For those of you who self-publish, about how many copies of your stories are sold each month (if you don't mind sharing)?
I think I sold about twenty copies of 'Final Contact' in the first month, then five to a dozen each month since. So at that rate it would take five years or more to equal a magazine sale at $0.05 a word. For a previously unknown author to sell a lot of copies the story probably needs to get onto the 'also bought' and recommendation lists on Amazon, and it hasn't sold enough copies to do that yet. Amusingly it sold one copy in Germany last month and that was enough to get onto one of Amazon's SF 'best seller' lists for a while .
My husband is selling between 10-50 of each installment but he has done no marketing at all. It was just him making it available for friends and family. It is more than the magazine that has bought a couple of my children's stories paid me lol Like with Edward it is early works he is attached to, but unlike Edward he isn't looking to be a paid author. One of my web forums has a couple of authors who give running totals and they are making more than tea money every month with their novels. I've known others do quite well with their short stories. Like with anything it is about the amount of work you put into promoting it.
The last bit is the best advice; you get what you put into it. And that's what I've heard from everyone, if you want to be successful with your book, 1. it's got to be good and 2. you need to promote it.
