Do authors in control of everything really make more money?

US/UK/global… ALLi Author surveys of indie authors (in 2022) who spend at least half their working time on writing and self-publishing had a median income of US $12,749 — this is the middle value of self-published authors’ income distribution. ALLi’s 2025 survey was opened for data ­collection to update these figures, and one source notes a median income rising to about US $13,500 in 2025 — but still in progress.

In Australia, surveys that include self-published authors reported a mean total author income (including all writing-related income) at around AU$18,000 (≈ US $12,000) — a figure that aligns with published medians in global surveys.

Taking the median gives a more realistic picture than ‘average’ or mean earnings, because the higher earning authors really went gangbusters.

Unfortunately, this is not even including all the hobbyist writers who write after work and do not spend at least half their working hours at it.

Here are some ideas that are designed to spark thinking about more author income streams without so much additional hard work.

‘The Minimalist Author’: J.R. Heimbigner’s strategy explicitly includes creating and selling templates and guides that supplement her book content, turning readers into product customers.

Subha Malik has created math worksheets and workbooks that generate income by selling on Amazon KDP and similar sites, demonstrating how low-content book templates can be monetised.

Deya made $1200 last year from tools & templates; $16000 from bundles & kits, though she is definitely a multi-platform Content Creator rather than an author. Traffic has to be driven, as she constantly says.

Dorie Clark in Entrepreneurial You talks about building up her own income from online writing, paid speaking and masterminds. She added a Thinkific course which ended up selling for $2,300 a pop. I got it as an Audiobook and highly recommend it for inspiration.

How I’m Building Additional Products

It’s been a long, slow tortoise ride … first, I added some affiliate tools I like. The best one proved to be the research tool Kindle Rocket, as the affiliate payment is a solid chunk and it’s popular for multiple-book fiction authors.

The Mega Book & Course Workbook I created, well, I just give it with my coaching program. If I had a large social media presence, this would be worth talking about.

The Book Creation Self-Publish course started as a mastermind, then a Thinkific course, now it lives on here. Not mega sales, but it’s a great value-add for book coaching or editing clients. I wish I had put more effort into its promotion, like every other course creator on Earth.

Woocommerce runs the shop part of things. It’s fairly straightforward to set up, although the shipping options had me head-scratching.

Other ways I’d like to keep the income rising in 2026 is through these ideas:

• Workshops (virtual) on planning Book Launches
• An App (Author Aspect) we’re building for creation of a book outline and daily writing prompts (me + AI)
• Perhaps take some more content from my last book and make micro lessons from it. Hopefully monetise it or at least grow on one platform, e.g. YouTube or Facebook. Video editing always takes me too long, so I’ll find a video editing AI app probably.

A previous way I earnt as a teaching author:

• Marketing training workshops put on at local libraries, paid for by the Council.

There is also a lot of scope for value-adding emailed newsletters, as Mike Kowis says in Smart Marketing for Indie Authors. With newsletters you can add links to affiliate products, branded partner links (e.g. local business), or links to your new course.

Ben Angel, in Escape the 9-to-5 (an older book I read) said that it’s important to build up your audience’s desire through seeding golden nuggets about the coming launch (my words). He was also the master at verbally saying just the right thing on his promotional videos. I think that’s why he has 283,000 Facebook followers… just a guess. He’s an Australian who escaped to Florida.

What Other Ways Can we Think of to Add Revenue?

Perhaps an app that helps people avoid common spelling errors (like of instead of off; your/you’re).

Or something that you can sell to Facebook for millions that auto-reads people’s poorly written comments and says “did you mean this?”

Or a consulting + methodology that you can sell for about $10K to clients, a la Pyschotactics by Sean D’Souza.

Understanding why people buy and consulting to help companies understand it is pretty darn lucrative. Just ask Rory Sutherland, who wrote Alchemy: the Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense. He made his living in advertising and going against ‘logical thinking’. Thank you to Simon Hawk for this recommended author.

People like Sean D’Souza and Dorie Clark always make me feel lazy, unorganised and y’know, not an elite academic.

But how many farm-raised girls can you think of that migrated, took themselves off to University, learnt to write books, learnt to edit and design books, and learnt WordPress. I mean, that’s got to count for something.

With all that learning, and all your learning, it’s surely time to make some well-deserved regular income streams.