A career via e-books?
So I’ve been reading on the net about some indie authors who have self-published their novels online in e-book format, and they’re making a decent living at it! I’ve also been reading that publishers are accepting less authors these days. So with these trends, would any of you go for the idea of publishing your own novel as an e-book, and trying to make money by selling it at low prices ($3-4 a pop or something)? I think this may be the way of the future for many authors. E-books are starting to revolutionize publishing!
Yes, things are changing. (Finally.) People have been predicting this as imminent for years. It’s only now starting to happen. It looks like we might have our first batch of full-time writers publishing only in ebook form. We’ll know more (such as exactly how many people are doing this) when Bookscan starts reporting ebook sales. They’ve said they plan to start doing so soon.
From what I know, it is a myth that publishers are accepting fewer authors. However, as I have no reference to back that up other than personal experience, take the statement with a grain of salt. Still, I see just as many new writers being published now as before. Publishers would be foolish to stop picking up new writers, as the nature of the beast is that people age, and new talent is always needed.
Also, remember that even with these statistics, 91% of books sold are still physical form. That number will shrink. How far it will shrink is anyone’s guess right now. The farther they shrink, however, the more that the added money made from higher royalties at ebook only outweigh the larger distribution of a print/ebook split.
The revolution is coming. I’ll stick with my publisher, personally, but I think a young writer who is good at self promotion and marketing could do worse than to try a few ebook-only self releases, though I’d still suggest (for now) continuing to submit to New York as well. Might as well cover all of your bases. If you get an offer from New York, but it turns out you’ve been doing well enough with your own ebook releases, you could turn down the offer.
Thanks for that. If you don’t mind me asking how much money does a new author with one book out typically make per year from traditional publishing? Assuming low, to moderate sales numbers (whatever those may be).
This is a really, really hard question to answer because of the wide variety of genres and publishing models out there.
Some genres have what I like to call a larger amplitude. The pool of potential readers is much greater, but people in the genre are not voracious readers—and so, if a book takes off in that genre, you see HUGE numbers. But you also see a very large number of flops because so many in the genre gravitate only toward the popular books, and don’t have time to read much more than that.
Other genres have a smaller amplitude, with a small base of potential readers (keeping the highs much lower.) However, these kinds of genres can have better averages because readers in them read a lot. So a lot of books can sell a medium number of copies.
Some genres thrive on hardcovers and early buying, while others thrive on tons of cheap paperbacks. Children’s books have a readership that refreshes more quickly, but also a readership that reacts strongly to fads. Some genres have long shelf lives for individual titles, others have very short ones.
Toby Buckell did a survey for the sf/f genre on first book advances, which might answer some of your questions .
Restricting the genre to sf/f, we still have to deal with sub-genre and publication model. But let’s say fantasy (as I know it best) from a major publisher with a hardcover initial, and a paperback to follow. Moderate to low sales would be…let’s say 3,000 copies hardcover and 10k copies paperback in the first two years. That’s high enough that some people are buying the book, but low enough that the publisher is going to want improvement over the next two books. (Often, you can sell three books to start in this genre, and are given until the third to prove you can sell.)
Royalty on the hardcover will be $2.50. Paperback, $.56. So, earnings are $13k. You’ll probably have a few over-seas sales in translation, and maybe some book club money, and some sales in the third and forth years. (Though if the series doesn’t grab some traction, those will have shrunk by the fourth year to very small numbers.) I’d guess 20k over the life of a book for a mid-to-poor seller.
A really poor seller would be under 5k, and that’s when the publisher would enter panic mode. Good seller you’re looking at $40k on a first book. Sf/f has a ‘small amplitude’ you might say, but has really good legs and a long shelf life. So the best gains in sales are made by converting paperback readers to hardcover readers, and by having an enduring book (often in a series) that continues to hang out on shelves for many, many years.
Thank you very much for the in-depth reply! I appreciate it. :)
10% @ 7500 copies. You do the math.
Thanks.
Compare that to 70% @ 7500 copies. Even if the book is $5 or, more realistically, $2.99, you’d make more money.
7500 copies is considered “doing ok,” for a new author, just enough to cover an advance (most new authors don’t sell enough copies to cover the advance). Of course, some do better, and more do worse.
EDIT: The author of this book has a blog about self publishing. Claims to make 6 fugues. Not bad at all.
