How far do indie authors take their German editions?

Most talk about the German market is about whether to start. I wanted to see what comes after. If you already publish German editions yourself, how far does the German side go?

I took 150 authors at random from the ones I check for my work, all English-language indie authors who publish their own German editions, and counted their Kindle listings on Amazon.de: German on one side, “Englische Ausgabe” on the other.

Where the German side stops

Across all 150 I found 2,194 German ebook listings and 3,243 English ones. The median German share per author was 37.5%.

Here is how they split, German count against English count:

• At least as many German as English listings: 50 authors (33.3%).
• German at 50% to under 100% of English: 29 (19.3%).
• German at 25% to under 50%: 31 (20.7%).
• German under 25% of English: 40 (26.7%).

At the shallow end, 18 authors (12.0%) had only one or two German listings, and 34 (22.7%) had five or fewer. At the deep end, 43 (28.7%) had 20 or more.

One caveat that matters

Three search pages is a ceiling. Of the 150, 63 filled all three, so their counts are floors. For the other 87, closer to complete, the picture is thinner: median 8 German listings against 18 English, median German share 32.3%. Only 20 of 87 (23.0%) had at least as many German as English, and 26 of 87 (29.9%) had German under 25% of English.

Questions worth weighing

• How many of your listings are German today, and how many English?
• Did your German run stop on purpose, or did it stall?
• Where does a German reader land after your last German book?

If you are planning the next German books: The German launch checklist.

How I counted. Population: 837 self-published English-language indie authors I have checked for my work whose German check showed German editions they publish themselves (or a mix). Sample: 150 at random, a different sample from Issues 1 and 2. On 30 October 2026 I searched each name in the Kindle store on Amazon.de, up to three result pages, counting rows with their byline. No foreign-language label counted as German; “Englische Ausgabe” counted as English. All 150 searches worked. Limits: 63 authors filled all three pages, so their counts are floors. These are listings, not books: box sets and single titles each count once, in both languages. I did not read series position. The English count is what Amazon.de labels “Englische Ausgabe”, not necessarily the whole English catalogue.