Unfortunately, I don’t know how the tax side of the business works. If anyone else who happens by has any input, we’d love to hear it!

In others words if I paid a publisher $800.00 total amount of contract (Hypothetical amount). When I get my 1099′ if over $600.00 will this be my profit less the $800.00? I would like to know before negotiating any contracts. By the way your information was quite helpful. I even bet a lot of first time writers do not even ask the self publishing companies tax questions or about net sales. Your column really helped me out on information I was looking for. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for weighing in! You are definitely an example of someone who is Doing It Right — I especially love the comparison to an indie film maker and a band using iTunes. It’s perfect.

And congratulations on all the acclaim Still Alice has achieved (and still is achieving!) I went and peeked at the first chapter on the S&S website this morning, and it seems there’s a trip to the bookstore in my future…

I’m Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice. This is a great post, and I want to contribute a little more!

Your math for the net revenues for a self-published book is spot on. I think it’s important for people readying to jump into self-publishing to understand the economics of what they’re about to do.

I fully realized that I was not going to make a living off of the self-published version of Still Alice. At $18.95, I saw only about $2.00 for each sale at amazon.com, and I donated $1/book to the Alzheimer’s Association. For books that I sold on consignment to local independent book stores, I negotiated a slightly better percentage, and each book there net about $4.00/book. But again, I usually sold only 3-4 and at most 12 at a time to each of these stores. You most likely won’t make a living on trunk-of-the-car economics. As one person living where you live with one self-published book, you probably just don’t have the distribution muscle. You need to sell to thousands and thousands to make it work.

So for me, I looked at the self-publishing experience like an independent film maker or a band on iTunes without a record label. I wanted to create a buzz, to demonstrate that my book had an audience. And, for me, it worked!