The original version of this page can be found at : http://forum.sfreader.com/default.aspx?f=12&m=36884
| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 4/14/2007 4:30 AM | |
I fell into self-publishing more by accident than design, as I was under time pressure to get my first novel out in order to hit a marketing opportunity. At that time I knew very little of the fiction publishing market, as my experience had all been with the (very different) world of specialist non-fiction.
All comments welcomed!
Tony Williams
Scales (2007)
The Foresight War (2004)
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
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| Posted By : Mike Lynch - 5/7/2007 12:52 PM | Tony, I very much enjoyed reading your article about the advantages/disadvantages of choosing between the TP & SP markets. Very concise, easy to read, and quite informative. I'm in the process of getting my website up and running, hopefully soon. Would you mind if I created a page where I could post this article?
Mike |
| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 5/7/2007 5:40 PM | Please do, Mike. All I ask is a link back to my website.
Tony Williams
Scales (2007)
The Foresight War (2004)
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
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| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 6/2/2007 5:14 AM | Just to let you know, I've updated the article a couple of times since I first posted the link.
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| Posted By : Daniel - 6/5/2007 9:34 PM | Great article!!! Should be of much help to many of the authors 'round here. Thanks for the link!
Daniel |
| Posted By : Alan of The Word - 6/18/2007 9:22 PM | That's a great article. I have to pretty much agree with every point you made.
Read The Word |
| Posted By : nathan - 6/19/2007 6:30 PM | | Great article sir.
Wasn't that link to the confessions of a mid-lister author a happy punch in the gut?
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." |
| Posted By : erazmus - 6/20/2007 4:12 PM | Nathan,
The mid-list author link was hoot! Did you spot the early mistake that practicly assured the eventual outcome?
She quit her day job. Right at the start. I'll admit, the hefty advance was certainly an incentive, but did this person have no one in her life to set her straight about these things? Without that one, glaring error she might feel very differently about her writing carreer.
Until you can no longer afford to keep your day job, until you have contracts you can not possible meet without the extra writing time, contracts with your income for the next several years clearly spelled out, writing isn't your day job. Its your second job.
Second job may be a mystery to upper-middle class working moms with college degrees and aspirations to becoming the next Nora Roberts, but they are very familiar to working class joes who only get paid for the hours they actually put in on the job, who have to streatch to cover the kids braces and the house payment while keeping the car from being repro'd. Its what you do when you can't glean any overtime, the job you do friday and saturday nights because the extra hundred bucks every two weeks means you keep the chevy. And for writers without sales figures and multi-book contracts, its what writing is-- a job but not -the- job. And if you pull in a nice six-figure advance every year or two, great. Even a lowly, substandard advance of ten K is great, because you aren't tied to it for the rent and groceries.
But the fact is this woman ripped off publishers for more than two hundred and fourty thousand dollars From what I can tell, only one of her books ever earned out. She's crying about the money she's not being offered anymore for the books she writes that have never earned anywhere near the money she's been paid.
If she had approached things differently from the start, she might feel very different about things. Obviously she was expecting to make a hell of a lot of money, and thats just not realistic. If she had recieved a ten K advance for her fist book and earned it out, built up sales and a following of readers, kept her money away from publicists and concentrated her efforts on writing, adjusted her income expectations to match what she was actually earning, she might be very happy with her carreer. Certainly she wouldn't have "Mr. Big"'s axing her projects because of all the money they've paid out with no return.
She seems to think the world owes her a living, that she should be kept in the lifestyle she imagines she deserves until she manages to earn out the publishers trust. Like a young actress who wants the mansion and the yacht and will make the box office smash later. Does she imagine shes that special? That the money that trickles in from the bulk of the publishers offerings (and a good chunk of the flow from established sellers who are earning their cash) should go to support her while she works up?
Her problem is one of expectations. Hers are high, and so were her publishers. She didn't meet theirs, they didn't meet hers. The difference is, she's not out a couple of hundred grand.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php |
| Posted By : Silverdrake - 6/20/2007 4:44 PM | Most telling line from the midlist author's article:
"What will we lose if writers like me stop writing?"
