For most of Prime Day, Amazon’s annual sales bonanza, an unfamiliar face topped the site’s Author Rank page: Mike Omer, a 39-year-old Israeli computer engineer and self-published author whose profile picture is a candid shot of a young, blond man in sunglasses sitting on grass. He was—and at the time of this writing, still is—ranked above J.K. Rowling (No.8), James Patterson (No. 9), and Stephen King (No. 10) in sales of all his books on Amazon.com. His most recent book is ranked tenth on Amazon Charts, which Amazon launched after The New York Times stopped issuing e-book rankings, and which measures sales of individual books on Amazon. (The company does not disclose the metrics behind Author Rank, which is still in beta.) Omer is one of a growing number of authors who have found self-publishing on Amazon’s platform to be very lucrative. While he may not be as familiar a name as the big authors marketed by traditional publishing houses, and may not have as many total book sales, Omer is making an enviable living from his writing. Sales of his first e-book, Spider’s Web, and its sequels, allowed him to quit his job and become a full-time author. Now, he makes more money than he did as a computer engineer. “I’m making a really nice salary, even by American standards,” he said. After the success of Omer’s first book series, Thomas & Mercer, an Amazon imprint, published his most recent book, a mystery called A Killer’s Mind, which was also promoted on Amazon’s First Reads, a new subscription service in which the company recommends a handful of books and allows subscribers to download them before their official publication date. Omer told me he has now sold more than 10,000 books through Amazon, and that his books have also been borrowed more than 10,000 times on Kindle Unlimited, the subscription service in which readers pay $9.99 a month to access over 1 million titles on Amazon. “What made this possible is Amazon,” he told me. “It can expose me to millions, or tens of millions of readers.” (Peter Hildick-Smith, the founder of Codex Group, which consults with the publishing industry, told me that Amazon’s rankings and sales information are not reliable because they also count books that are borrowed, like Harry Potter books, which are consumed in a different way than books that are bought.) Amazon's Kindle Unlimited Is a Boon for Some Authors - The Atlantic
Not even talking about writing for money here... the fact that KU allows my story to be read by real people still baffles me. It was my childhood dream to have my book touch one single other person, to pay forward that 'I-should-go-to-bed-but-I'm-still-reading-this' experience, and someone has told me it has happened, so I can die tomorrow and my life goal will have been fulfilled. If I happen to 'make it' one day, I really hope I can still hold on to this attitude.
I won't lie and say that I'm doing it purely for the love. I got into writing seriously in the first place because of the promise of money, and knowing you're getting a bit of money out of it is a great, great, great incentive. It wasn't until then that I knew I could even write, or that my nonsense was worth anything. And the thing is, I think a lot of writers start out that way. Now that I know I can sort of write, I won't stop, but I wouldn't have even started writing without that first bit of incentive because I didn't think it was a viable thing to do. I mean, I kept starting stories on my laptop, but then I never finished any of them. Only when I was paid did I force myself to finish a story, and then I realized I could finish stories. So I'm just grateful. Be it fate, or whatever...
Earning money isn't bad. It's when you're making too much and greed kicks in? That's when you start to cut corners and use questionable marketing to get to the top 50 of all of Amazon. This, to me, is one of the best times ever for a writer...
I have a theory that it's a psychological trap. Your first five-star review? That was awesome! Best feeeling in the world. But along the way it doesn't do it for you any more. You got your first 50 dollars from writing? Awesome! My work is worth something! I'm not a fraud! Along the way, you're desensitized to that joy. It's just like drugs.
You couldn’t be more right in this regard. Milestones are achieved, then almost instantly left behind as we look to the next one. Slowing down to appreciate what we’ve achieved is essential to a healthy mental approach to writing. Celebrate all the victories, especially the small ones!
