It’s author monetization week! Monday through Thursday this week I’m going to have a series of posts on a crucial topic for the modern writer: How to make money.
Today we’ll start with the books themselves. With the e-revolution (e-volution?) well underway, print sales are declining and there’s a great disparity between the amount an author can make per-copy with a self-published e-book vs. a traditionally published e-book. Authors are taking a hard look at their balance sheets.
How is it that authors are making more per copy from $2.99 e-books than traditionally published are with $10.99 e-books? Does it mean everyone should self-publish?
First, some important background information to start:
Standard royalties via traditional publishers (note: these may vary):
Hardcover: 10% retail, sometimes escalating to 15% after sales thresholds are met
Trade paperback: 7.5% retail
Mass market: 8% retail
E-book: 25% net (usually translates to 17.5% retail)
Kindle revenue share for self-published authors (source):
Priced higher than $9.99: 35% retail
Priced between $2.99-$9.99: 70% retail
Priced below $2.99: 35% retail
B&N revenue share for self-published authors (source)
Priced higher than $9.99: 40% retail
Priced between $2.99-$9.99: 65% retail
Priced below $2.99: 40% retail
E-distribution fee:
Smashwords: about 15% (explained here). Usually translates to about 60% of the retail price.
Approximate E-book market share (source):
Amazon: ~55%
B&N: ~25%
Others (Kobo, Apple, Google, Sony, etc.): ~20% combined
So. Now that we have those numbers, the real question is: How do you use them? Especially when you don’t know the variables of how many copies you’re going to sell in which formats at which prices?
Well, here’s how. Start running various scenarios:
Scenario #1: Barry Eisler
Thanks to Barry’s wonderfully transparent conversation with Joe Konrath, we know he was offered $500,000 for two books, turned it down, and currently plans to (I believe) self-publish his e-books on Amazon with a price around $4.99, or via Smashwords.
Assuming he doesn’t also work out a deal with Amazon (or B&N, as Shatzkin suggests) for the print component, the math is relatively simple: How many e-books do you have to sell to make $250,000?
If he self-publishes only via Amazon he’ll make 70% of $4.99, or roughly $3.49 per copy. His break-even point would be 71,633 e-books. (UPDATE: Barry notes that his break-even point is actually $215,000 since he isn’t using an agent to self-publish).
If he self-publishes via Smashwords, he’ll make roughly 60% of $4.99, or $2.99 per copy. His break-even point would be 83,612 e-books.
Or he could deal directly with Amazon and B&N, and use Smashwords to reach the other 20% of the market (UPDATE: this paragraph and the next one was updated based on feedback from Cameron Chapman)
All things being equal, let’s say he sold those 71,633 e-books to break even at $250,000 with Amazon (with 55% market share). In that case he’d sell an additional 32,560 copies through B&N for earnings of $105,608.36, and about 26,048 through Smashwords for earnings of about $77,884.61. Getting the e-book out there widely is the way to go.
Lastly lastly, if he does work out a print component that would be a bonus to the above depending on the printing costs and level of distribution. But if he doesn’t work out a print deal, he’s essentially betting he can sell more than 70,000 e-books.
Scenario #2: Amanda Hocking
Amanda Hocking recently agreed to a rumored $2 million deal for four books from St. Martin’s Press. Assuming the royalty levels are standard, she’s giving up quite a bit per copy on e-book sales in order to break out in the print world. Was it worth it?
First, as Hocking herself writes, her reasons go beyond monetary, and she states that her desire to focus on writing was her primary motivation for going with a traditional publisher. But let’s take a look at what has to happen in print in order to make up for what she’s giving up in e-book royalties.
Now, a lot of this depends on St. Martin’s pricing decisions. But let’s say they decide to keep the same $2.99 price point for her e-books, which has worked very well so far. In that case, the amount she earns per e-book sold plummets from $2.09 as a self-published author (70% of $2.99) to $0.52 (17.5% of $2.99) as a traditionally published author. So assuming St. Martin’s doesn’t dramatically boost her overall e-book sales numbers, she needs to make $1.57 in print sales for every e-book sold to break even on a per-copy level. Is that a good bet?