A heck of a lot of whining and sniveling.  This author refuses to accept that publishing is a business, has been for centuries, and that her first advance was unusual for that business and caused her problems down the road. Instead of accepting this and getting back on-track for the business she's in, she insists on holding to a "dream" that had about as much chance of actually happening as having a huge jewel fall from the sky and land gently at one's feet. Then to count her one successful book as a "loss"? Wah, wah, wah. She needs to grow up.
In answer to Anthony's remark:
"I don't know what percentage of aspiring novelists fail ever to find a publisher, but I suspect it's quite high."
From my reading on Baen's Bar, about 3% of the slush pile gets sent up the line to editors. About 1% of that gets contracts. So figuring about the same triage ratio coming from agents, you're looking at 0.03% publication chance for any given novel.
Among this, you have what happened to an acquaintance just recently: He received the standard form rejection with an added note saying that the story was very good, but it just didn't quite make the cut. A publisher has only so many slots to fill in a given timeframe, so even good stories will fall short.
As the technology advances, POD and ebooks should start opening more slots for these works by removing, or at least widening, the current print publication bottleneck. The problem of sorting the good works from the garbage will remain just as it is now, with that lack of pre-screening being the main complaint against self-publishing.
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 6/20/2007 7:03 PM | I think that's why it's important to win awards, even in short fiction, like WotF. They help promote your stuff for free.
Jordan Lapp
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| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 6/20/2007 8:12 PM |
Silverdrake said...
In answer to Anthony's remark:
"I don't know what percentage of aspiring novelists fail ever to find a publisher, but I suspect it's quite high."
From my reading on Baen's Bar, about 3% of the slush pile gets sent up the line to editors. About 1% of that gets contracts. So figuring about the same triage ratio coming from agents, you're looking at 0.03% publication chance for any given novel.
Ouch - I didn't realise that it was that bad!
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| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 6/20/2007 8:14 PM |
Jordan Lapp said...
I think that's why it's important to win awards, even in short fiction, like WotF. They help promote your stuff for free.
It's certainly better to win awards than not win them, but I've heard a few people comment that their award-winning work failed to find a publisher or, if it did, failed to sell well.
There is no guaranteed route to success...
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| Posted By : Dragon Angel - 6/21/2007 12:12 AM | Baen accepts unsolicited works, so you don't need an agent, so that 0.03% is probably more than a bit low.
read free fiction and poetry at http://www.geocities.com/davidolson22/index.html
Part dark, part light. And gooey in the middle. |
| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 6/21/2007 5:49 AM | It would be interesting to learn, from those of you who have worked in SFF publishing, what percentage of submitted mss are "publishable" - i.e. achieve a minimum threshold standard in terms of quality of writing, competently-handled plot, characters you can relate to etc. And then, how many of those get published, and to what extent are the editors' decisions based on what they personally like to read?
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| Posted By : erazmus - 6/21/2007 1:44 PM | Well of course any given editor is going to put out books he or she personally likes to read. Who'd want or be able to labor over a Ms, bring out the best the author is capable of giving, with a work that they personally didn't like? Lots of writing is "publishable", meaning it is technically and artisticly capable of being put out.
But it doesn't mean that any given publisher will want to publish it. And there is little benifit to being published by a company that thinks your work just "meets minimal standards". You want the editor that likes _your_ work, the publisher who will know how to market it so the readers that will like _your_ book will find it, so it will thrive. You want it listed next to other titles from that publisher that also appeal to your audience. Thats the point of the ads you see in the backs of paperbacks, if you liked this book, try one of these others . . ..
