Writing has long been a ‘side hustle’ for London-based authors alongside the ‘main job’ (only 13.7% of authors have writing as their sole source of income) but there are plenty of authors taking back control and building their own empires.
Meet the authors earning hundreds/thousands through Bookscription on Booknet before they’ve even finished writing their book! Booknet is both a successful literary self-publishing platform and a social network, founded by Ukrainian entrepreneurs in 2015. More than 27,000 free and paid eBooks overall have been published on Booknet with sales of over 403,000 eBooks! Following exceptional, proven success in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Booknet is now open to UK authors (and readers), and is hoping to replicate the same levels of success for its commercial authors here as it has seen for the likes of Ashleh Queen, Mirah Selim and Eva Muñoz.
Time to get serious about earning more from side hustles
Interest rates have shot up to 3%, the cost of living continues to escalate, winter fuel bills are due to be higher than ever… it’s not surprising that more and more people are digging deeper, and looking at how to bring in more money every month.
A recent study by Aviva has shown that since the pandemic kicked in (March 2020), 1 in 5 adults in the UK have started a side hustle, with almost 16% claiming to earn more than 16% from their extra role. The average side hustle brings in around £600 per month (The Motley Fool research). And what’s more, plenty of people are turning their side hustle into a steady and growing full-time income!
Being an author is often not the main income for writers, and royalties are typically around 10% for traditionally published books, with payments being made only once a year, making it difficult to budget. Booknet offers 70% royalties to its commercial authors, and regular payments, along with free marketing support on the platform. A study by the University of Glasgow tracked author earnings showing a clear drop in average author income from £18,000 in 2006 to £10,500 in 2018. Yet, Eva Muñoz, Booknet’s author from Colombia, who is hugely popular on the Spanish-language version, sold 10,425 copies of her book in its first 24 hours (April 2021). Eva Muñoz (https://booknet.com/es/eva-munoz-u2131660) with her book ‘Queen’ (https://booknet.com/es/book/queen-b333964) made over £14,200 in the first day through the Bookscription model.
It’s time for London’s authors to take back the control and elevate their earning potential to the next level… and it couldn’t come at a better time!
Meet Ashleh Queen (from Pakistan) who has earned around £52,000 from her writing on Booknet despite not trying to sell her books for the first seven months of joining!
And Lirio Blanco (from Argentina) who has written a staggering 39 books and earns around £2,500 per month from her writing on Booknet!
And Mirah Selim (from Pakistan), who writes Romance and Erotica fiction on Booknet earning herself £2,500 to support her studies.
Q&A with the Booknet team:
Q. What prompted the creation of Booknet?
A. We want to demonstrate to English-language authors that there is a different, successful and creative way to publish and sell their eBooks, by creating their own place on the Internet where they can do more than just sell eBooks, as they do in regular online bookshops, but interact with their readers through reader comments and the author blogs, and build a longstanding, loyal target audience.
Q. What is Bookscription?
A. Bookscription is the unique book-selling model that is available for Booknet authors, once they’ve obtained commercial status. Bookscription is a one-time fee to access an eBook that is still being written and gradually published by an author via the platform. The author sets the price for eBook. The reader gets access to the chapters / episodes as soon as they are published by the author. And once the eBook is complete, readers can continue to access that book. It can also then be made available for sale as a completed, whole eBook.
Q. Why do you think the concept of Bookscription and Booknet took off so quickly in parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe?
A. The Booknet literary platform saw booming popularity in Latin America and Ukraine in recent years because of the Bookscription book-selling model. Readers enjoy watching how an author writes and develops a story, they are fascinated by how authors publish their eBook bit-by-bit over 2-4 months. Of course, readers also like being able to interact with authors of stories they’re enjoying, by sharing their thoughts and ideas about the plot line so far, or how the story could continue. This way of reading and interacting with the author is much more interesting than simply reading a completed eBook, purchased in a regular online bookshop. Bookscription really is the main ingredient in Booknet’s success.
Q. How many writers have used bookscription over the past xx years?
A. Disregarding the Russian Litnet, where the Bookscription is almost the primary model for all self-publishing platforms nowadays, the number of authors who have adopted the Bookscription has reached 670 people across the language versions.
Q. How many books are currently listed on Booknet?
A. The Ukrainian-language version houses 7,430 eBooks, the Spanish-language version comprises more than 16,700 eBooks, and the English-language version holds almost 3,000. Therefore, more than 27,000 free and paid eBooks overall been published across the Booknet platform since the creation of the three language versions.
Q. How many readers get their eBooks through Bookscription?
A. As of the year 2021-2022, the total number of sold eBooks via the Bookscription model in the Ukrainian-language, Spanish-language and English-language versions reached 403,000-plus.
Q. What are your hopes for Booknet and Bookscription in five years?
A. In five years, we would like to see the Bookscription become one of the main book-selling models in the English-language market, regularly used by readers and popular among both reader and author communities.
Q. Publishing is notoriously slow-moving – Bookscription and Booknet are truly innovative – how do you think the English-speaking markets such as UK, US, Canada and Australia will react to the concept?
A. Book-selling via the Bookscription model has been tried and tested, successfully, in different language versions of the Booknet literary platform. And if readers from Kyiv, Madrid, Mexico City and Buenos Aires enjoy reading eBooks released by authors in bite-sized chunks during the process of their writing, why shouldn’t people from London, New York, Toronto or Sydney? We believe there is huge potential for Bookscription and Booknet in English-language communities worldwide, and we are going to work hard to prove it.