Can you become rich writing books?

The British Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has amassed a fortune worth $1.2 billion. But she is a rare exception. There are lots of good reasons for writing books – but getting rich isn’t one of them. 

I was inspired to write this article after an agency in China contacted me and asked: “Since the outbreak of Covid-19, writing books has grown in popularity in China and lots of people are curious about how to become a writer – and whether you can get rich doing it.” The Chinese agency approached me because several of my books sell very well in China. And they know I’m wealthy. What they didn’t know is that the reason I can afford to spend all day writing books is because I’m wealthy and don’t need to rely on a regular income. But I became wealthy as an entrepreneur and real estate investor, not as an author, although my books are successful in many languages.

Whenever I post about my books on social media, some of my followers comment, “You’re just trying to sell your book!” And they’re right. Of course they are. I don’t know a single author who writes books so that they won’t be read – or bought. But what these followers with their somewhat envious comments are probably trying to say is: “You can never have enough – you just want to get even richer from your books.” Well, I would have absolutely nothing against that! Nevertheless, while I am happy to reassure all the enviers out there, I am also sad to disappoint everyone who wants to earn money writing books: In hardly any other profession are the financial rewards as small as in that of the book author.

How much authors earn

I knew this even before I wrote my first book, because my father (Arnulf Zitelmann) is also a successful author whose books have been published in many languages. But he would not have been able to live from his income as an author alone.

Admittedly, there are exceptions, but they are about as common as lottery winners:

According to Forbes, the British author and creator of Harry Potter J.K. Rowling has amassed a fortune worth $1.2 billion. Rowling wrote her first Harry Potter books while she was a single mother living on social security. The manuscript for her first Harry Potter novel was rejected by 12 publishers. For her first novel, she received an advance of £1,500. She did go on to become rich, of course, but that was mainly because her novels were adapted as feature films. In total, the film series consists of eight episodes and has become one of the most successful cinematic franchises of all time with a worldwide box-office of $7.7 billion. 

But let’s take a normal author. It would be good if they manage to sell 5,000 copies of a nonfiction book. According to estimates, in the USA, the average book sells just 500–1,000 copies. But let’s imagine an author sells 10,000 copies of their book, which would be well above average and is rarer than many readers might think. And let’s assume that the author receives 10 percent of the retail price in royalties, which – especially for a newcomer – would be an extraordinary amount, because the author’s royalties per book are more likely to be between 5 and 7 percent of the retail price. Nevertheless, if the author gets 10 percent, that equates to $2.00 for a book that costs $20.00. If the book sells 10,000 copies, that’s $20,000. If it took the author two years to write the book and get it ready for publication with the publisher’s editor, that’s $10,000 a year, or about $830 a month. That’s so little that in Germany – fortunately – the author wouldn’t even have to pay income tax. In any case, a cleaning lady earns more. And, as I said, this calculation contains a number of quite optimistic assumptions about the number of copies sold and the percentage of the author’s royalty fee. 

Of course, the situation is different for an author who has written several books, all of which are still in print and being sold. In that case, the author has built up a “backlist,” as it is called in publishing jargon. And what about an author whose books – as in my case – are sold not only in their home country, but in many countries? The additional income from this is usually negligible, even if – as in my case – the author sells more books in China than in Germany, for example. China is a big market, but if you convert the price per book in Chinese currency into euros or dollars, it’s not much. In addition, the publisher who first released the book in your home country will retain a significant portion of any royalties. That’s because, in most cases, authors assign the global publishing rights to their books to their “home” publisher. If they don’t, they have to sell the rights to their book in other countries themselves (which is difficult) or employ an agent (who will also demand some of the royalties, with 25 percent being a quite normal rate).

Self-publishing as an alternative? 

Given all of the above, some authors today are turning to self-publishing as an alternative. There are many companies that will help an author to publish a book without the involvement of a publisher, managing many of the steps in the self-publishing process and also making sure that the book is available via the major online book platforms (such as Amazon in Europe and the USA).

With self-publishing, the author receives significantly more per book than with a traditional publisher. But the author has to hire their own editor and proofreader, along with a designer to create the cover. That costs money, too – and I wouldn’t advise anyone to publish a book without first running it past a professional editor and proofreader. After all, not many authors are as stylistically precise or have the perfect command of spelling as professional editors and proofreaders.

Then there’s the fact that self-publishing authors are also responsible for promoting their own books. Of course, every author should be doing PR for their books anyway, even if they have a publisher, because most publishers are not particularly accomplished at PR. For the publisher, the author’s book is just one of many. So yes, self-publishing can work, but in many cases sales will be much lower than with a professional publisher because of the lack of distribution and marketing. Also, a self-published book is unlikely to be reviewed in newspapers and magazines. As a result, the author’s higher royalties per book are often cancelled out because they sell fewer copies of their book.

“Vanity is an essential part of the writing process”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to discourage you from writing books. On the contrary, writing is my absolute favourite activity. Through writing, you create something that will last. You feel happy and proud when you finally hold your finished book in your hands, and even happier when you read positive reviews and articles about your book. To an author, such glowing reviews are the equivalent of the applause a musician or speaker basks in from their audience.

But if you are aiming to become rich, then becoming an author is not such a great idea. The odds are certainly stacked against it – although that, of course, doesn’t mean it’s completely impossible. And in the end, writing a book may, to some extent, pay off financially – indirectly. If you’ve written a nonfiction book, you’ll be considered an expert on your chosen subject. And experts get invited to give lectures, for example, which are often better paid than books.

In any case, authors don’t write to get rich, but because – like me – they have a message they want to get across. Or because (this also applies to me) they tend to be rather vain. The well-known German-Polish literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki once said in an interview: “Without vanity, there can be no writing. No matter if you are an author or a critic, vanity is an essential part of the writing process. Otherwise, nothing is created. Thomas Mann was a prima donna, Richard Wagner too, and Goethe, and of course Schiller.”