If you are pushing a fast-paced military SF novel, you want Baen to be your publisher, because they all ready have a large pool of readers of that kind of book, who are likely to try yours and likely to like it. There are other lines that move that sort of book as well-- Warner Aspect for one. But you don't really want to be the only one in the line up, because you won't get the "walk by" advertising you will with them. OTOH, a light fantasy- modern fairytale adaptation (which are pretty popular right now) would sort of be stuck out on its own with Baen, but would fit right in with Daw, Tor or Luna. The same book would do better from those houses-- and thats what editorial boards and publishers have to watch out, its not enough to bring out a hodge-podge of genre fiction, no matter how well written, you want a line up that will work together, leading the customer from one offering to another. You want books that will help you sell other books.
And as an author you want that too. Heck as a reader you want that, so you can find more of what you like in less time.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php |
| Posted By : PK Lentz - 6/21/2007 3:51 PM | Anthony G Williams said...
It's certainly better to win awards than not win them, but I've heard a few people comment that their award-winning work failed to find a publisher or, if it did, failed to sell well.
That's me! 
My novel ms won $2,500, which is more than most first timers get for an advance, if they even manage to get an advance. I first shopped it to agents, and I'll say I think the win probably got me looked at. But once the sample or full ms is in their hands, and it isn't what they're looking for for any reason, then that's it. Even if it deserved the award in artistic terms, it has to be "right" for their personal taste and for the present market. Especially the market. I guess I wrote a decent space opera, but why should an agent bother to take a chance on that when s/he can probably make more $ with a non-award-winning urban fantasy instead? Now I'm on to trying publishers directly, the ones who accept unsoliciteds.
In the end (aside from the check), the contest win for me was just proof I was doing something right. Which is a good thing, and helps you to keep going.
EDIT: I should also add I was amazed by the number of agents who didn't even want to look at my work even though the contest judges used the words "Herbert" and "Asimov" in their description, which I naturally quoted in my query letter. |
| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 6/22/2007 6:03 AM |
Dragon Angel said...Baen accepts unsolicited works, so you don't need an agent, so that 0.03% is probably more than a bit low.
But presumably the overall acceptance figure may be the same, if you include those which don't get past the agents...
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| Posted By : Jim C. Hines - 6/22/2007 9:13 AM | "My novel ms won $2,500, which is more than most first timers get for an advance, if they even manage to get an advance."
Actually, the average advance from a commercial publisher for a first time SF/F novel is about $5000. Small presses pay less in many cases, of course.
If agents aren't interested in reading your manuscript, that could just mean you need to revise the query letter. Queries are as much of a skill as short stories or novels. (I hate writing the things, myself.)
Good luck with the book!
In the history of grand adventures and heroic quests, goblinkind has never been more than a footnote. That's about to change.
Goblin Quest -- November, 2006
Goblin Hero -- May, 2007
Goblin War -- March, 2008 |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 6/23/2007 10:49 PM | If anyone's interested, I wrote a post on what the average agented and unagented advances are for first novels. I included a link to Tobias Bukell's (extensive survey). You can find the article here.
Jordan Lapp
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| Posted By : Anthony G Williams - 6/24/2007 6:46 PM |
Jordan Lapp said...If anyone's interested, I wrote a post on what the average agented and unagented advances are for first novels. I included a link to Tobias Bukell's (extensive survey). You can find the article here.
I've tried on a couple of occasions, but I get "The page cannot be found" messages for both links.
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| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 6/25/2007 2:01 AM | Sorry. In the process of moving to a new .com address. Try now.
Jordan Lapp
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| Posted By : H.P. Lovesauce - 8/13/2007 10:51 AM | I liked your article, Tony. It lays out the issues surrounding self-publishing quite cogently.
The biggest eye-opener for me was that link you posted from that place explaining why they don't review self-published books. Their dismissive vitriol insists that if you haven't yet received your holy orders from a traditional publisher, it's your own damned fault. Still, their basic point--there probably is something wrong with your writing--is one to definitely bear in mind.
