Self-publishing is a numbers game. The way to make decent money in self-publishing is to put out like 12+ books a year, churned out as fast as possible (which o

Self-publishing is a numbers game. The way to make decent money in self-publishing is to put out like 12+ books a year, churned out as fast as possible (which often means a very short and formulaic genre book with a very cookie cutter story), and building a readership by promoting and marketing constantly. It takes a certain kind of author to do that, and most people writing in their spare time just don't have the time or energy to do that. There are exceptions to that of course, but that seems to be the best way to gain any traction as a self-published writer right now, is to build a giant catalog of samey books that if one reader likes they can keep churning through your back catalog. I have three published stories that have been part of a local group's short story anthologies, that self publishes one every year, and my total royalties from three anthologies has been $10. I enjoy it, and have grown a lot as a writer through the practice, so I still do it (one more is about to be published and another is in final draft), but it doesn't make money (granted, they don't do a lot of promotion either). Meanwhile I've been working on my first novel for over 8 years now. That seems to be the key in general for this age of easily consumed media, is to find something you can churn out quickly and consistently and build up an audience over time that way. It's why Youtube personalities chatting crap off the top of their head about games or current events see so much more popularity than individuals who put together scripted content, it's just waaaay simpler to consistently put out videos when you're just talking crap instead of scripting everything ahead of time, so you can quickly build a back catalog and keep popping up in people's news feeds with new material.