Lynn Viehl had a reposted article on the Publetariat blog discussing her sales and royalties from Twilight Fall, a top twenty New York Times bestseller.
As has been customary, a quick update on my own work. I'm still plugging away on my first draft of a novel; I am currently at 92,465 words, and still keeping up an average of about a thousand words a day. I think that's pretty good while holding up another job and family. Well, my job. I don't have another family. We now return to my post-motivational-mention-of-wordcount blog post.
Lynn discusses quite a bit of information about her income on that book, which is a real jewel considering how few bits of information like this come out. The scary part is the uncertainty; she's a bestselling author, established, and that makes her not exactly in the same boat as people who are trying to break into the industry. But if I (and other beginners) somehow manage to "make it", this may be one possible outcome.
The details are spelled on on the blog posting, but she said that the total net sales for the novel are 61,663 copies. Her net earnings on this particular statement was $2,434.38...she noted that it would probably take another six months to a year to earn out the last of her advance ($50,000).
She says:
So how much money have I made from my Times bestseller? Depending on the type of sale, I gross 6-8% of the cover price of $7.99. After paying taxes, commission to my agent and covering my expenses, my net profit on the book currently stands at $24,517.36, which is actually pretty good since on average I generally net about 30-40% of my advance. Unless something triggers an unexpected spike in my sales, I don’t expect to see any additional profit from this book coming in for at least another year or two.
From what I understand, an advance of $50,000 is reserved for authors who are established and can generally be counted on as having solid sales. I don't have any solid proof, per se, but I believe that a beginning author who manages to sell their first novel is lucky to get $5,000 to $15,000 as an advance. She states in the posting that she believes, anecdotally, that her numbers are below the average NYT top twenty bestseller list, though.
She goes on to say that if she were like many writers and put out one novel with these kinds of sales per year and her family of four were dependent only on her income then she'd be making around $2,500 over poverty level. She'd be barely above the qualification for food stamps. OUCH!
I've made no bones that I'd love to be a successful author and move into that as a career. The reality is that while persistence and support could raise the odds of "making it" in such a career, or at least place it above winning the lottery, there is a very real possibility that it will only be a supplemental income (assuming it actually makes any income...)
I honestly don't know what the future will hold. There's a good chance my efforts will result in no payoff. There's smaller odds that my efforts will pay off in just enough to go out to dinner to celebrate that it actually sold. There's a very very slim chance that I'll manage to write enough books to actually get angry that the government is taking most of the advance in taxes. Odds that float around somewhere near the planet Krypton lay the chances that I could actually quit my day job and follow my dream of a home office in which I spend my days writing.
No matter the odds, I swore I'd give this an honest try to sell it. So here goes nothing!
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Penguin Publisher's Giant Warehouse Sale!
I just got back from a rather interesting event; the Penguin Group held their annual warehouse sale where you can purchase new titles for as low as a $1!
First...quick update. Currently my first draft is at 79,492 words. I haven't worked on it yet today because I was at the book sale...
Now for the warehouse sale. The sale took place in an old warehouse. Sounds like the opening for a book, doesn't it?
I've heard horrible things about the literacy rates in America. A tiny percent of Americans read for pleasure anymore; book sales have fallen, staff are being cut from publishers and from what I can find it's harder than ever for new authors to get a contract.
But you wouldn't know that if you were at the sale today.
The line actually wound around the parking lot. Of a warehouse.
We waited an hour just to get in to the warehouse.
Once inside it was packed. Racks and racks of books priced at a huge discount over the cover price. There is simply no way I can imagine that the publisher was making any money on these things.
My wife and I ended up spending $68 on books, and we estimated that these were $400 worth of books (we haven't counted up the cover prices, but considering that any books listed over $60 were %10 of the price, that's probably not too far off). We packed a suitcase with various titles.
Literally. we packed a rolling suitcase with books. You have to carry boxes that they had at the entrance or you could fill a kid's wagon or hand cart or whatever you have handy. They didn't have anything other than boxes; no shopping carts or baskets.
Once inside we found cardboard "aisle signs" directing you to vague sections like young adult and adult titles. It was Black Friday in there; as the warehouse got full they would shut the doors and the line outside would stall for another ten minutes before they would admit more shoppers.
The aisles were crowded; we shuffled through, trying to check out the titles and decide what we may have shelf space for. At those prices it was hard not to grab books to try; even if we didn't need it, there are always people for whom they would make nice gifts.
