64% of business books are profitable. That’s the bottom line from our study of Business Book ROI.

Months ago, I joined up with four author service organizations — Amplify Publishing, Gotham Ghostwriters, Thought Leadership Leverage, and Smith Publicity — to undertake the first-ever large-scale study of the return on investment from business and thought leadership books.

Today, we release the results of that study free to the public. You can download your own copy at AuthorRoi.com.

To hear my partners and me explain the results, register here.

Our bottom-line result: median profit per book was $11,350.

We were able to reach 350 authors, of whom more than 300 had published nonfiction books. We asked detailed questions on both spending and revenue from books — not just advances and royalties, but increases in revenue from speaking, consulting, workshops, and other sources. Here are the highlights from the study:

• 64% of business books showed a gross profit. The median profit for books out for at least 6 months was $11,350.
• Launch PR, ghostwriters, and revenue strategy were correlated with profit. Books with launch PR teams had a median gross profit of $55,500; those with a strong revenue strategy, over $96,000. The median ghostwritten book was four times as profitable as other books. Books generated an average of $1.24 in revenue per dollar spent.
• Authors spent money to make their books successful. The median spending was $7,000 across all expense categories.
• The median book generated $18,200 in revenue. Traditionally published books more than tripled that amount, and hybrid-published books nearly doubled it. Among authors with books out 6 months or more, 18% reported $250,000 or more in income. Speaking, consulting, and workshops generated much more income than book sales and royalties.
• Authors boosted their brands. More than 90% reported some form of nonmonetary value in their books, and 89% said writing a book was a good idea.
• The top marketing tactics were email campaigns and Amazon reviews. The most popular social media tactics were posting on LinkedIn and promoting on blogs. X was one of the worst marketing channels.
• Book sales rarely met expectations. Median sales were 4,600 for traditionally published books, 1,600 for hybrid-published books, and 700 for self-published books. But book sales didn’t predict success or ROI.
• Hybrid publishers delivered better service. Authors with hybrid publishers were more than twice as likely to strongly agree that they were satisfied with their publishers.

About the study

We did everything possible to make this study as balanced and fair as possible. It reached everyone from people who self-published a cheap little paperback to major authors whose books generated millions of dollars. Our analysis was painstaking and detailed. The sponsors encouraged me to find what truths the data was revealing, just as I had when analyzing data as a research analyst.

I truly believe that time spent with our report will help authors to evaluate themselves among their peers and to make better decisions about writing and publishing.

I’ll be publishing data highlights from the report in these pages over the next several weeks. But if you want to know more, please download the report or sign up for the webinar and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.