So you want to make money from your book. I don’t blame you! For most nonfiction authors, royalties are the smallest part of what a book earns. The bigger money comes from what the book leads to: clients, speaking, digital products, partnerships, and the credibility that brings all of those to you.
You might have noticed that the publishing industry has been… well, the last few years have been a ride, to say the least. How to make money writing books has always been a little bit mysterious, and lately that mystery is getting interesting.
The way traditional publishing pays right now, even bestselling authors can earn very little from royalties. My clients don’t wait for publishing to fix that, because we build their books to earn for their business in more ways than book sales, and this post walks through all of them.
How Do Nonfiction Authors Make Money?
Most authors don’t make much from book sales alone. The Authors Guild’s 2023 Author Income Survey found that the median published author earned $2,000 from their books, and $5,000 in total author-related income. Full-time authors did better, with a median of $10,000 from books and $20,000 in total.
Self-publishing has closed some of that gap. The Alliance of Independent Authors’ 2025 survey found that the median self-published author earned $13,500 in 2024, up 6% from the year before. The same survey found that 43.8% of self-published authors reported more than $20,000 in revenue, 28% reported more than $50,000, and about 20% run six-figure businesses. That’s real money, and for most authors it still takes a lot of books, a lot of marketing, or both.
Those numbers are why I never plan a client’s book around royalties alone. The future is thinking beyond the royalty check. Books are no longer standalone products. They’re foundations.
Going forward, smart authors will:
- Use their books to grow audiences and show their expertise
- Add revenue with high-ticket services, communities, subscriptions, and coaching around their book topic
- Use their book to get speaking opportunities and media
- Keep providing genuine value and, most importantly, connection with loyal readers
Books are always going to be the foundation. But they aren’t the whole business.
How Do Book Advances and Royalties Work?
In traditional publishing, an author’s income comes mostly from an advance, which is almost always smaller than people expect, and then royalty checks after that advance is “earned out.”
Earning out means that you’ve sold enough books to earn back your advance at the royalty rate.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you get a $10,000 advance and a 10% royalty rate on a $19.99 book (to keep it very simple). Once your book is published and people start buying it, 10% (your royalty rate) of each real sale goes towards earning out your advance.
10% of your $19.99 book is about $2. To earn out your advance, and start getting royalty checks, you’ve got to sell about 5,000 books, which is about $100,000 in sales.
Only then would you start getting a royalty check, which could take years, or might never happen at all.
(Just imagine if you’d indie published, or even hybrid published, and ~60% of that $100K was coming to you instead.)
As you can imagine, average digital and print book sales rarely provide meaningful (or sustainable) income for the author. And we love sustainable business here, so we need a way to shift this.
Most smart people find this part of publishing confusing, because nobody explains it until they’re already signing a contract. I have a master’s in publishing, so I know how this math works, and I’d rather you know it before you write than after you sign. Then you can plan your book around the income that matters most to your business.
How Much Can a Nonfiction Book Earn?
The book itself can bring in real money, especially when you sell it yourself. On my podcast, The Making of a Damn Good Book, Valerie Del Grosso shared that her $17 paperback, sold on her own website, brings in almost $10,000 a month. (It’s $25 on Amazon.)
Some of my clients have made $1,000 to $5,000 in book sales just in their first month or two, while barely doing any marketing, because their readers were sharing and recommending the book. That’s not even taking into account what happens with that book over the next 5, 10, or 15 years.
Across business books overall, the 2024 Business Book ROI Study found that 64% are profitable, bringing in $1.24 in revenue for every dollar the author spends. That’s a modest return if book sales are the only goal.
The books that earn the most are planned to do more than sell copies. They’re built so a reader finishes the last page and knows where to go next, whether that’s your program, your keynote, or your next product. For a book built around clients, that might be an invitation to apply for your program. For a book built around speaking, it might be a page where event planners can see your talk topics and book you.
So when a client asks me how much their book will make, my first question is what they want the book to do for their business. The answer changes the plan for every chapter.