Well, right now when e-books represent approximately 20-30% of the market, it’s somewhat of a safe bet. Hocking will likely sell, I’d predict, a mix of hardcover and mass market paperback. Over the lifespan of her books, let’s say 75% of those print sales are mass market (priced at $7.99, 8% royalties) and 25% are hardcover (priced around $22.00, 10% royalties). In that case, the average print sale would generate about $1.03 in royalties.
Assuming she sells eight print copies for every two e-books sold, she makes way more in print royalties than she loses in e-book royalties. Two e-books sold as a self-published author equal $4.18. Two e-books plus eight print books as a traditionally published author equals $9.28 (minus commission). But if she sells, say, six print books for every four e-books traditionally ($6.18), compared to four e-books as a self-published author, those gains evaporate ($8.36).
If she breaks out in print or if St. Martin’s boosts her sales significantly, the decision will definitely have been worth it (not to mention that she has a guaranteed $2 million that she gets no matter what). But if the bulk of her sales continue to be in the e-book format, she may lose money per copy sold.
Scenario #3: The Law of Averages
So, this following scenario doesn’t really exist. Authors tend to be either hardcover/trade paperback or hardcover/mass market or straight trade paperback or straight mass market authors with a mix of e-books thrown in. And authors who deeply discount their e-books can sell a very disproportionate number.
But let’s say that you’re the perfectly average author and you’re deciding between traditional publishing and self-publishing. And we’ll use the January revenue numbers as a (very rough) guide.
I don’t know the average hardcover/trade paper/mass market/e-book prices, but let’s say $24.99/$14.95/$7.99/$10.99 and the net to publishers is 50%/50%/50%/70%
That means your sales will be about:
11% hardcover
33% trade paperback
29% mass market
27% e-book
If you’re a traditionally published author with books available in all channels, you’ll make about $1.35 per copy sold across all formats: [($24.99*.10 royalty*.11 share)+($14.95*.075 royalty*.33 share)+($7.99*.08 royalty*.29 share)+($10.99*.175 royalty*.27 share)].
If you’re a self-published author working with Smashwords and selling your e-book for $4.99, you make about $2.99 per copy sold, but are only reaching 27% of the market, so an effective hypothetical-per-copy revenue of $0.81 across all formats.
So it really comes down to whether you can move print copies. My ultimate conclusion:
If you can sell print copies, all things being equal there’s still the bulk of the money to be made there.
But if you’re not going out in print in a big way, a self-published e-book is absolutely the way to go.
If you’d like to play around with some of these numbers, please check out Ted Weinstein’s very helpful spreadsheet (and thanks to John Ochwat for pointing it out).
Also, if any of this math is wrong (and there’s a lot of it), please correct me!
This is a great post Nathan!! When you have time, would you consider doing a post on the value an editor/editorial team can bring to a book? I am so proud of and happy for Amanda Hocking, but there were still many typos and grammatical errors and some trouble with sentence structure in her books. A lot of us worry about quality of books in the self-publishing arena; could you break down what you foresee the editor's role will look like in a few years, if you think they will freelance, and whether the world will come back around to trying to guarantee that e-books available for sale will, if nothing else, have proper grammar and sentence structure and punctuation? I've been dying to know your thoughts on this.
In the last two weeks I've had more than three of my longtime blogging buddies self pub their books. This stunned me, but now I see the dam has broken and there's not a lot that traditional publishers can do to stop it. I'm keeping an eye open for the .99 ebook deluge.
Thank you for the $ info!!!
There’s an article in The New Yorker today that talks about Amanda Hocking’s success as being largely attributable to her having developed a kind of social networking commodity self in the same way that many people do in their personal social networking sites. Wow, yes, that’s similar to what I was trying to say on Nathan’s blog the other day when I described the Amazon Kindle discussion forums through which Amanda Hocking met bloggers and promoted her book. I described the experience this way: "The new world of indie and self-publishing seems visual, contextual, experiential, interactive." It’s a whole new experience. A book is not a "book". It’s an experience which does not even need to adhere to the old rules of "books" in which certain conventions of grammar and spelling were expected to be followed. If an author can write a book that sounds similar to a teenage girl’s blog and can promote it in the same way, that author stands to make a lot of money. (Unfortunately, I don’t write those kinds of books, although I do write sci fi and fantasy, and there are a lot of readers in those genres as well.)
