Is Self-Publishing via KDP still 'Quit your day job' viable?

It's the big question you're probably asking.

The Big Question

The question I get asked the most about self-publishing — and my experience specifically — is why I haven’t quit my day job yet. I’ve got thousands of reviews, a string of best-selling crime novels out, a growing social following … so why am I still grinding away 30+ hours per week on my day job and running a business?

It’s two things — one, I don’t earn enough from the books for my day job to be rendered obsolete, and two … I don’t know how far this road goes. But let’s back up a little.

When Kindle first came out, the publishing world experienced a dramatic mitosis. Self-publishing became a ‘thing’ alongside trad publishing, and suddenly, the industry gatekeepers: the agents and publishers that beat back the masses, were no more. The authors who got in on the ground floor of Kindle Direct Publishing have certainly made enough to quit the old day job, and even now, there are a select few whose careers take off to such an extent that they only write for a living — LJ Ross, Simon McCleave, JD Kirk, to name the three that immediately come to mind. But for the vast majority, reaching a comfortable enough income and building a sturdy enough safety net that if the sales stop rolling in you’ll never have to work again, in this day and age, seems to be just a campfire story.

This is proven by the fact that most self-published authors who have ‘made it’, still look to bolster their earnings elsewhere. They still go onboard with trad publishers for big deals, they sell film and translation rights, or they set up courses and sell their knowledge to other fledgeling authors. So with this objective eye, can we say that the boat has finally sailed? That ramping up your earnings on KDP to a place where you can simply quit your day job and sustain yourself forever more on your royalties alone is nothing more than a relic of a time gone by, an ideal propped up by those whose other incomes rely on keeping this dream alive?

The Truth and the Heartache

I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying don’t buy into the hype without hearing the other side. There will always be mould-breakers. Those who get clear of the pack and ride the wave to the next big payday. But there are things in place which prevent this from happening quickly (which we’ll cover in due course, don’t you worry!). There is a status-quo at work, within publishing, within self-publishing, everywhere.

More authors are publishing now than ever. Blueprints for success are more common, too. It can often be marketed to you as low-hanging fruit. Sign up for this course, buy this marketing tool, advertise with this marketing agency, pay for this, pay for that, and bingo bango bongo, you’re a bestseller with a fat wallet. Except that leaves just a few steps out.

I’ve run this gauntlet, paid the price, spent all my savings, gambled it all, lost, then won, then lost, then won, and I’m still fighting it, still fighting for air and still working my day job, too.

So what the hell am I saying, really?

Self-publishing is still viable. But not in the short term. I say the same thing to everyone who asks. It’s not a quick endeavour. It’s three years, ten books, and a lot of micromanaging ads, building a social media following, and writing and writing and writing.

The thing that concerns me, however, isn’t whether it’s viable now, but whether it will continue to be in five, ten, fifteen years’ time. How will the industry look? Will we finally hit saturation point with self-publishing? Will we finally hit the cliff that everyone fears is coming? Where there are simply too many books, too many authors, and not enough readers for anyone to make a good living?

Or will publishing change completely and will the book be forced to evolve or die? WattPadd, Inkitt, Vella — they’re anticipating and riding the wave of this shift. This shift from art appreciation to consumerism. And we self-published authors, at three-books-plus a year, are feeding the beast.

We know it works because it’s working right now. But what comes after? That, to me, is the million-dollar question. The fact that authors have made it with KDP, and are still making it now is a testament to the fact that it still works. But for how long will it keep working? I hope at least fifty years so I can finish out a long writing career! But I’m afraid it won’t be that long.

So what can we do to either preserve what we have; this fragile, jostling ecosystem with too many mouths at the trough, or to predict the next big trend and get out in front of it?

Let me know if you already have the answer. If not, well, we’ll figure it out sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.