Leaving was also a challenge since the line to get out took an hour.
But it was worth it.
Check out the link at the beginning of the post for information on the event. It is certainly an event to behold. My question is, with such horrible horrible news coming out about the publishing industry and the general state of American ignorance and unwillingness to read, why were there so many people literally flocking to this warehouse sale?
Could it be the extreme bargains? Is the media overhyping the bad news? Was this a congregation of the small percent of people in the area that do enjoy reading and collecting books? Or is there something about cutting the price down to iTunes-like proportions that makes people show up in droves to get books?
My only complaint was there weren't any graphic novels or technology books to choose from. Then again this wasn't Barnes and Noble; they had what they had, and hey, we left with a suitcase of books for under $70. Good enough for me!
First...quick update. Currently my first draft is at 79,492 words. I haven't worked on it yet today because I was at the book sale...
Now for the warehouse sale. The sale took place in an old warehouse. Sounds like the opening for a book, doesn't it?
I've heard horrible things about the literacy rates in America. A tiny percent of Americans read for pleasure anymore; book sales have fallen, staff are being cut from publishers and from what I can find it's harder than ever for new authors to get a contract.
But you wouldn't know that if you were at the sale today.
The line actually wound around the parking lot. Of a warehouse.
We waited an hour just to get in to the warehouse.
Once inside it was packed. Racks and racks of books priced at a huge discount over the cover price. There is simply no way I can imagine that the publisher was making any money on these things.
My wife and I ended up spending $68 on books, and we estimated that these were $400 worth of books (we haven't counted up the cover prices, but considering that any books listed over $60 were %10 of the price, that's probably not too far off). We packed a suitcase with various titles.
Literally. we packed a rolling suitcase with books. You have to carry boxes that they had at the entrance or you could fill a kid's wagon or hand cart or whatever you have handy. They didn't have anything other than boxes; no shopping carts or baskets.
Once inside we found cardboard "aisle signs" directing you to vague sections like young adult and adult titles. It was Black Friday in there; as the warehouse got full they would shut the doors and the line outside would stall for another ten minutes before they would admit more shoppers.
The aisles were crowded; we shuffled through, trying to check out the titles and decide what we may have shelf space for. At those prices it was hard not to grab books to try; even if we didn't need it, there are always people for whom they would make nice gifts.
Leaving was also a challenge since the line to get out took an hour.
But it was worth it.
Check out the link at the beginning of the post for information on the event. It is certainly an event to behold. My question is, with such horrible horrible news coming out about the publishing industry and the general state of American ignorance and unwillingness to read, why were there so many people literally flocking to this warehouse sale?
Could it be the extreme bargains? Is the media overhyping the bad news? Was this a congregation of the small percent of people in the area that do enjoy reading and collecting books? Or is there something about cutting the price down to iTunes-like proportions that makes people show up in droves to get books?
My only complaint was there weren't any graphic novels or technology books to choose from. Then again this wasn't Barnes and Noble; they had what they had, and hey, we left with a suitcase of books for under $70. Good enough for me!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Publishing Is Changing: Giving Away Your Content?
Mur Lafferty posted a blog entry to Storytellers Unplugged about her view on the changing winds in the publishing industry. She is a podcast author that has given away much of her content in an effort to grow an audience, and as a result has become a published author for her Playing for Keeps novel. I became a fan of hers after hearing the first of her Heaven novel series.
She discusses how publishers could be taking some lessons from those who are on the forefront of this change in the industry; struggling new authors like her are focusing on growing an audience through free content. Larger audience means more people have heard of you, more people hearing of you means more sales. It's worked pretty well for names like Scott Sigler, Cory Doctorow, J.C. Hutchins, and of course Mur Lafferty.
There could be a flip side to this too. These are people who aren't just authors. They're promoters and marketers. They are learning how to brand themselves. For example, Scott Sigler isn't just a podcast author. He's a brand that promotes himself as the FDO, the Future Dark Overlord. His fans are self-branded Junkies that need their Sigler 'fix. He tirelessly puts out content into his feed, including the Bloodcast, short stories that are leading to other stories and novels, and he has written most of his released work in a way that they tie together like a more overt version of the Stephen King works that make subtle nods to one another across novels (for the FDO there are hints that aliens in the Rookie have made multiple appearances in novels like Infected and Contagious, for example, and there's a shared character name in the Rookie that is a descendant of a certain hornball in Nocturnal...) Sigler has also recently concluded his tour around parts of the country while holding Junkie contests to determine where he goes next in order to draw crowds.
