Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week Selling His Backlist

Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week On His Backlist Titles

In Backlist Then And Now Joe Konrath writes:

These past two years have been interesting, because I really haven't had a new IP of my own.

Of the last six novels I've written, five have been collaborations, and one was sci-fi under a pen name. No new stand-alones, either under JA Konrath or Jack Kilborn, and no new solo novels in my series.

And yet I'm making $15k a week.

How Joe Did It

Joe attributes his financial health to a combination of the following:

- Getting his rights returned
- Free promotions
- Paid advertising

Whatever Joe has been doing, it's paid off big! And not just in dollars.

In the ten years I was legacy published, I made about $450k. In the four years I've self-published, I've made over 1.1 million dollars.

The higher royalty rate, the control I have, and the very little self-promo I've had to do while self-publishing means I've never been happier as an author.

I'm very lucky. I get to write for a living. And I get to do it on my terms.

As nice as the money is, the peace of mind is even better.

I encourage you all to read Joe Konrath's original article, he talks at length about the early years of his career as a writer and the events surrounding his decision to put his work up for sale on Amazon.

I'm curious, how many of you were, at least partly, inspired by Joe, his words or his example? I was.

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Photo credit: "Week #6 "Leap" [6of52]" by Camera Eye Photography under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.