There's the other issue of how long does it take before there are any sales? Today's Publishers Lunch refers to acceptance of manuscripts which will be published in Spring 2013. Money is always nice, but getting it out there has its attractions too.
Thanks, Nathan! I'm a number cruncher so I loved your post! I think there are good reasons to go either route and I'm going to try both with different books. Worst case scenario, I'll be in business for myself again and I've missed running my own shop.
P.S. I suggest your blog to every new writer I meet. And when I get my own site going, I'll be thinking about how much value you bring to your blog readers as I try to think of ways to bring value to mine. Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂
Always fun to look at the numbers. Thanks, Nathan. Personally, I still fall on the Hocking side of things. At least at this point in time. I prefer getting paid to go into business with professionals who have an interest in seeing me succeed, even if I'm sacrificing profits over doing it myself. This of course, comes from the perspective of being a new author.
The chances for success are pretty slim regardless of which way you go, but I like my odds better on the legacy end. Besides, I have no resources to obtain editing, cover art, and the like. Even if they are available at reasonable prices, it's still above my pay grade at this point in time. It's a ton of effort to build a readership, and at least through legacy publishers you have broader distribution. I prefer to have some of the burden of my shoulders and be able to focus more on writing.
Again, this may all change down the road. I believe this is a very different debate when going from legacy publishing to self, compared to starting from scratch on the self end. Fact is, success is few and far between. I don't want to invest money for services with such low odds for success. Of course, if you haven't achieved any interest from the legacy folks, self may be the only route to take. It's a tough choice. I've been lucky so far, and am writing for a legacy publisher. Ask me again in a couple of years, and I might have a different response, but for now, for the new author, I can't recommend jumping into self-publishing out of the gate.
That said, I find the notion of $1 books, and the fact that editing and grammar doesn't much matter really disconcerting. For all of it's positives, I think the flood of cheaply priced, poorly written books is going to hurt self-publishing in the end. I think it will hurt publishing in general in the long run.
Sadly, like many other commodities, I think we may end up with a tiered market, where the higher end businesses sell better product at higher prices, but fewer products, and then we'll have the dollar store version of books, where you get what you pay for, which for the most part is junk, but you know, people buy it anyway. And for some, that works just fine.
So, I guess, for a while here, the market is going to be this confusing mash of quality, and everyone is going to scoop up on the cheap stuff because there's really little idea about telling the differences between products, but things will eventually sift out, and authors will probably be making money at either end.
All money issues aside though, I'd rather make a good product, and to me, good stories are worth a lot more than a dollar. And if self-publishing is taking us down that road to where public opinion is that stories are worth a dime a dozen, I don't ever want to go there, no matter how much money I can make from it.
Blogger won't let me post here anymore. 🙁
I'm going to try one more time, from a different computer.
Just ignore this post, if it takes, and move along.
Wow.
Okay, I need to look at this later. But, wow. Amazing!
One question: what happens when you plug the 99 cent eBook into the equation, since there's that whole passionate argument going on too? I don't just mean the raw numbers (I should be able to do that, I figure) but obviously the proponents of this are betting that they sell, er, a metric crap-ton (to use the technical term) to make up for the smaller percentage.
And…a further question…what do you consider "a really big way" in terms of print? Because Eisler I would think would qualify as going out in a big way in print.
Fascinating stuff.
I think by Hockings going with a NY publisher, she will drive up the sales of her self-published novels. She will also learn first hand, where a different set of editors will want her to change her work. She can take that knowledge and apply it to future books she decides to self-publish. This is a win-win given that I doubt she will earn out her advance.
Anon @6:12 PM, Also, it will be interesting to see if Amanda Hocking will lose some fans and gain some others. A few of her earlier fans have already said they won't buy her new books because they won't buy from the big publishing house that will be publishing her new series.
@ Marilyn:
Folks seem to forget that this amazing woman wrote nearly two dozen books. She obviously learned a lot from writing all those books, and she seemed to be receiving requests for partials and fulls. This tells me that she did a lot of hard work to earn her success. This isn't a story of a woman who wrote one book, self-published it, and made a million bucks.
