Matt Forehand
Matt Forehand asked Evan Currie:

Do you make more money per unit sold on indie releases since it avoids the middle men? Does releasing books indie make for better or worse sales numbers usually? Just curious. Matt

Evan Currie Assuming both books are digital copies, and sell for the same price, an indie author can get twice as much per copy than your average pro published author.

In general, the marketing power of a publishing firm makes up for that and then some besides. It's hard for an indie author to manage a marketing blitz that can really push a book the way an experienced and funded marketing team can.

That said, there are always oddball books and authors who do better indie than through a company, though the reverse will generally hold more true.

My new novel, Knighthood, for example is based in the same general universe and has several of the same foundations as my previous release, Empire Asunder. Empire was through a publishing company, Knighthood was an indie release. For reasons I can't explain, Knighthood just blew up in sales, Empire seemed to fall kind of flat.

Similar reviews, etc... just one did well, the other didn't.

So I suppose the issue is that we're always dealing with tons of factors we can't always identify, let alone adjust for... and it shows.

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