Most people who want to be authors want to write. What Mur seems to be pointing to is a future where that may not be really possible except for the really fortunate authors; publishers expect authors to brand themselves and promote themselves rather than investing in the author. This picture is saying that a career as a writer is as dead as becoming a teacher.
I have relatives that are teachers. They can't be just teachers as they thought teaching would be when they went to college. Instead teachers become mentors, surrogate parents, guidance counselors, psychologists, babysitters, hall monitors, politicians, and students having to complete "continuing education" credits. The idea that you go to school to learn about a topic and then go out to mold young minds is complete bull. It seems that actually teaching fills about thirty percent of their day. The rest is unrelated politics and crud that people outside the field have no clue about and people inside the field know burns out most new teachers within the first few years.
Indeed in the future painted by that blog post authors will need to focus on building an audience, interacting with their audience, updating websites and twitter accounts and facebook pages and podcasts and cross promoting with others in the podcast community. The new wave of authors will need to be savvy in using tools like the Internet to track their Google ranking and set up notifications when their names appear online so they can move to other blogs where people mention their names and interact with potential audience members on other blogs.
And this may work for many. The problem is that I see this through a myopic lens; I am a podcast freak who likes listening to audio on the iPod and have discovered some of these authors like Mur and Sigler. As a result I get a lot of my information from this insular community for whom this approach to gaining sales works. They are author/marketers.
I can't help but think there are others who want to just be authors that won't be able to do this. In the comments for that blog, a commenter with the name Joe Cottonwood posted that he podcast 3 books on podiobooks for free but already has 9 books in print with major houses. He said that he has increased his audience by a huge number and has had great fan mail and he really enjoyed going back to storytelling roots by doing the podcast. But he hasn't seen much in the way of sales being generated; his podcast of Clear Heart had about 10,000 listeners and the book sold about 200 copies, according to his comments. "One problem, of course, is that I suck at marketing. Apparently I’m a pretty good writer and a popular podcaster, but I’m a terrible publicist. I can live with that."
I appreciate Mur and Sigler's advice to new authors. To paraphrase, "Write your book. Just plant your butt in the seat and write. Clean it up. Try everything you can to get an agent and get it published the traditional route. Podcasting your content for free isn't for the faint of heart and should be a last resort." They aren't giving up entirely on the old way of publishing but rather are acting as pioneers on a new approach to doing things at a time when the traditional houses are starting to see a storm on the horizon and in the process authors will end up having to roll with the punches or change careers.
Will the podcaster-free-content-author-turned-marketer become the norm? Only time will tell. In the meantime it looks like the curse of living in "interesting times" is coming and everyone in the industry will be waiting to see just how interesting things get.
She discusses how publishers could be taking some lessons from those who are on the forefront of this change in the industry; struggling new authors like her are focusing on growing an audience through free content. Larger audience means more people have heard of you, more people hearing of you means more sales. It's worked pretty well for names like Scott Sigler, Cory Doctorow, J.C. Hutchins, and of course Mur Lafferty.
There could be a flip side to this too. These are people who aren't just authors. They're promoters and marketers. They are learning how to brand themselves. For example, Scott Sigler isn't just a podcast author. He's a brand that promotes himself as the FDO, the Future Dark Overlord. His fans are self-branded Junkies that need their Sigler 'fix. He tirelessly puts out content into his feed, including the Bloodcast, short stories that are leading to other stories and novels, and he has written most of his released work in a way that they tie together like a more overt version of the Stephen King works that make subtle nods to one another across novels (for the FDO there are hints that aliens in the Rookie have made multiple appearances in novels like Infected and Contagious, for example, and there's a shared character name in the Rookie that is a descendant of a certain hornball in Nocturnal...) Sigler has also recently concluded his tour around parts of the country while holding Junkie contests to determine where he goes next in order to draw crowds.
Most people who want to be authors want to write. What Mur seems to be pointing to is a future where that may not be really possible except for the really fortunate authors; publishers expect authors to brand themselves and promote themselves rather than investing in the author. This picture is saying that a career as a writer is as dead as becoming a teacher.
I have relatives that are teachers. They can't be just teachers as they thought teaching would be when they went to college. Instead teachers become mentors, surrogate parents, guidance counselors, psychologists, babysitters, hall monitors, politicians, and students having to complete "continuing education" credits. The idea that you go to school to learn about a topic and then go out to mold young minds is complete bull. It seems that actually teaching fills about thirty percent of their day. The rest is unrelated politics and crud that people outside the field have no clue about and people inside the field know burns out most new teachers within the first few years.