I confess my perspective is skewed from a non-fiction perspective as well. The idea of writing an entire story--let alone a novel!--without a go-ahead or implied contract seems a little backwards. I mean, yes, one often does shop around finished articles, but primarily these are previously-published pieces modified for secondary markets. Writing on spec means you've taken the time and care to create and polish a finished product as a craftsman would, say, a chair, and now must go about trying to find a buyer. At this point, rather than becoming a supplicant to the handmade-woodcrafts distributors and hope they're buying chairs this season, it makes more sense to sell the thing myself. |
| Posted By : erazmus - 8/17/2007 7:49 PM | They (and I) look at self publishing differently. You couldn't get a single solitary publisher of any sort to go with your book? Not just the big houses, but the small press market either?
I'd figure that either you;
a). Don't want to be edited and thus are hard to impossible to work with or
b). You got rejected once and couldn't ber the long wait times involved to try another publisher-- meaning you won't take well to the elongated times between royalty checks either and are thus hard to work with or
c). You couldn't bear the long wait to get your Ms. looked at by anybody and just charged ahead. Skipping over every aspect of publishing that occurs between the writing and having the book come out-- like editing, or
d). You tried everyhwere and nobody but you thought your book was any good, except you.
I don't read much self published fiction and I've never read any stunningly original, riviting oh-my-god I can't wait for the next one self-published fiction. I've read my share, perhaps fifty books handed to be by aquaintences or aspiring newbies, some I paid for. A few could have been fairly decent books with a good editor to focus the writers efforts. Most just sucked.
There are a lot of publishers between Random House and Flying Pen Press( a pod publisher I'm associated with in a minor way). Going it alone is usually a sign of impaitence, inexperience or unrealistic expectations.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 8/17/2007 8:31 PM | erazmus said...
Going it alone is usually a sign of impaitence, inexperience or unrealistic expectations.
Mike
Or the desire not to give up control to someone else...and the desire not to be stuck with only a pittance of the profits. |
| Posted By : erazmus - 8/19/2007 3:31 AM | I'm not going to pick a fight with Kelly, I'm not going to pick a fight with Kelly . . .
What profits? Profits require sales, and sales require getting the word out about your product to your customers and placing the product where they can can see it and buy it. Publishers have made a great investment in the mechanisms to do that on a grand scale. The per-book renumeration from mass market publishers is very fair, the writers make money long before the publishers do, up front in fact. Without the investment in advertising, distribution etc that a publisher provides it is very, very difficult to generate the kind of sales that lead to significant profits.
This isn't true for everyone, of course. Self publishing works may make a lot of sense for a motivationl speaker or radio show hosts, who have a marketing mechanism all ready in place. But most writers want and need to write, and don't really want to take the massive time and effort to duplicate what the publisher contributes, in other words don't want to be publishers. They just want people to read their books.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 8/19/2007 3:38 AM | erazmus said...
I'm not going to pick a fight with Kelly, I'm not going to pick a fight with Kelly . .
*grin*
erazmus said...
What profits?
So far, $3.50 per book as opposed to about 48 cents per book from a large house.
erazmus said...
Profits require sales, and sales require getting the word out about your product to your customers and placing the product where they can can see it and buy it.
Yes, which is why a self-publisher has to understand they are starting a business. If a writer doesn't want to also be the business owner, then he or she needs to stay out of self-publishing.
erazmus said...
But most writers want and need to write, and don't really want to take the massive time and effort to duplicate what the publisher contributes, in other words don't want to be publishers. They just want people to read their books.
Mike
True, but your original comment was:
>Going it alone is usually a sign of impaitence, inexperience or unrealistic expectations.
Mine was in response to that. Going it alone isn't always a sign of any of those three things. Yes, I know you said usually, I wasn't arguing, just adding to the list. |
| Posted By : Jim C. Hines - 8/20/2007 8:37 AM | | "So far, $3.50 per book as opposed to about 48 cents per book from a large house."
Trying to stay out of the conversation for now, because I've had this discussion too many times lately.
But as a data point, my royalties start at 6% on Goblin Quest, which means I'm only making $.42 per book. After a certain number of sales, it jumps to 8%, or $.56.
Hardcover royalties tend to be better. You might make $2.50 per book. You're not going to sell as many as you would in paperback, but still....
