A while back I made a post on the cost of creating the Pirate Fighter, it had a $1.33 piece of stock art on the cover and a handful of stat blocks. There were several other stock art spaceships. On these 8 ships, I spent about $14.33 in stock art and 8 hours of my time. $310 in sales have come back from that investment. If we say they all made about $35 each or $280 at $0.99 each, I’ve made $30-33 an hour on my time.

Pirate Fighter        has sold 111 copies  and made $38 it’s also gotten a 5 star review and still sells for $0.99
Strike fighter         has sold 96 copies   and made $33
Heavy Dropship  has sold 107 copies and made $39
Trogon Cruiser     has sold 99 copies   and made $34
Alien Carrier          has sold 98 copies   and made $34 used a $5 piece of stock art from a subscription, sells for $0.99
Alien Racer             has sold 91 copies    and made $29
Escort Carrier        has sold 107 copies and made $38
Armed Shuttle     has sold 95 copies   and made $65 it started with $1.33 stock art at $0.99, but added deckplans and we changed the price.

Unfortunately that’s where the really cheap stock art runs out. Everything else I’ve made has had at least a $40 piece of art on the cover and possibly anywhere from $75-300 extra for deckplans. So let’s break down some of the more expensive ships. I’ve spent at least an hour of my time on each of these ships making stat blocks and doing layout, I’ve spent probably another hour on each one sketching the deckplans and emailing the cartographer and cover artist. That says I’ve made $10 an hour on each of the two fighters and none of the big ships have made their money back yet.

Eldred Ships
Heavy Fighter     has sold 144 copies   and made $55    it sells for $0.99 and cost me $40 to produce
Interceptor           has sold 137 copies   and made $51     it sells for $0.99 and cost me $40 to produce
Light Cruiser       has sold 147 copies   and made $99    it sells for $4.99 and cost me $165 to produce
Heavy Cruiser     has sold 146 copies   and made $102 it sells for $4.99 and cost me $475 to produce
Pirate Cruiser     has sold 121 copies   and made $86     it sells for $4.99 and cost me $165 to produce
Classic Cruiser   has sold 98 copies    and made $103   it sells for $4.99 and cost me $240 to produce
Intermediate     has sold 274 copies   and made $73    it is Pay What You Want and cost me $165 to produce
Black Knight       has sold 97 copies    and made $40    it sells for $0.99 and cost me $50 to produce

Katar Ships
Light Freighter       has sold 128 copies   and made $97 it sells for $4.99 and cost me $160 to produce
Gunship                      has sold 128 copies   and made $62 it sold for $0.99 and cost me $40 to produce, we later added deckplans and changed the price
Heavy Cruiser         has sold 120 copies   and made $88 it sells for $4.99 and cost me $215 to produce
Fast Attack                has sold 122 copies   and made $87 it sells for $4.99 and cost me $215 to produce
Light Cruiser            has sold 124 copies   and made $84 it sells for $4.99 and cost me $215 to produce
Mining Freighter  has sold 117 copies   and made $81  it sells for $4.99 and cost me $190 to produce
Heavy Freighter    has sold 122 copies   and made $79 it sells for $4.99 and cost me $190 to produce

I don’t think the fantasy books have been out long enough to really say, the starships with 3D model art and deckplans haven’t been out long enough to get good numbers. Neither of these books has been out as long as the ships and haven’t been regularly bundled with other books so while we’ve beaten our production costs on both, the hourly rate on these books would be low, but does increase over time. I might have made $1 per hour making the stat blocks for Personas, less after formatting.

Alien Hazards        has sold 61 copies    and made $21 it sells for $1.99 and cost me $5 to produce, but was largely written by Jim who gets a split of the proceeds.
Personas                    has sold 50 copies   and made $54 it sells for $7.99 and cost me $25 to produce, writing was very evenly split between Jim on flavor and me making stat blocks so we split of the proceeds.

If you have any feedback about this post or our books please feel free to contact us.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com