Indeed in the future painted by that blog post authors will need to focus on building an audience, interacting with their audience, updating websites and twitter accounts and facebook pages and podcasts and cross promoting with others in the podcast community. The new wave of authors will need to be savvy in using tools like the Internet to track their Google ranking and set up notifications when their names appear online so they can move to other blogs where people mention their names and interact with potential audience members on other blogs.
And this may work for many. The problem is that I see this through a myopic lens; I am a podcast freak who likes listening to audio on the iPod and have discovered some of these authors like Mur and Sigler. As a result I get a lot of my information from this insular community for whom this approach to gaining sales works. They are author/marketers.
I can't help but think there are others who want to just be authors that won't be able to do this. In the comments for that blog, a commenter with the name Joe Cottonwood posted that he podcast 3 books on podiobooks for free but already has 9 books in print with major houses. He said that he has increased his audience by a huge number and has had great fan mail and he really enjoyed going back to storytelling roots by doing the podcast. But he hasn't seen much in the way of sales being generated; his podcast of Clear Heart had about 10,000 listeners and the book sold about 200 copies, according to his comments. "One problem, of course, is that I suck at marketing. Apparently I’m a pretty good writer and a popular podcaster, but I’m a terrible publicist. I can live with that."
I appreciate Mur and Sigler's advice to new authors. To paraphrase, "Write your book. Just plant your butt in the seat and write. Clean it up. Try everything you can to get an agent and get it published the traditional route. Podcasting your content for free isn't for the faint of heart and should be a last resort." They aren't giving up entirely on the old way of publishing but rather are acting as pioneers on a new approach to doing things at a time when the traditional houses are starting to see a storm on the horizon and in the process authors will end up having to roll with the punches or change careers.
Will the podcaster-free-content-author-turned-marketer become the norm? Only time will tell. In the meantime it looks like the curse of living in "interesting times" is coming and everyone in the industry will be waiting to see just how interesting things get.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Authors Are Expected to be Marketers
I'm not published. Hopefully it's more accurate to say that I'm not published yet. But I do spend some time trying to get a feel for what it takes to move from unknown wanna-be author to published (and income-generating) author.
One theme that is being visited and revisited is that an author's publisher is not going to spend money on publicizing new books. They do the bare minimum and that's it.
Unless, of course, you're a sure bet.
What does this mean? It means a few things. One, publishing houses will spend tons of money on authors that are guaranteed to bring in money. The flip side is that the authors that really need support in getting word out about their book and don't have the financial means to do so will get zilch help.
Second, authors are expected to market themselves. I've been finding more and more online articles like this one and it's rather disconcerting. Authors aren't expected to just be authors; they have to market themselves, brand themselves, grow a following, nurture their fans...oh, yeah, and write a book.
Stephen King, Stephanie Meyers, JK Rowling...the big name authors have no problem getting someone else to foot the bill if they wanted to go on a tour or appear in public to drum up publicity. Ironically they have a following that is already gossiping about release schedules and probably have no problem selling their latest works even if they did nothing to promote the release at all.
New authors today need to create a web site, interact on forums, appear in bookstores on tours often sponsored by themselves, and grow the thick skin to accept those times where they spend an entire day sitting alone in a Barnes and Noble making maybe two sales of their book because the people coming in have no idea who they are.
The fact is that publishers often aren't making back the advance they pay authors for their books. They would rather bet on the known rather than the unknown. So when they accept a new author, they're essentially paying for the gamble that your book will somehow, miraculously, create the next JK Rowling.
New authors, beware. If you want to be an author you need to explore a path that may include writing the manuscript, editing it, fixing it up, finding an agent, shopping it around to publishers, creating a website, interacting on forums, actively engaging your audience, touring bookstores (on your dime), appearing in podcasts for interviews, creating promotional blurbs for podcasts, interviewing in newspapers, and creating trailers on YouTube for viewing as well as storm through other social media outlets your audience may be lurking in like Facebook and Twitter.
Oh, yeah, and you need to try working on the next novel in there somewhere as well...
Not a pleasant thought, but if you really want to become an author, it's time to steel up and get prepared!
One theme that is being visited and revisited is that an author's publisher is not going to spend money on publicizing new books. They do the bare minimum and that's it.