Check out the book Outliers.
Nathan- Thanks for this, informative as always. I just blogged on Friday about my decision to seek an agent for my historical novel, The Orphan's Daughter. I have a masters degree in Marketing and 15 years managing business strategy and campaigns for large, established brands. If any author is a good candidate to self-publish, it would be me. And I gave enormous respect for self-published authors. What it came down to for me was the assumption of risk. No editor or book designer I pay out of pocket has any stake in my success and maturation as an author. But presumably (and I know I'm presuming a lot), an agent and editor who tie their brand to mine have more at stake. They don't get paid if I fail. Still, as people have said, this is a personal decision and not even a decision for many (and it may end up not being for me). Also, in your calculations above, don't forget the opportunity cost of going traditional. Writers who do are going to forfeit an average of 2 years of book earnings while they wait for the traditional publishing cycle to release their book. (Sorry for the length of this!)
We all know the writer who's been fiddling with the same damn manuscript for twenty years. Before you get to that stage, I'd consider self-pubbing as an ebook so you can clear the decks and move on to a second or third effort.
It usually takes more than one book to develop all the skills and put together a manuscript publishers won't reject within two pages.
Wow, this is helpful. You just laid out all the facts for everyone. Thanks. I find this very helpful.
Anon @6:17 PM,
I know she wrote a lot of books. I didn't say otherwise. She never received an offer of representation from any agent or an offer of publication from any of the major publishing houses for any of her books, however, until after she made over $1 million on her self-published books. Many indie authors have written that many books and still have no offers from agents or big publishing houses. I know quite a few indie authors, published by indie publishers, who have written a rather astounding number of books. To have written that many books isn't at all uncommon for many authors who remain mostly unrecognized. Many have won awards and received excellent reviews; some have even hired professional editors.
Somehow, I hit the Anonymous key when I meant to hit "Name/URL", and my post appeared immediately. I'll try posting again.
Here we go, from me…
Anon @6:17 PM,
I know she wrote a lot of books. I didn't say otherwise. She never received an offer of representation from any agent or an offer of publication from any of the major publishing houses for any of her books, however, until after she made over $1 million on her self-published books. Many indie authors have written that many books and still have no offers from agents or big publishing houses. I know quite a few indie authors, published by indie publishers, who have written a rather astounding number of books. To have written that many books isn't at all uncommon for many authors who remain mostly unrecognized. Many have won awards and received excellent reviews; some have even hired professional editors.
People have touched on it briefly but doesn't genre matter in this equation? I worked at library and it seemed that people who read romance novels ate them like candy. One lady took out ten romance novels at a time the only difference between them was the picture of the hot guy on the front. To some extent, mystery junkies had similar tendencies that would lend themselves to the ninety-nine cent e-read all day long. But Middle Grade, Picture Book and to some extent younger YA readers may not even own e-reading devices. Do people who read actual print books have such different tastes that your particular book may make a difference on your decision between self publishing or not? If your book appeals to AARP'ers does that make a difference?
To me (and apparently to Ms. Hocking as well) the question comes down to legitimacy. What makes you a writer of repute- book sales or great writing? They aren't equal.
Anon @6:17 PM,
I hope I haven't given the impression that I don't think Amanda Hocking worked very hard or accomplished some rather amazing feats in her writing career. Amanda Hocking was actually the first person to write about how her sales started with networking inside the Amazon Kindle forums and bloggers then writing about her books. I find that really fascinating because I know a lot of writers who have written a lot of incredible books, but I don't know anyone who networked inside the Amazon Kindle forums, discovered book bloggers there, OR has had the success of Amanda Hocking. Writing a large number of books, for most writers, leads to little more than having written a large numbers of books, even when those books are incredible.
@ Marilyn:
If the book is cheap enough, I think people will take a risk and try the book out. If they like it, they will tell their friends.
But most people just need to know that the book exists in the first place before making a leap.
Of course, if you write a book that is only accessible to a small number of people because of its content, then it's tough to sell it no matter how good it is.
Henry Baum, when you're right, you're right.
I accidentally added a zero.
I meant: I've heard of royalty rates as low as 2,500.
Although later today, I heard of one as low as 1,500.
