I just got done writing an article for Amazing Stories and in doing some analysis I was surprised to see that the percentage between self-published and traditionally published has shifted dramatically. In 2012 it was pretty much evenly divided. But currently 61% of the titles are traditional and only 39% self published. I’m not sure if this is a by product of the holiday and new kindle owners buying “known names” or if it is the start of a trend.
Interestingly the number of self-published authors that have multiple books on the list is 11 as opposed to 9 for traditionally published. Jordan, Tolkien, Sanderson, and Martin eat up 35% of the list. The full lists include:
Traditional Publishers
11 - Robert Jordan (8 solo, 3 2/Brandon Sanderson) ($2.99(short), 5-$7.99, 2-$8.99, 3-$9.99)
9 - George R.R. Martin (3-na, 3-$8.99, 1-$14.99, $1-29.99(omni), 1-$39.99(omni))
8 - J.R.R. Tolkien (6 solo, 2 2/Christopher Tolikien) (1-na, $7.29, 3-$8.32, $9.0)
7 - Sanderson (4 solo, 3 w/Robert Jordan) ($2.99(short), 2-$7.59, 2-$7.99, $8.99, 2-$9.99, $20.69(omni))
3 - Joe Abercrombie ($8.69, $9.79, $11.04)
3 - Michael J. Sullivan (2-$7.99(omni), $8.89(omni))
2 - Terry Brooks (2-$0.99(shorts))
2 - Justin Cronin ($7.99, $13.99)
2 - Brent Weeks ($5.99, $9.74)
1 - Peter V. Brett ($12.99)
1 - Jim Butcher ($9.99)
1 - Steven Erikson ($7.99)
1 - Terry Goodkind ($8.54)
1 - Deborah Harkness ($9.99)
1 - Stephen King ($8.99)
1 - Mark Lawrence ($7.99)
1 - Robert R. McCammon ($8.54)
1 - L. E. Modesitt Jr. ($2.99)
1 - David Mitchell ($11.99)
1 - Patrick Rothfuss ($9.99)
1 - R.A. Salvatore ($2.99)
1 - Martha Wells ($7.99)
1 - Weis/Hickman ($5.59)
Self-published authors
5 - David A. Wells ($0.99, 4-$2.99)
3 - T.B. Christensen ($2.99, 2-$3.99)
3 - Ben Hale ($0.99, 2-$2.99)
3 - Michael G. Manning ($0.99, $2.99, $4.95)
3 - M. R. Mathias (2-$0.99, $0.99)
2 - Brian D. Anderson ($3.90, $3.99)
2 - David Dalglish ($0.99, $3.99)
2 - J. L. Doty ($3.99, $4.99)
2 - John Forrester ($0.99 - $2.99)
2 - Joseph Lallo (2-$2.99)
2 - Aaron Pogue ($0.99, $4.99)
1 - Daems/Tomlin ($3.99)
1 - Chanda Hahn ($2.99)
1 - Hollaway/Rodgers/Beely ($3.99)
1 - Brian Kittrell ($3.95)
1 - Toby Neighbors ($2.99)
1 - Stephenie Rowling ($0.99)
1 - Aaron Patterson ($2.99)
1 - LK Rigel ($0.99)
1 - Jason Teasar ($2.51)
1 - Christopher Williams ($0.99)
On a personal note I was happy to be back on the list with all three titles (thanks in part to the Amazon Deal of the day for Theft of Swords , but was saddened to see Anthony Ryan fall off the list now that Penguin has raised his price. My hope was that he would still be able to pull in similar numbers even with a higher price point.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that you, Sanderson, and Abercrombie are suddenly sky-rocketing in popularity (at least, from what I’ve seen). Combine that new-ish popularity with Tolkien’s movie release, the end of Jordan’s series, and of course Martin’s show—everyone can flock to those six authors and be guaranteed an awesome story.
I’m a little saddened to see so few women on the lists. Oh well, such is nerd-dom. I AM happy there are any at all :)
Jordan’s numbers are about the same—he’s had 9 - 11 books on the Top 100 for as long as I’ve been watching.
Sanderson’s numbers are better (and I assume related to Wheel of Time issues) generally he has 2 - 3 on the list and he has 7 now—the highest I’ve ever seen him.
Martin’s numbers are also unchanged—he’s always at the top and has dominated it for a long time.
