In 2023, ALLi reached out to key global indie organizations in the self-publishing sector to collate data which would offer valuable insights to authors and anyone interested in self-publishing. By collating information from multiple sources, ALLi created the Big Indie Author Data Drop, a fantastic source for showcasing and sharing important information about self-publishing across the industry. We’ll be updating it annually and it’ll be the best source of indie data anywhere. Here are just 5 fascinating facts… make sure you download the full report and read the rest. You can also visit ALLi's Facts page which contains multiple reports.

Successful authors are stubborn… and that’s a good thing! Kingston University PhD student Holly Greenland found that less ‘agreeable’ authors were more financially successful. Why? Well, not being too concerned with other people’s opinions helps you start your writing business even if people are snobby about self-publishing, keep going when you get a 1-star review, or stay focused on the long-term goals even when others suggest you quit. And perhaps prioritise writing that next book ahead of doing something other people want you to do…

Are you writing in a series? You should be! Draft2Digital shared that 75% of all book sales were part of a series: both in fiction and non-fiction, both by units and by dollars. Readers love to binge-read their way through a series and become attached to characters and worlds, or even, in the case of non-fiction, to ways of presenting material or particular authors whose writing style they respond well to. This is crucial commercial information for all indie authors to consider when deciding whether to write a standalone book or a series.

Great figures from Amazon. In 2022, Amazon announced that, “More than 2,000 self-published authors have surpassed $100,000 in royalties.” This is an impressive figure and shows just how successful self-published authors are on the platform. In addition, we also know that successful authors will have multiple income streams, ranging from direct sales to subscription and crowd-funding models in play, which means that Amazon sales are just the visible tip of the iceberg.

Self-published LGBTQIA+ authors are not only well represented in the indie sector (the percentage of LGBTQIA+ indie authors was 13%), they also out-earn self-published heterosexual authors by a significant 19%, with a strong focus on writing for their own community, which just shows that there is an avid audience for their work, which has often been dismissed as ‘too niche' by the traditional publishing sector.