Meet The A-List Authors Of E-Book Self Publishing
The thriller author and real-estate developer Locke lives in Louisville, Ky., and is the author of seven books, all of which have hit the Kindle bestseller list. He says he’s had five books on Kindle’s top 10 list simultaneously, and claims that “every seven seconds, 24 hours a day, a John Locke novel is downloaded somewhere in the world.” He is 60.
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Locke prices all his e-books at $0.99, pulling in $0.35 for each one sold (Amazon pays a 30% royalty on Kindle books priced under $2.99). He sold 369,000 ebooks on Amazon in March, and told the Wall Street Journal he made $126,000 that month. He does not plan to raise his prices above $0.99.
Hocking, Eisler, and He Who Won’t Be Named are also on that list.
I’m skeptical about this. The guy might not be making real profits here. Did he sell that many ebooks without marketing and advertising?
Did the ebooks “go viral” to coin a cliche? Or did he plow a lot of revenue into marketing and promo?
Did he really lay down $1000 per book for production and sit back and let the books rake in a mint? Was the grand a book his only expense?