fonts are too small for them. Creating books as an author in various formats and languages allows you to reach a bigger audience so you can make more money selling books as an author.

11. Reply to fans

When authors make their fans a priority, it can help more of their books get published and be sold. The content of your message should be personalized to make people feel valued, heard, and appreciated. Members of your audience deserve to feel like their thoughts matter. If someone gives you critical feedback, rather than taking it personally, consider implementing that feedback into your next book. Take it as a learning experience. And if you get a lot of positive feedback from fans, look for the little comments that line up to better understand what it is people truly love about your writing. You can create a reply report to make sure you reply to every message people send you. You might be bombarded with emails, DMs, and more as you grow, but having that personalized effort and touch scheduled into your day for breaks can help you build and strengthen relationships with fans to make money as an author.

12. Do a book tour

Writing a book will push you towards doing a book tour for promo. You might read your book in bookstores, do book signings, and work towards getting your book sold. Each day, you’ll travel to different bookstores, conferences, speaking engagements, and more to create buzz for your book. If you sell an ebook, you could still do book tours as well, but you might choose online events where you can share the link to your book with others. Agents and traditional publishing houses often require their authors to promote their books through traveling. So, if you’ve always wanted to travel abroad, this is your time to shine. As an author, you’ll need to go up to strangers to tell them about your book, so having the confidence to speak to strangers is essential to creating more opportunities for sales. You’ll need to step outside your comfort zone to push people to buy your book. Writers tend to spend most of their time on the computer, but when doing a tour, you’ll need to be more of a social butterfly to get your work noticed. If you’re looking for a good time to do a book tour, do it in June when the weather is often nicer.

Conclusion

You can make money as an author doing many of the above activities, such as engaging and building relationships with fans, having your own website, and running marketing campaigns. If you’d rather earn a higher royalty from your books, the self-publishing route may be your best option. You can use Payhip to achieve a 95% royalty on your books, only requiring you to pay 5% in transaction fees with no monthly subscriptions needed and no hidden fees.

As a writer, building your own website can help you make money from your audience repeatedly. Sign up to create an author website on Payhip today.