If you're talking about money, the two things to keep in mind with commercial publishing are the author's advance, and sales volume. Generally, you get some decent money up front. And 6% of 10K or 15K sales starts to be moderately respectable.
In the history of grand adventures and heroic quests, goblinkind has never been more than a footnote. That's about to change.
Goblin Quest -- November, 2006
Goblin Hero -- May, 2007
Goblin War -- March, 2008 |
| Posted By : erazmus - 8/20/2007 10:34 AM | And it is more likely that you will sell ten K with a commercial house than self publishing. Much, much more likely that you will eventually sell two-three hundred K books. That is _one_ title if you are David Weber, ten titles if you are not but still six figures sales. I don't know of anyone self publishing with even half those kinds of numbers, except a couple of televangelists.
Most publishers work hard for their money, they really, really do. I know writers like to talk like these guys sit around plush offices all day and work on their putting, but that isn't true. Most publishers and editors at the top of our game work fifteen hour days more often than not. They take risks and lose jobs much more often than people who, say, manage truck depots or manufacturing plants. And each and every one of them wants every one of their writers to succeed. That, after all, is their main job.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm |
| Posted By : H.P. Lovesauce - 8/21/2007 11:13 AM | Thanks very much all for keeping this discussion alive.
For Jim: why has this conversation cropped up repeatedly for you lately?
For Mike: are there any circumstances under which you'd consider self-publishing to be acceptable? |
| Posted By : Jim C. Hines - 8/22/2007 8:40 AM |
H.P. Lovesauce said...
For Jim: why has this conversation cropped up repeatedly for you lately?
I believe I've offended a minor deity at some point, and thus I was sentenced to--
Okay, maybe not.
I hang out on a fair number of writing boards, and there are a lot of conversations that tend to repeat over time. "Should I get an agent or submit directly to publishers?" is one. "Which is better, self-publishing or commercial publishing?" is another.
The problem is that the latter is a trick question. Which is "better" depends on what your goals are and how you define better. For me, commercial is the better option because of what I want to get out of my writing.
However, self-publishing vs. commercial often involves people with very entrenched positions. Self-publishing is basically written off as being for losers. Commercial publishers are evil scum who wouldn't know a good book if it bit them in the ass. Add in all of the myths put out by the scammers, and it's just a mess.
I'm used to the conversations coming up again and again, but for some reason, the self-publishing thing hit on a number of different groups all at once. (All from different people, too -- sometimes the same person asks the same question on a number of groups, but not this time.)
In the history of grand adventures and heroic quests, goblinkind has never been more than a footnote. That's about to change.
Goblin Quest -- November, 2006
Goblin Hero -- May, 2007
Goblin War -- March, 2008 |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 8/22/2007 2:19 PM | erazmus said...
And here I'd gone to great efforts not to use the term "losers" in relation to self-publishing. But there is that strong impression to overcome as well, an impression formed partly by a great number of losers going that route over the years, I'm sorry to say.
Goals are the key. thats it.
Mike
That's where 'the author keeping their mouth shut' comes in. Very few readers have a clue who the various publishers are. Most pay no attention (yes, I did do a survey on this) to what the names of publishers are and probably couldn't even tell you who put out their favorite books unless they went and looked. One of the questions I asked was 'do you care who the publisher is' and the response was 'no'.
So if an author doesn't tell the readers his or her book is self-published, they aren't going to care. The people who do care? Who make the disparaging remarks? Mostly it's either other authors or so-called 'experts' in the industry who don't like the idea. There are all kinds of excuses about why self-publishing is bad, ranging from 'you won't make any money' to 'all self-published books are full of horrible writing and non-existent editing'. Every reason given is true for both self and non-self published books and none of them are universal.
Now, getting books into book stores:
Hastings doesn't care who the publisher is, they'll stock anyone, and they'll even stock books on commission. They order from Ingram like most others do.
Barnes and Noble, some stores will stock on commission, some won't, depends on the manager.
