Income & expenditure as an indie author 2023!

[@k.ande.southworth9197]

small suggestion, took me 10 minutes to navigate your site and find your books and links to the stores. Might want to look and see if you can make that a little easier, or link directly to the book pages on your youtube videos.

[@cassiemerson7789]

I love how open and transparent you are!

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Thank you! I honestly try my best!

[@Lyn-ht2gk]

You're an inspiration to keep building on success and to understand indie growth. Thank you for sharing this info.

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Thank you! Hopefully one day I can share those lovely juicy big numbers...or you know, just a positive profit figure 😂

[@cressidaclarence7420]

Loved this! You always inspire me to get back to work on my books and see if I end up deciding they are ready for publishing. I would love to see a writing experiment/vlog where you attempt writing as a SAHM (so writing from home one day when the kids are home) because I think it would be fun but also as a way to share ideas for how to squeeze in more writing time. Another idea for a video: how you plan what you're going to do specifically after you drop off the kids so you can write. I find I'm always doing things like "oh well I should throw in a load of laundry first so I can multitask that way" and it snowballs and I have wasted all my writing time cleaning.

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Haha! I feel both of those in my soul! These ideas are great though - I'll add them in 😉

[@laurawardlewrites]

You are a legend, love! Absolutely smashing it!

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Aww thank you my lovely!

[@katiem7142]

Thank you for being so open with this. It’s great information to have as a newbie at the start of my self publishing journey. I hope that your income continues to increase exponentially! I got Pro Writing Aid at a good discount as a NaNoWriMo perk so that might be worth considering for renewal. Would love to see videos on different aspects of the process - especially around book formatting and ordering copies for proofing. Best wishes for 2024 and beyond!

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Thank you! Yes - I definitely plan on doing some walk throughs and videos on formatting when book 2 is ready for it!

[@oneeyewitch]

Can you talk about the courses you did and which ones you really liked? I really need to take some courses

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

The biggest courses I took were the 'HB90' planning course and 'Publish & Thrive' with Sarra Cannon and I cannot recommend them enough! I did a couple free courses for things like IG stories and a freebie fb ads mini class (www.matthewjholmes.com/) that's the link for the fb ads one! It's just the basics but that's what I needed to begin with!

[@amusementsrevisited]

Hi Rhian, thanks for this; also wanted to jump on and ask if you check synopsis and plot points at all as part of your editing/paid service? I have a cosy mystery, but not sure if I'm doing it justice. Zelda x

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Are you planning on querying with it? The only thing I'd say is that I don't have experience with querying! However, a synopsis is a synopsis, and I'd be happy to figure something out to work with you on that! If you want to chat more, head over to Instagram and dm me so we can run through some things!

[@catherinelove2820]

I'm glad to see a new video. What advice do you have if you can't find beta readers? Pay for beta readers from fiverr? Go ahead and publish anyway? It's kind of discouraging about publishing but I love to write so I can't imagine giving up.

[@RhianEdwardsAuthor]

Personally, I couldn't publish without other readers first. I published my first 2 books without any feedback and it showed! I've learnt a lot more now and I wouldn't be able to do that again 😅 Some of my first readers were actually a couple of friends who read themselves and who I trusted to give me honest feedback. I will note here and say while I can be nervous, I've always wanted feedback to improve! I do a mix of paid and volunteer beta reading (to give me a broader mix of 'reader' and feeback) and I usually do a couple of rounds. Depending on the book depends on when I use the paid beta readers. I've used fiver in the past and also recommendations from friends who've used certain people (often other authors). I now personally offer beta critiquing because I felt like there's a gap between a casual reader offering their thoughts and the mega expensive developmental editing! To find volunteers, definitely look to your socials, but there are groups on fb and goodreads that are specifically for beta reading too. It can take a lot of work. My first series that I sought out this help took a long time to gather even just a couple of people! My latest book I had volunteers from just posting on my socials. I also now have a few author private groups/friends who I share things with and get critique along the way. My biggest advice is to never be afraid of critique! I've only ever had one fairly rude person and I just ignored their comments for the most part to be honest! Writing is definitely fun for me, and my passion, so I get that feeling. As always, this is just my personal view on it! Sorry for the essay response! 😅