Wow, Nathan, thank you for this post. This is the big question looming in front of me, and though I still haven't made the decision, you presented it very nicely. I do have a question, though, that I see in the comments has already been asked, but I'm adding my voice in hopes of getting some kind of an answer at some point. The book I'm trying to get published is a middle grade novel. My eleven-year-old reads middle grade, and not only does he not have an e-reader, I'm not likely to get him one while he's still at an age where middle grade is what he's reading. Do all of those numbers only apply to adult novels, or at the very least, YA? Should middle grade authors (and younger) still go with a publisher or do it on their own?
Anon @8:55 PM,
I agree 100%. After reading Amanda Hocking's blog posts about how she went about publishing her books, I'm trying out her approach. I put a number of my novels and short stories on Amazon Kindle for 99 cents each and plan to submit them to bloggers for review. They're not YA books, so I don't expect anywhere near the amazing success that Amanda Hocking's had, but I figured why not try it and just see what happens.
“Something I find very interesting about Amanda Hocking’s situation, and I wonder if anyone in the publishing industry will ever address this in a Blog, is that her books have the problems that were usually considered a major stigma against self-publishing: poor grammar, lots of typos and misspellings … etc.”
This seems to be the elephant doing yoga poses on the coffee table, Anonymous. I find it very curious as well; even as I write this, I feel like the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” pointing out the obvious. That’s going to take some serious man hours, if not a ghostwriter, to get in shape. That’s precisely why I wonder if the folks at SMP have gone barking mad. More curiously, I’m actually glad that Hocking got the money … from somewhere. I probably would have bought her books, even if I had no intention of reading them. She seems like a genuinely sweet person who didn’t have the easiest paper route in town.
Last comment for the day from me or I’ll wear out my welcome, if I haven’t already. The internet seems to be clearly buzzing about self-published books today, and I thought this might be of interest in this discussion. On Twitter, I read that a self-published book is a Finalist in the "Fantasy Novels" category of the coveted Aurealis Awards. Here’s the list: Aurealis Awards finalists.
@Henry Baum
I am in awe. Yours is the most insightful blog I've read about this topic to date. Consider yourself Twittered, FB shared, etc.
Whoa. I wasn’t going to post anymore today, but this is a follow-up I cannot resist. I looked up the self-published novel that’s shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards. I wanted to buy it, but figured it would probably be expensive. I’m shocked. It is only $2.99 on Kindle and only $9.95 in paperback. I’m amazed. And I bought a copy. 🙂
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My big question about self publishing vs traditional publishing is not necessarily about how much money you can/will make, but your credibility. Does traditional publishing give you more credibility than if you self publish? After all, ANYONE can self publish, right?
Marilyn, I'd love to hear what you thought of the self-published book shortlisted for an Aurealis award. Here's an interesting point about those awards; you can self nominate. The judges then make the short-list from there. One would hope it would be relatively good to get to shortlisted.
Here's the thing though, I'm reading all this information on self-publishing and I've read J Konrath's blog and that conversation Nathan referenced (thanks for the frog link boys, I'm still suffering. My eyes!) and I've visited Amanda Hocking's blog. I think they are fascinating discussions and arguments but I just don't see their success as easily repeatable by aspiring authors.
I can see the way of the future will be ebook, but for me that's going to be an ebook published by a traditional publisher who has filtered out all the other crap. I've read some of the self-published work on the internet and it makes me want to run screaming to the hills.
(And imploding self-published authors who can't edit or take criticism aren't helping the s-p cause;
https://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html)
There's a reason it is so difficult to get published via traditional publishing houses… they have high standards. Unfortunately, too often, self-publishers don't.
Traditional houses have high standards, all right . . . they only accept the story ideas that are the very, very closest to whatever sold well last year!
My husband, (author of the Riyria Revelations Michael J. Sullivan) just recently agreed to a 3-book six-figure deal from Orbit books. Pretty good for a first time published author. But…we've figured that he'll loose $200,000 – $400,000 by taking the deal. I know this sounds crazy but look at it this way. Through "self publishing he has earned between $25,000 – $45,000 a month…each month since November that's $160,000 for just 4 months! His six-figure advance does not look so impressive when compared to that.