Other chains and independents have their own rules. But getting books into book stores isn't as hard as you might think. it takes work, and for a self-publisher that means you can't just point at your 'publishing company' (because you ARE your publishing company) and say 'why aren't my books in the stores'? But you can get your books in the stores if you bother to put out the effort.
As far as marketing goes: Even Rowling has to be involved in marketing her books, and people that aren't world famous have to be even more involved than she does. No author's ever been able to just hand his or her book to a publisher and take it for granted that the marketing machine is going to make their book sell. Some try that, but very few, if any, of those that make that mistake find out real fast that their books aren't doing to hot. If you do nothing other than book signings, you are still involved in the marketing of the book.
To echo Jim's comment, neither option is 'better'. It all depends on what the individual author wants. Some just want to write and not have to worry about much of anything else. Some, (like me) do not want someone else making any of the decisions. |
| Posted By : H.P. Lovesauce - 8/24/2007 9:02 AM |
Jim C. Hines said...
Which is "better" depends on what your goals are and how you define better. For me, commercial is the better option because of what I want to get out of my writing. Dude, you should seriously have not offended that diety; I have a follow-up question. 
What is it you want to get out of your writing?
I can definitely see erazmus's point about the size of exposure, and I suspect that's it. |
| Posted By : rimworlder - 5/18/2008 8:15 AM |
Jim C. Hines said...
"So far, $3.50 per book as opposed to about 48 cents per book from a large house."
Trying to stay out of the conversation for now, because I've had this discussion too many times lately.
But as a data point, my royalties start at 6% on Goblin Quest, which means I'm only making $.42 per book. After a certain number of sales, it jumps to 8%, or $.56.
Hardcover royalties tend to be better. You might make $2.50 per book. You're not going to sell as many as you would in paperback, but still....
If you're talking about money, the two things to keep in mind with commercial publishing are the author's advance, and sales volume. Generally, you get some decent money up front. And 6% of 10K or 15K sales starts to be moderately respectable.
Taking the 3.50 and the .42, the TP author would need to sell 8.333 x as many books. Or, looking at it the other way; To gain as much revenue from an SP book as a TP book that sold 10K copies, the SP author would have to sell 1200 copies; for a TP book that sold 15K copies, the SP author would have to sell 1800 copies.
Exclusive of advance.
Assume the 'standard' advance of 6K, which would require an additional 1715 SP salesl, for a total of 2915 to 3515 SP copies.
Anthony's example for an SP best seller was 1900 copies. I assume the TP numbers provided were for a time frame of about a year (let me know if I'm wrong, and disregard the following if I am).
If we make the further assumption that the TP author's book sells as well for a time frame similar to Anthony's sales figures, we're looking at:
SP (1900 x 3.50 [est] = 6650
TP (6000 + ((10K x .42) x 3.5) = 20,700
flipped over, the SP title would have had to sell 5914 copies for equivalent revenue.
So, we're essentially looking at SP titles doing a third of the revenue of TP titles (for the author), which means that an SP author would have to turn out three times as many titles - or find a low cost way to engage in marketing and promotion that yeilds three times the sales.
That is, of course, if the goals are the same. Sometimes I think its a good idea to take a look at raw numbers, if only to provide a common basis for discussion.
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| Posted By : cussedness - 5/18/2008 9:57 AM | Okay, I have tossed this in elsewhere. I am self-publishing the print editins of my novels. The electronic rights are tied up for at least the next four years with the Indie ebook company that bought them and brought them out. No one wants print rights without the electronic rights as near as I can tell.
This technically makes my self-published books reprints, not originals.
Do you think this alters the publishing equation at all?
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
The Shadowed Princes
www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook64690.htm?cache
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com/ |
| Posted By : rimworlder - 5/18/2008 12:40 PM | | If you can gain advertising/promotion from the e-book versions for the print versions, I'd say yes, as you've altered the marketing side of things a bit.
