How Much do You Need to Earn as an Indie-Author or Self-Published Author to Quit Your Day Job?

Otherwise asked by some as: How many books do I need to sell to be a full-time self-published indie author?

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Now this question is one that hounds the minds of thousands of self-published authors. This thought has hounded me in the past and many of my writer friends ask this question daily. The answer does not come easy. It never does. To try and help the self-published community out and to give some clarity to the situation, I will help you see just exactly how many books you need to sell-per-day to survive with the bare-minimal as a full-time author. Now we will need to put some constraints on this as there are many alternating variables that comes into play in this situation. I will go forward with these assumptions:

1. You have a family and a house and are not single or living with your parents.
2. I am taking total American average estimates by census groups for the years between 2017-2019. These are averages and may not pertain to your location.
3. I am only including basic life costs, and do not account for various alternative costs that you may consider in your personal life.
4. I calculate these totals as if you are a Kindle Direct Publishing indie-author only, and are not selling through any other means. I also I am assuming that you are not enrolled into KDP Select.

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Without further ado, let’s look at the numbers and calculate our totals!
​Below are the averages that we will consider and the sources I got these averages from

Average annual income wage in America for a person with a "standard" job:
​ $46,800.00/12 months=
​$3,900.00 monthly income
https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/average-income-in-us-14852178

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How much money should you set aside for taxes as a self-employed individual:
About 30-35% (We shall go with 35% to be on the safe side)
https://sharedeconomycpa.com/blog/estimating-income-tax-for-1099-independent-contractors/

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How much (on average) does health insurance cost for a family per year if you pay for it yourself:
$8,803.00/12 months=
​$733.58 monthly payment
https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/resources/affordable-care-act/much-health-insurance-cost-without-subsidy

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How much average life insurance costs per year:
$300-$400/12 months=
​$29.16 monthly payment
https://www.policygenius.com/life-insurance/life-insurance-cost/

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How much to set aside for retirement a month:
$300-$500 (Let’s go with $400.00 because that’s in the middle)
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/12/17/the-average-american-starts-saving-for-retirement.aspx

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Overall single house cost average in 2019:
$266,800.00
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/spending/articles/what-will-cost-more-and-less-next-year

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Average 30-year fixed interest rate:
4.73%
https://www.valuepenguin.com/mortgages/average-mortgage-rates

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If we set aside and paid 10% down-payment on the average-priced house, it would cost us up-front: $26,680.00 (We’ll assume you’ve already paid this and that you currently live in your home already).
So your loan amount (for the average house price minus the 10% down payment):
$240,120.00
So your average monthly house payment calculated: $1,249.36
https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/managing-debt/annual-percentage-rate-calculator.aspx

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Average food cost per month for a family of four:
$1,156.00 (going on high end here-I’ve personally spent more and less than this. It varies for me and my family.)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/01/grocery-costs-for-family/2104165/

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Average car loan payment per month (I'm assuming you have a car and are paying it):
$455.50 (This total is averaged between an average new car monthly payment vs. an average monthly used car payment)
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/auto-loans/average-monthly-car-payment/

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Average utilities, TV, garbage, internet per month:
$464.00
https://www.move.org/utility-bills-101/

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TOTALS:

​Average essential bills and payments per month total: $4,487.60
How much to set aside for taxes (the 35%): $2,415.47
Total you need to make per month: $6,903.07
Your total minimal income for a year: $82,836.84

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Now let us look at this lovely chart below. Disclaimer: again, because a lot of data is really hard to estimate perfectly when you’re dealing with a profession such as writing, this chart below reflects a close estimate—​and it is honestly pretty accurate.

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So let us take what we know and apply it to book sales:

If you have one ebook priced at ​$3.00 (what most ebooks are priced at on Amazon), and from between the 30% royalty and 70% royalty, you have selected the 70% royalty (why wouldn’t you?), you get $1.97 profit per book.
So let’s calculate:
Your monthly total of $6,903.07 divided by 30 average days per month=
​$230.10 needed per day

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If we divide that by a single ebook’s profit:
$230.10/$1.97=
​117 total books needed to be sold per day.

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That total (​117 books) can count for all your books (so your backlist). Comparing that to the chart above, we know that if you only had one book on Amazon, you would have to permanently maintain a book rank between 1 to 1,500 to assure sufficient income. That’s not to say you can’t build a huge backlist. Even if all your works are low in rank, as long as you are selling at least 117 books a day at a minimal price of $3 each, you can make ends meet. Also, if you are enrolled in KDP select, if you have a blog with AdSense enabled to help draw in more cash, or have other means of passive income, then you can increase your monthly income total. If you can also sell physical copies of your books, that will add to your totals.

On average, a person with good published content, but who is relatively unknown, will sell about 5 copies of their singular book per day. Which means that they will need about 26 books published on KDP to make enough to be a full-time, stay-at-home author.

Conclusion for the average author:
These are averages people!
You will need to sell at least 117 books per day, whether that is all the same book, or a variety of works.
You will need to make at least $230.10 per day off your books.

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 So how do I get there, you might ask. Your best option? Write. Write and put good-quality  content out there. The higher the quality, the more sales per day you will generate! This is not an easy job, but it is definitely a personally rewarding job.

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​​Adding Complexity to Your Plot