Robin | Write2Publish | Michael J. Sullivan's Writings
TiffanyD said…
This was fascinating. The thing that I do not understand about self-publishing is this: how do you "market" your book? Oh well. If you're the sort of person who can figure that out, it certainly looks like self-publishing is worth a try.
Unless you are one of the premier books being relased by the publishing house I think that the author will bare the same responsibility for marketing in self-publishing as they would in traditional publishing. Just my 2 cents worth.
Robin | Write2Publish | Michael J. Sullivan's Writings
Thanks for doing the math for us, Nathan! A few of us writers are allergic. Excellent post.
For 15 years I have been a happy self published historical novelist, doing better financially than I ever envisioned. In the black after the first 6 weeks, despite a big print run, I've been paying the mortgage, ranch expenses, house remodeling, buying cars, etc, while running a small publishing house with warehouse — hiring good professional editors, artists, interior designers and marketeers.
I made 2 good decisions early on. 1. Turned down a contract by a major NY house in '99 (they'd heard of my sales), hence my first novel is still in print and selling well (along with subsequent novels) — not out of print and out of mind as they all would have been. 2. Took the plunge into big print runs on new titles and reprints (no online/POD printers), so my retail prices are competitive and my books are distributed by the major companies.
Now comes the ebook question. Readers of all ages sadly tell me to get on Kindle etc, and I will. Their reasons leave no room for argument. Reformatting the backlist will be costly and will require 8 times the number of sales at the low ebook prices to make up the difference. I doubt that will ever happen. My income will plummet as paper books disappear. (Don't assume the printers will stay alive.) Nathan, you have underscored what I'm hearing from other sources about the loss of income in ebooks, especially for a publisher like me accustomed to 50% direct sales to readers. It's maddening to hand over the publisher's right to set retail price to Amazon etc (bookstores), but this is the brave new world. Thanks to this blog and other articles, at least I'm walking into that world with open eyes.
Others touched on it, Nathan, but it's not as simple as straight math in a vacuum, because you haven't calculated the time value of the money. Joe Konrath mentioned the long tail, but there's also the year of waiting (though successful self-pubbers seem to be getting rushed through the production process) and the time after the print sales slow down. For most of the life of copyright, the "traditional" writer will be earning a small fraction of an overpriced ebook. It's just hard to picture any scenario where a massive print run is going to offset the writer's loss of almost all the e-book's lifetime revenue.
There's also no proof that publishers are going to drop their prices to $2.99 for authors who succeeded there, or that these authors' fans will pay $14.99 for what they used to get for $1 to $3. It's just hard to make predictions when everything is changing so fast.
It's going to be an interesting year, but new stars are being minted almost faster than they can be gobbled up by all those sharks smelling blood in the water. Agents, I mean. Agents, not sharks.
Scott
Great post, thank you! I'd like to add XinXii as a free-of-charge platform in "E-distribution". They are already established in Europe, but they have started their internationalization recently.
XinXii revenue share for self-published authors
Priced higher than $2.49: 70%
Priced between $1.49-$2.48: 40%
How to make money! Easy! You just need lots of green ink, a printing press, and a connection to distribute the results on the street. Just like self-publishing really, apart from the ink color.
Seriously, Nathan, I don't see how your percentages relate to the PW link at all. I must be missing something. Caffeine, maybe.
In any case, the PW figures are very incomplete, omitting categories comprising 2/3rds of all print sales. All print Children's, YA, Educational, Professional, and Religious sales are omitted.
Check out the original press release on the Association of American Publishers site. Total sales exceeded $800,000,000, down about 2% on January 2010. E-books at $70,000,000 are still under 9% of the total. Impressive, but a long way from 20% to 30%.
Anonymous 1:12 pm, interesting point, which I've made before. 'Traditional Publishing', 'Legacy Publishing' and 'New York Publishing' are all deliberately loaded terms.
Your articles are always so helpful, because you think in terms of "data" and "numbers." Thanks for a great post. I know this has nothing to do with your post, but it seems like self published eBook authors are landing deals from their popularity on Amazon and B&N … and that could be the next wave of publishing.
