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The combination of current economic and business climate factors with modern emerging information technologies has helped to influence many aspiring book authors to look more carefully at the option of self publishing their book. Even more experienced writers are now beginning to publish their own content because they are not feeling satisfied with pursuing a traditional publishing arrangement.

Before you decide to self-publish, however, just be aware that, although the potential to earn a significant income from book sales is very real and many are doing it, the road is fraught with challenges, difficulties, frustration, disappointments and extremely tough competition. If you want to earn $30,000 a month or more from self-publishing, here are some useful tips to take into consideration:

First, make sure that the book you are planning to write is helpful to your readers. It is easier to make money creating a useful, practical "how to guide" that address the immediate needs of your audience, than to self-publish a literary novel that focuses on your talent as an original writer. You have to think not only of a particular topic that will be useful to your readers, but you should also do sufficient market research to determine whether the topic is commercially viable and whether you can offer something better than all the other writers who have published books on the same topic you are planning to write about. Don’t write a book that you are not sure will be helpful to readers. I am not saying that fiction books are not helpful to others, but if you plan to build a profitable business selling books, then it helps if you start off  by focusing on what the market wants to buy, not on what you want them to read.

Next, you must identify your target audience. Are you going after the under 5 years old, or the teens or the adults? Who do you think will be your immediate target audience? Are they professionals, paraprofessionals, or just ordinary individuals? What kind of readers do you think would make an easier market for your book writing skills? Are you targeting readers of Harry Potter novels or readers of business marketing concepts?

The next step is to plan exactly what type of book you’re going to publish. Become familiar with the pros and cons of using different publishing avenues like Print-On-Demand, Vanity Publishing, electronic books (e-books), etc …. This will have a major influence in things like book layout, book design, book size, page formatting, typesetting, whether you will include illustrations or not, and so on. To research this area more deeply, check out some of the more helpful websites about self publishing by searching for keyword phrases like “self publishing”, “self publishing strategies”, “engaging in self publishing”, “tips in self publishing” or, “how to self publish my book”. If you are considering creating an electronic book that can be purchased and downloaded over the internet, then check out useful resources like How To Write And Sell Books and e-Books.

After you have worked out all of the above, you then need to make decisions about book pricing. To do this successfully requires carrying out research in the market place (i.e. what are people paying for similar books?) and creating feasibility models and financial projections using different pricing points and sales forecasts. You don’t want to price yourself out of the market, but you also don’t want to sell it below its real value. Finding the ideal price range for your book can be quite challenging. You want it to be affordable, but it also needs to cover all your costs and leave you with a profit.

To earn $30,000 or more per month with a self-published book, you need to know exactly what the figures break down into for things like costs per unit, variable costs, fixed operational costs, profit margins, quantities of  books that need to be sold per month, per week and per day, range of distribution (e.g. globally via the internet, or specific to a region or community) and the size of your market. For best results, use conservative figures in your projections rather than more optimistic ones.

If you can make the numbers in your projections work using bad figures, then you have a more realistic chance of achieving your financial goals, than using hopeful numbers that require you to stretch your expectations beyond what is reasonable to make the numbers "fit" with what you want.

For example, if you think you could sell your book for $30 and that each sale will net you $15 in profit, then you would have to sell 2,000 copies of your book each month to earn $30K ($30,000 / $15 net profit per unit). This translates to over 460 copies per week, or around 65 copies per day.

Using more conservative figures, however, I would suggest you re-evaluate your financial estimates for the above using a sales figure of $15 per book, and $5 in net profits per sale. Now, to make $30k per month, you will need to sell 6,000 units per month ($30,000 / $5 net profit per unit). This means selling over 1,380 book copies per week, or almost 200 copies per day.

Now, ask yourself how you plan to move this number of copies per day. What would happen if, instead of selling 200 copies per day of your book, you only managed to sell 3 copies per week? Asking hard questions like this can help you not only to prepare for dealing with disappointment, but, more importantly, it can fire up your brain and help you come up with creative solutions and unique strategies for ensuring your success.

For example, you may end up deciding that instead of writing just one book and then hoping against hope that it will sell 200 copies a day, you will create a series of books on the subject and build up a "brand". Once you know the process for creating, producing and promoting one book, you will have an existing channel for moving additional titles, so you may decide to revise your figures and plan to achieve $30, 000 per month by selling 5 or 10 different titles, instead of pinning all of your hopes on just one book. Additionally, by following through on this idea, you will see the importance of implementing strategies like list-building (so you can promote you new titles later to existing customers who have purchased your previous books), using the same content in different media formats (e.g. converting your book into an audio book), and so on.

Earning $30,000 per month in self-publishing is not impossible. It requires planning and determination.

I hope you have found the above information useful and I wish you great success as a self-published author.

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