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What Are All the Ways Your Book Can Make Money?
I group them into my Strategy Stacks: five pathways, plus a bonus sixth, that you can plan your book around. You can pick one or combine a few.
- High-Ticket Clients. Your book shows readers how you think and what working with you looks like, so the people who reach out are ready to invest. Read How to Use Your Nonfiction Book to Get High-Ticket Clients.
- Speaking. Event organizers book authors, and The Speaker Lab puts speaking fees with a book at $20K to $50K per keynote, compared with $500 to $1K without one. Read How to Use Your Nonfiction Book to Get Paid Speaking Gigs.
- Digital Products. Readers who finish your book want the templates, workshops, and programs that help them use it. Read How to Use Your Nonfiction Book to Sell Digital Products.
- Strategic Partnerships. This is the most varied stack, because a book opens up so many kinds of partnerships. You can share your IP through certification programs, so other practitioners get trained and certified in your method. You can license your framework to companies and organizations. Your book can be used as part of a curriculum, or it can lead to large consulting projects. It also gives other businesses a reason to partner with you, from referral relationships to brand collaborations.
- Thought Leadership. Your framework becomes the one journalists, podcasts, and other experts reference, so visibility comes to you.
- Premium Book Sales (bonus). The book itself earns well, through direct sales, bulk orders, audiobooks, and library editions.
Each stack changes what goes in the book. A book built for speaking needs a framework that works on a stage, and a book built for high-ticket clients needs the stories that show readers what working with you is like.
What Happens If You Rely Only on Book Sales?
Building your whole business model solely on book sales:
- Limits your ability to connect with your reader beyond the buy button
- Doesn’t make use of your wide and varied wisdom beyond the book’s pages
- Leaves you without a way to bring loyal readers back for your next idea
These days, just having a book and letting that be your whole business isn’t a feasible model for most authors to earn a good living. In other words, if you want to make money with your books, you need more than one way for the book to earn.
To make money from your book, you have to plan ahead. If you really want to make money writing books, then you’ll start thinking of your book as a central product in your suite of offers.
That’s why I have clients decide what the book needs to do for their business before they outline. When you know which Strategy Stack you’re building, you know where the last page sends readers, which stories go in, and what stays in your paid work. I go deeper on that planning in Write a Better Book than Your Competitors with a Book Map.
Why Write Your Book with Me?
I’ve worked on books since 2014 and coached nonfiction authors since 2018, and I plan every client’s book around how it will make money for their business before they write chapter one. You can work with me in three ways:
- Damn Good Book™, my small-group program. You pick your Strategy Stack, map your book with me, and draft one chapter a week alongside other business owners, so the book is built to earn from the first page.
- Author Alchemy, my 10-month 1:1 program. We map your book around your business in Month 1, you get weekly feedback on every chapter, and you can have the editing and publishing handled through Virgo House, my publishing imprint.
- The Book Bestie™ Hotline, where you send me your book strategy questions on Voxer for up to 3 months. It’s for the strategy before you start writing, so you know which book to write and how it will make money for your business.
If you’re not sure which Strategy Stack fits your business, take the quiz. It takes about two minutes, and your results show which Stack fits your business best.
When the money plan comes first, the writing goes faster too, because every chapter already has a job to do.
If you’re ready to actually make money writing books, I’m with ya.
Your nonfiction book bestie
Hi, I’m Holly.
I’m Holly Ostrout, a nonfiction book and publishing coach. I’ve worked on books since 2014 and coached nonfiction authors since 2018. I help entrepreneurs (mostly women) write one Damn Good Book™ that brings in clients, lands speaking gigs, and makes their business simpler, smarter, and more visible.
If this article resonated, here’s what to do next
Find out which kind of book fits your business goals with the free, 2-minute $100K Book Strategy Quiz.
Get real answers to your book strategy questions on Voxer for up to 3 months, so you start the right book.
Write the first draft of your nonfiction book in 90 days, with every chapter mapped and a small group.