@ Henry Baum, my nine year old is saving her pennies for a Kindle and my twelve year old for an iPad. Get ready to publish your middle grade books in ebook format because the market is going there!
Dear Mr. Bransford:
I'm so very happy for Amanda. She seems like a really nice person, really smart and funny and I applaud her for finding a way to channel her dream despite having so many closed doors.
But with regards to that question –
1) can you write
2) can you market
I'm only 50% of the way there. Sure, I can write, I write very well. But I can't market because I'm very, very shy and can't do the social-networking thing that everyone else is doing. To paraphrase Tom Petty, the writing's not the hardest part. It is, as Mel Brooks said in Spaceballs…"Merchandising!"
It looks like, unfortunately, the doors of the big names are closed to us relative unknowns. The onus is entirely on us to "make a big splash" when some of us have never even seen the water — let alone understand how deep it is. Social media scares me, to tell you the truth. Amanda must be quite fearless if she's out there on those Kindle forums and stuff. She sure is braver than I am. 🙂
I wish there was some way to "self publish" a printed book that didn't go through scam sites like Published America. I don't like those e-book readers but sadly, it seems to be the way the market is going.
Any advice for people who may be considering the SP route but recoil in horror when it comes to this whole "author platform"?
And in truth, is it possible to ever have a Twilight on your hands if you go the self-route, long considered the last bastion of rejects and unpolished literary lepers for whom the gates of Random House heaven have already closed? Does one really attain any credibility or is it actually points off?
Word Verif: "Dinglo." Either a hybrid mixture of a Dingo and the Lorax or the marvelous sensory experience realized from acquiring a $2M book deal — a "ding-glow." 🙂
Well, my story is that I self-published "Letter to a Prohibitionist" on Amazon because I've come to accept the publishing fact, as demonstrated by numerous works on the subject before mine, that books on the War on Drugs don't sell — and therefore agents don't ask to see the manuscript. But I feel like the author who cried wolf: what if someone came along and wrote a damning book on the War on Drugs that's funny? But without the muscle of a traditional publisher my book is likely to go nowhere. On to the next project!
oi, i'm awful with numbers! nevertheless, this was definitely an interesting post. to self-publish or not to self-publish, that is definitely the question.
i am currently Struggling to get published the traditional way, collecting all sorts of horror stories along the way. but self-publishing scares me, to be honest. it seems like amanda hocking's the exception, which is why it's been made into such a huge deal. of course, i haven't completely ruled it out, but it's just hard to get away from the longstanding industry stigma against self-publishing. any advice?
oi, i'm awful with numbers! nevertheless, this was definitely an interesting post. to self-publish or not to self-publish, that is definitely the question.
i am currently Struggling to get published the traditional way, collecting all sorts of horror stories along the way. but self-publishing scares me, to be honest. it seems like amanda hocking's the exception, which is why it's been made into such a huge deal. of course, i haven't completely ruled it out, but it's just hard to get away from the longstanding industry stigma against self-publishing. any advice?
I wish I could just decide, should I self-publish or publish "traditionally". Until I have an offer from a "traditional" publisher, there is no decision to be made. If I get an offer from a traditional publisher, I don't see myself turning it down. I self-published my book because my 40 year old friends are dying and getting cancer. I'm 41. I want to see my books on the market in my lifetime and I grew tired of waiting on a big house to pick me up. I won't say I made the "choice" to self-publish though–it was my only option if I wanted to see my book out this year. I am going to keep trying for a publisher with my next book because, even if the money is worse, the exposure is better. The big houses do publicize the books and garner reputable reviews. If I can land a deal for one book, it will help me sell all my books in the long run.
Is there any evidence of agents and publishers scanning the self-published landscape to look for talent which has somehow not made it into the industry's net?
I love it when someone does the math for me. I've been researching the self-publishing options, but had no idea how to distinguish the royalty differences. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Really accomplish! Your online site owns provided everyone almost all tactics Most of us imagined.
I just got done reading your article, and really enjoyed it, thank you. I have over 200 self published books so far. You can see some fun self-published books at Fun2ReadBooks.com where they are in paperback, digital and audio also now. all of them are indie and self published, any questions or help, please ask me, I do this full time and would love to help anyone that needs help or advice, thank you, Vince Stead.