If the "indie e-book" company is contractually obligated to promote & market in a substantial manner, and if you can work with them, its a leg up. You might think about doing something like:
get email (opt-in) addresses from those who order your ebooks
offer a discount on the print version to those who have purchased e-book (like, the price of the e-book off the cover price)
offer a "membership" to the discussion forum you establish to support the books
etc.
You preferably want the "mailing list" info, as those who opt-in ARE your fan base and represent a market you can probably make repeated sales to. |
| Posted By : cussedness - 5/18/2008 2:05 PM | Renebooks is one of the largest Indie ebook companies. My ebooks were recently made available on the Sony ebook site as well as in kindle editions, and are carried by all of the largest distributors. They do some modest promotion.
i've asked in the past about the mailing list, but was told that they were not set up to provide it. I intend to send out ARCs in June and then launch Daverana in August.
It might be fun and good PR to set up some serious contests and a newsletter.
I've also added things to the books like maps and additional scenes.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
The Shadowed Princes
www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook64690.htm?cache
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com/ |
| Posted By : rimworlder - 5/19/2008 8:43 AM | | Well, the response on the email thing strikes me as being 'we want to protect our market'.
You now have no ability to tap into that market for youself.
I would imagine that even at this stage, agents/negotiators are still on the learning curve.
Anything I've done in the past related to licensing and marketing always starts from the assumption that "I want everything"; as pieces are licensed off, I always make sure to keep at least a toe in the distribution stream, otherwise, you really end up with nothing lasting.
I'm happy to give up points or extend the product offerings to the licensee, as long as I get the customer contact information.
Now I've got a question: I admittedly do not really follow the e-book scene (I've got some quick edumactation in my future). I can't read fiction off the screen - just can't. Newspaper articles, blogs, forums, yes, fiction, no. Everyone tells me - try this reader, try that reader. Been there, done that and its no good.
So I don't keep up and was very surprised at the prices I saw at Renebooks. I then went to Amazon to cross-check and found the same level of pricing.
Pay the same for an electronic file I do for a paperback? Nope. Not even close. I'd consider $2.99. I can get a lot of Baen's reprints for $4.00 (and considering that this is often the only way to get an OOP title, or spend more from a specialty shop, that's reasonable).
So, when did the prices get so high for e-books and how 'badly' do you think such 'unreasonable' pricing is affecting sales?
Second question/point: I have the same reaction to many POD fiction offerings. I just might try a self-published author IF the pricing were the same as a TP new author. I'd be leaning MORE towards SP if the pricing were a dollar or two less. Otherwise (since I hoarde my book budget), I'll go TP every time - there's a higher level of implied quality and more often than not better review/coverage/information for decision making. Have any SPers tried putting a book out there priced within a buck or two of TP paperbacks? (Yes, I know you'd make nothing or lose a buck or two per copy, but that might be covered by treating it as a loss-leader.) |
| Posted By : cussedness - 5/19/2008 9:06 AM | The reason for the 4 to 5 dollar pricing is the split between publisher, author, and distributor. I get 27% of cover price in royalties. The distributor gets the same. What's left goes to the publisher. For sales made at the publisher's site, I get 40% of cover price because the distributor has been cut out. That's still better than what most of the majors charge. Most charge the same for an ebook that they do the equivalent paper edition.
So far the best reader is Sony. It's the easiest one on my eyes that I have found. But it's very pricey still.
The average indie ebook is lucky to see a handful of copies, while sell hundreds of copies. I did not realize until recently to what extent I had become the exception to the rule.
Nonetheless, the sales figures for ebooks has been jumping but roughly 50% each year for the past three according to both PW and an article last year on USAToday.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
The Shadowed Princes
www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook64690.htm?cache
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com/ |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 5/19/2008 9:36 PM | cussedness said...
The average indie ebook is lucky to see a handful of copies, while sell hundreds of copies.
The average indi ebook does no marketing either. |
| Posted By : cussedness - 5/19/2008 11:45 PM | Very true. Although promotion is stressed over alll by the officers and members of EPIC.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
The Shadowed Princes
www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook64690.htm?cache
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com/ |
|