Unless, of course, you're a sure bet.
What does this mean? It means a few things. One, publishing houses will spend tons of money on authors that are guaranteed to bring in money. The flip side is that the authors that really need support in getting word out about their book and don't have the financial means to do so will get zilch help.
Second, authors are expected to market themselves. I've been finding more and more online articles like this one and it's rather disconcerting. Authors aren't expected to just be authors; they have to market themselves, brand themselves, grow a following, nurture their fans...oh, yeah, and write a book.
Stephen King, Stephanie Meyers, JK Rowling...the big name authors have no problem getting someone else to foot the bill if they wanted to go on a tour or appear in public to drum up publicity. Ironically they have a following that is already gossiping about release schedules and probably have no problem selling their latest works even if they did nothing to promote the release at all.
New authors today need to create a web site, interact on forums, appear in bookstores on tours often sponsored by themselves, and grow the thick skin to accept those times where they spend an entire day sitting alone in a Barnes and Noble making maybe two sales of their book because the people coming in have no idea who they are.
The fact is that publishers often aren't making back the advance they pay authors for their books. They would rather bet on the known rather than the unknown. So when they accept a new author, they're essentially paying for the gamble that your book will somehow, miraculously, create the next JK Rowling.
New authors, beware. If you want to be an author you need to explore a path that may include writing the manuscript, editing it, fixing it up, finding an agent, shopping it around to publishers, creating a website, interacting on forums, actively engaging your audience, touring bookstores (on your dime), appearing in podcasts for interviews, creating promotional blurbs for podcasts, interviewing in newspapers, and creating trailers on YouTube for viewing as well as storm through other social media outlets your audience may be lurking in like Facebook and Twitter.
Oh, yeah, and you need to try working on the next novel in there somewhere as well...
Not a pleasant thought, but if you really want to become an author, it's time to steel up and get prepared!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!
This is a wonderful event that not only encourages you to support your local independent comic book store but also introduces people to the art and mythology of comic books!
Basically you go to the comic store and there's a selection of totally free comics to choose from. Free! No strings attached! These are usually introductions to new comic titles or some kind of supplemental story for established comic characters. While you're there you may as well shop around and see what titles catch your eye in the store. There are some really wonderful indy titles and stories from smaller publishers out there if you give them half a chance.
I'll be spending part of the day at Heroes Your Mom Threw Out in Elmira. The store is a real gem tucked away in a small corner of the town; the owner is delightfully friendly, and he goes out of his way to help his customers when he can. I'm not only referring to little things like pulling titles and setting them aside to make sure he doesn't sell out of a particular title if you request them; I'm talking about helping a customer with things that you probably won't get at your local Barnes and Noble. Yesterday we stopped in to see what had accumulated in my surgical absence and my wife discovered a flat tire on our vehicle. Jared, the owner, knew I am still restricted because of my surgery and he came out and changed the tire for my wife and I. I think that speaks volumes about the character in this small business owner!
Free Comic Book Day this year is May 2nd, 2009. Write it on your calendar and come out to the local comic store for your free loot and catch up with some of your childhood memories! Go to the Free Comic Book Day website and use the store locator on the left hand side of the page to find the retailer nearest to you!
Basically you go to the comic store and there's a selection of totally free comics to choose from. Free! No strings attached! These are usually introductions to new comic titles or some kind of supplemental story for established comic characters. While you're there you may as well shop around and see what titles catch your eye in the store. There are some really wonderful indy titles and stories from smaller publishers out there if you give them half a chance.
I'll be spending part of the day at Heroes Your Mom Threw Out in Elmira. The store is a real gem tucked away in a small corner of the town; the owner is delightfully friendly, and he goes out of his way to help his customers when he can. I'm not only referring to little things like pulling titles and setting them aside to make sure he doesn't sell out of a particular title if you request them; I'm talking about helping a customer with things that you probably won't get at your local Barnes and Noble. Yesterday we stopped in to see what had accumulated in my surgical absence and my wife discovered a flat tire on our vehicle. Jared, the owner, knew I am still restricted because of my surgery and he came out and changed the tire for my wife and I. I think that speaks volumes about the character in this small business owner!
Free Comic Book Day this year is May 2nd, 2009. Write it on your calendar and come out to the local comic store for your free loot and catch up with some of your childhood memories! Go to the Free Comic Book Day website and use the store locator on the left hand side of the page to find the retailer nearest to you!
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