Does Amazon Pay?

I put my creepy little memoir up on Amazon's bookshelf back in April of this year in the hopes that I could avoid mentor M's Reason #56 of why my book might get REJECTED: "You Have no Sales History to Speak Of" and also because it seemed like a darn fun thing to do. Well, putting my book out there was a lot of work, but as I've said before it's been worth it. Just recently I received my first month's royalty check. It was for $200.00 which isn't amazing, but it's also not bad. (The average ebook author makes $500.00 a year.) I have to admit putting a book up on Amazon AND stirring up sales is a lot like playing the market--things can change quickly;one day you're up and the next you're wondering what went wrong. This fluctuation has a lot to do with algorithms and how Amazon tweaks them. (For instance, just when you think Amazon's  KDP Select program is a great marketing tool for self-pubs like me they go and change the algorithms, making it more difficult to get your book noticed. See this May blog for an explanation...
Amazon's changing algorithms )


But as many kindle self-pubs know, there's more to selling books than just KDP Select...see Renee Pawlish's blog.

So, does Amazon pay? Sure, but it's not a walk in the park. It's more like a hike up a steep bank...a steep bank that doesn't seem to end.