Amazon Paid Me More So Far in 2022 Than In All of 2021

Here’s my secret

In a little less than four months, I’ve managed to make as much money on Amazon writing ebooks as I did in 2021. How? My secret isn’t really a big secret. Or it won’t be for long.

Writing fiction is my dream

I’ve always wanted to make a living writing. Writing anything and getting paid is awesome, right?

But I really wanted to make a living writing fiction.

I started publishing on Amazon in 2012.

I’m not a novel writer. I publish short stories. There’s a market for them because many readers don’t want to read novels. They like to read short books that they can start and finish on a lunch hour or before bed.

Of course, not all genres are as accepting of the short story. But the kind of books I write? They gobble them up.

Amazon publishing has changed a lot since 2012 though. When my sales slumped, I took down all my stories with the idea of re-branding.

It took several years before I actually got around to that.

Finally, I did. And this year, I’m reaping the rewards.

What made the difference in sales?

Author collaborations. There’s lots of ways to collaborate with other authors on Amazon but I’ve been focused on one kind.

Multi-author series. Not anthologies or collections. But series of books that take place in the same world or have the same characters.

My first participation in an author collaborative series was in November of 2021. Then there was another and another.

By the end of June, I’ll have books in 5 different series.

Most of them have different authors but some authors tend to show up in the same collaborations.

The great thing is, we all promote each other. And when I promote them, I’m promoting myself, too. If someone reads their book and likes it, they will likely go to the series page on Amazon and quite possibly find my book.

If they promote their own books, they are promoting my books, too!

I’m still writing my own stories that aren’t in collaborations, but even those are seeing more sales and more page reads.

Working with other authors can be a great way to increase your earnings, but you can learn from them, too. By working with these other authors, I’ve learned some valuable skills in marketing, cover design, and blurb writing.

If you liked this article you might enjoy this, too — I talk about different ways you can collaborate with other authors:

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