My book is (nearly) feeding my family

Posted on:October 09 2014

I just received the financial report of the last quarter of my book sales. And a couple of people seem to have bought my Book during the last three months. That's great, thank you! If a few more buy it, I can invite my family to McDonalds from the earnings, next quarter.
If you wonder: I only earn 50 cents after taxes from each book which gets sold. It is a pity that book writers only earn so little, so I'm probably not going to write a second book in the very near future. Nevertheless, I only received positive feedback until now, which is quite motivating, so I'll probably do it anyway some time. If you are looking for a nice end time / scifi book in german language, you can read the first few pages on Amazon.

Comments:

Hello,

Why not selling the book here, just use Paypal

:)

Helper

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2014-10-09 13:12:00

Good idea. But now it's too late, they have the exclusive rights to it now. If I knew back then that sales are the way they are, I would have gone that way. :)

niko

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2014-10-09 17:00:00

You should write more books. If you can nearly feed your family for one day in three months from one single book, then you obviously need to write about 99 more of them :)

xaos

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2014-10-10 13:08:00

Sounds right :)

niko

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2014-10-10 15:00:00

Probably you are getting 25-35% royalty - 35% tax deduction at source in US on Royalty - 35% tax deduction at source in Austria on Royalty which roughly equates to 50 cents. Please see, "Individual Taxpayer Identification Number in USA",
at irs gov Individual-Taxpayer-Identification-Number, to get ITIN or ETIN to get reasonable tax cut at and "Double_taxation" , to avoid double taxation in both countries (You should be taxed only in USA (source country) (amazon)).
Getting an agent is highly beneficial even with 15% agent commission as he can hook you with good traditional publisher and negotiate your rights far better. You write he sells.
Traditional publisher does good marketing and you earn far more if you write good. (In self publishing you have to do all the marketing yourself.)
Please see following sites for very very good and helpful info and articles on publishing science fiction.
sfwriter com/owindex htm
sfwa org/other-resources/for-authors/information-center/
sfwa org/category/craft-of-writing/
hollylisle com/weblog/
Please write more. Your blog is very interesting and you have knack for writing interesting things. You are dedicated enough at whatever you do to get results. Just do not give up and try your best.

Kinjal Kishor

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2014-10-10 16:52:00

Well, I also need to tax my income here in my home country, and the tax rate here is about 50%. Sad but true :/

niko

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2014-10-11 07:32:00

Also consider writing or translating books in English. This will open a bigger market. I would certainly buy it :)

Mike

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2014-10-11 07:53:00

Yes, but have you read a blog post by me? I don't think I'm so good in English that I would be able to write a whole book :)

niko

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2014-10-11 10:25:00

I am altogether not sure if proficiency of the target language is a necessary precondition for writing a book... Sales might profit, though, if readers are able to comprehend, albeit there may be corner cases - some books just look good on shelf. :) So probably you just have to make a great cover again :)

xaos

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2014-10-13 07:06:00

your English is good, but you will find difficult to play with words like you can in German.
See DTAA austria and USA for taxes
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/austria.pdf
You can see links in my previous post for lots of tips and help on writing.

kinjalkishor

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2014-10-13 15:22:00