EREC
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Unsolicited advice: Number crunching -- Jules
I've just finished putting this month's royalty statement numbers into my spreadsheet. As predicted after last month's figures, another book has gone over 1500 copies sold. I've received almost exactly $4000 in royalties on that title since it was released in April last year. The bulk of the sales came from the publisher's own website, but the book was also released through Fictionwise and All Romance Ebooks some months after its initial release, and both sites have shifted some units.
This is why I have a day job.
On the other hand, that's rather more than the price of a round of beers. It's a lot less money than I'd get if I'd been steadily selling books to Tor over the last four years, but it's a lot more money than I'd get at some publishers. Even if you're writing in a genre that New York won't touch, do your homework before submitting to a publisher. Money isn't the only factor, of course, or I'd be putting more effort into writing something that I could sensibly submit to Tor (who I'm using as an example because I *would* like to submit something to them). But it's a really good idea to submit first to a publisher that has a sane contract and has a reasonable chance of both staying in business and making you more than beer money. There are no guarantees in this business, but there are elementary precautions you can take to reduce your risk of getting burned.
This is why I have a day job.
On the other hand, that's rather more than the price of a round of beers. It's a lot less money than I'd get if I'd been steadily selling books to Tor over the last four years, but it's a lot more money than I'd get at some publishers. Even if you're writing in a genre that New York won't touch, do your homework before submitting to a publisher. Money isn't the only factor, of course, or I'd be putting more effort into writing something that I could sensibly submit to Tor (who I'm using as an example because I *would* like to submit something to them). But it's a really good idea to submit first to a publisher that has a sane contract and has a reasonable chance of both staying in business and making you more than beer money. There are no guarantees in this business, but there are elementary precautions you can take to reduce your risk of getting burned.
Labels: Jules Jones, money, unsolicited advice, Writing
¶ posted at 4:15 AM by Jules Jones 8 Comments
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Scalzi talks about self-publishing, so I do as well -- Jules
Scalzi has a good post up about going with a publisher versus self-publishing. One of the things he addresses is the idea that self-publishing is good because you get to keep 100% of the money. As he explains in very clear fashion, this is simply not true. There are costs involved in putting out a professional product and getting it sold to the public at large, and if you're the publisher, you'll be paying them.
This is a conversation I get to have every so often. I'm epublished, and a lot of people think that epublishing must have very low costs because you don't have to pay to print, store and ship physical copies. Thus, the suggestion goes, I should self-publish and get 100% of the cover price instead of 35%.
Well, no. Because the cost of creating and handling the physical item is a relatively small fraction of the cost of bringing that book to market. Good cover art costs money. Good editing costs money. These and other things are necessary if you want people to look at the first book, and then to buy more books. Running a commercial website costs money as well.
And then there's something that you can't measure in cold hard cash, but that is vitally important -- reputation. My publisher has a good reputation in its own little niche. Readers know that they can try a new author, and have a decent chance of getting a book they'll enjoy. A book that has had someone other than the author's friends look at it and say, "Yes, this is competently written," and then work on it with the author to make it even better. That's why I can put out my next book through them and reasonably expect it to sell a thousand or so copies over the course of the initial two year contract, without having to spend large amounts of my own time and money trying to get people to look at the book.
A thousand copies doesn't sound much by the standards of the mass market paperback market, but it is still well above the average sales for a self-published book (around 75-150 copies for print books from the major POD vanity presses, by their own publicly stated figures on titles and total copies). Maybe I could do better than average, especially as I have an established fanbase now. But really, I'd rather take my 35% on 1000 copies and let my publisher do the hard work of publishing it. I've *done* my stint at being a publisher, back in my zine days, and while I got a lot of enjoyment out of it I'd rather spend my time writing. If I feel the urge to scratch that itch again, it'll be on a project that doesn't fit the commercial needs of my publisher.
[I wrote this and posted it to my personal blog on LiveJournal a month back. Alas, when I tried to post it here, I discovered that Blogger had gone from making me try several times before deigning to upload my posts, to refusing to talk to me at all. Hence lateness. Sorry.]
This is a conversation I get to have every so often. I'm epublished, and a lot of people think that epublishing must have very low costs because you don't have to pay to print, store and ship physical copies. Thus, the suggestion goes, I should self-publish and get 100% of the cover price instead of 35%.
Well, no. Because the cost of creating and handling the physical item is a relatively small fraction of the cost of bringing that book to market. Good cover art costs money. Good editing costs money. These and other things are necessary if you want people to look at the first book, and then to buy more books. Running a commercial website costs money as well.
And then there's something that you can't measure in cold hard cash, but that is vitally important -- reputation. My publisher has a good reputation in its own little niche. Readers know that they can try a new author, and have a decent chance of getting a book they'll enjoy. A book that has had someone other than the author's friends look at it and say, "Yes, this is competently written," and then work on it with the author to make it even better. That's why I can put out my next book through them and reasonably expect it to sell a thousand or so copies over the course of the initial two year contract, without having to spend large amounts of my own time and money trying to get people to look at the book.
A thousand copies doesn't sound much by the standards of the mass market paperback market, but it is still well above the average sales for a self-published book (around 75-150 copies for print books from the major POD vanity presses, by their own publicly stated figures on titles and total copies). Maybe I could do better than average, especially as I have an established fanbase now. But really, I'd rather take my 35% on 1000 copies and let my publisher do the hard work of publishing it. I've *done* my stint at being a publisher, back in my zine days, and while I got a lot of enjoyment out of it I'd rather spend my time writing. If I feel the urge to scratch that itch again, it'll be on a project that doesn't fit the commercial needs of my publisher.
[I wrote this and posted it to my personal blog on LiveJournal a month back. Alas, when I tried to post it here, I discovered that Blogger had gone from making me try several times before deigning to upload my posts, to refusing to talk to me at all. Hence lateness. Sorry.]
Labels: Jules Jones, money, self-publishing
¶ posted at 9:37 AM by Jules Jones 2 Comments
Monday, February 11, 2008
Scalzi's financial advice for writers -- Jules
Scalzi offers Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money. It may be entertainingly worded, but it's truth. Read and assimilate.
Labels: money
¶ posted at 3:46 AM by Jules Jones 0 Comments