Thanks for the blog suggestion. I guess the question is whether one is as likely to sell 7500 copies of e-books as one is if one went with a traditional publisher. The traditional market is bigger, but the royalties are much smaller, hmm…a quandary.
Depends. You’d likely sell more. It’s far easier to sell something that costs 99 cents than it is to sell something that costs 11.99 etc. It rather depends on you. (Not to mention people can’t return an ebook if they don’t like it, and 40% of books usually end up being returned). Most of all, the assumption is not a stretch considering how many absolutely terrible self-published novels have done fantastically, precisely because of price.
And we want people to buy more books. Why buy one 10 dollar book if you can buy 10 ebooks? People are being less cautious about what they buy, more willing to give your book a chance. Just go to the Kindle store, to the self published stuff in any genre listed at 99 cents, or 1.99 and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Crap selling @ 1000 copies a week no problemo. In the end, it’ll depend on you getting a website, and telling people about your book, trying to create some buzz. No idea how you’d do that. Goodreads, Reddit, whatever you gotta do.
Well, to offer another side to yeahiknow, a few things to consider.
1) You don’t get the 70% royalty on a $.99 book. You get 35%. 2) You get the higher royalty at the three buck mark, but here I believe Amazon still charges the author their “delivery fee” for sending your book to a kindle. For a small book, this is cheap. For one of my books, it is $1.20. 3) As I said, 90% of sales are still physical. A good publisher will have your book in every bookstore in the country. 4) Almost all of the people doing really well in ebook only have multiple books out. I think the guy linked has a dozen or so.
That said, there are indeed people out there making more in ebook indy than they could with a NYC contract. It should be noted that others who are doing well are actively seeking a print contract.
None of this is a reason not to try, and the numbers continue to move toward epub. I just think there is more to the discussion than it may first seem.
This is useful for figuring out roughly how many Kindle copies of a book are being sold given its rank. Compare that to regular Amazon sales ranks vs copies sold .
Also:
- J. A. Koranth’s blog is a good read (even if his books aren’t).
A third of the Kindle Bestsellers are self-published through Amazon.
Checking a small genre like fantasy shows that no fewer than half the best sellers are self-published (damn).
Already many books are dropping in price on Kindle format to compete. Joe Abercombie’s Best Served Cold is just 2.99. World War Z is 5 bucks, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo —5 bucks. Not bad.
It certainly is interesting times out there, that’s for sure. Thanks for the links.
Again, some things to consider: (also, note. It may seem I’m contradicting yeahiknow, but really, he/she makes excellent points and is directing you to good info. But there are some things to consider.)
Looking at the indy books on that list, I think you will find most of them are a certain type. First, they are really short. Like, 400k short. That’s under 200 pages if conversions are the same with some of my books.
Some are $.99. These earn the small royalty %. But then, they are meant as a hook for the series. (Which is often working, mind you. But the .99 book would earn so much less that it shouldn’t be looked at for earning potential.)
Finally, almost all the books selling really well right now from indy authors are the more pulp genres. Quick thrillers. Paranormal romance. Shor hack and slash fantasy. There is nothing at all wrong or inferior with these genres. But if you don’t happen to be writing them, sales seem to indicate that epub will be tougher for you right now.
If you do happen to write them…strike now. It looks really good.
You’re right. I doubt literature would be as successful, although, who knows. Genre fiction like fantasy and mystery are doing quite well.
Why are you up so late, btw? Kindred spirit.
Yeah. For years, I have been a late night worker. I just can’t seem to function on an early morning schedule.
Eventually, even the litfic will sell best on ebook. But it is very interesting to me that we see this huge pulp explosion from indies on Amazon. Reminds me of some of the early genre fiction days, actually.
Given the trend in technology, and that paper books are slowly dying to ebook sales, I wouldn’t be surprised [that ebooks are starting to revolutionize publishing].
Having a direct connection to authors, and knowing that more of your money goes to the artist, is pretty satisfying.
This is satisfying, though do please keep in mind that the publishing industry is NOT the music industry. The record labels have been gouging their artists (and their customers) for decades; it’s now coming back to bite them.
New York publishing, for all of its faults, does tend to treat its authors well. When a book of mine sells, I see a very reasonable amount of the profit. I wouldn’t mind more, but I’ve never felt cheated.
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