Abercrombie has definitely seen a boost from Red Country —having it and 2 back lists on there.
I’ve only recently returned to the list, and am thrilled to have all three books there. It is a direct result of a special that Amazon ran for Theft of Swords and while I hope to be there for awhile, I think realistically I’ll fall back off in a few weeks. My hope is to return when my new books come out in the fall.
I too was saddened by just how few women were on the list. I’m hoping its just a matter of timing and we’ll have some killer books coming out soon from the ladies and get that adjusted. I know Robin Hobb’s soon to be released title is getting a lot of attention—but by all means we need more female fantasy writers.
If it is meaningful to the list, both of my shorts were self published in ebook form. Not sure how you divide these things in your counts, though.
Yep, I know about those works being self-published and Legion is categorized on the Science Fiction List and The Emperor’s Soul isn’t categorized as just Fantasy so they don’t show up on the list I’m reporting on (Epic Fantasy). Not sure how I would handle them—ideally they would be listed as hybrids (authors who both self & traditionally publish) but there really aren’t enough hybrids to do this at the moment. I would probably put them as “self-published” but with an asterisk.
Huh. I wonder what that $2.99 one of mine is, then. The prologue to the new Wheel of Time book, I imagine. I saw the low price and just assumed it was one of my shorts, but obviously Legion (which is that price) wouldn’t show up here.
Epic is an interesting one to categorize, since my (never scientifically investigated) assumption has been that for self-pubbed works, shorter generally tends to sell better. So I would expect traditional to do better here (where the advance model might work better) when compared to something like heroic fantasy or urban fantasy (where shorter works, published more quickly, don’t need the advance crutch as much.)
Has that been your experience looking into these things, Michael, or are my assumptions unfounded? Thinking about it, I don’t even know if Amazon has a heroic fantasy subcategory.
Yeah, it is the WoT Prologue. In general, shorter works don’t hit the Top 100 often. There were three shorts in this list and I think this is first time I saw that many on it. (Yours/Robert’s and two shorts by Terry Brooks).
Most self-published authors don’t think of length of work in their consideration of whether to go traditional (advance) verses self. Generally it has more to do with being entrepreneurial, thoughts about maximizing income, or just aversion to contracts that are the larger deciding factors.
And no Amazon doesn’t have a heroic fantasy subcategory, or even an adventure fantasy sub or secondary world classifications. The choices are:
Alternative History
Anthologies
Arthurian
Contemporary
Epic
Historical
Paranormal
Series
Urban
Oh, I’m aware why people go self. I’ve been watching the community with interest. What I was curious about was whether epic, as a genre, has fewer self published hits because of length factors. One of the strongest models for the self-published paradigm I’ve seen talked about involves doing shorter works, with a first book priced very low.
I can see from the list that some are doing it in epic; what I’m wondering is if my assumption that it’s harder to do this in epic than urban is correct. I’d also be interested to know how many on the list above are more heroic (like David Dalglish) than traditional epic.
Note that isn’t me trying to be dismissive of anybody’s success. It’s me trying to keep an eye on what is working better in the self-published realm as opposed to what is working more poorly. My instincts say that for self publishing, putting out a number of works more quickly to generate momentum is going to be far more effective than spending three years between books, then releasing one single capstone work that is as long as the shorter ones combined. Rothfuss, for example, probably had a much better shot at popularity in traditional than he would have in self-published.
Yeah, I saw your class where you mentioned that self-published authors focus on shorter works, and I must say that I respectfully disagree. There are a few who adopt this model—but very few. Most are just writing the story the way any author does…and let the tale dictate the length. Actually, more often than not I’m seeing the opposite where authors who are concerned about the query submission rule of thumb (where many agents say they want works 80,000—120,000) too confining and they like that in self-publishing they can put out a 240,000 novel without problem. I actually find myself trying to convince many authors to divide their books into smaller pieces to maximize income —but most don’t think with their “business heads” they think with their “creative ones.”
Your “theory” is a sound one—and if self-published author were savvy they would indeed focus on smaller works and more titles than single large works—but I’ve been in self-publishing for a long time and as I’ve said I really don’t see that much.
We both write in the epic fantasy space but for whatever reason my novels tend to come out in the 100,000—120,000 word range. I sold well when self-published with those lengths…but when I switched to traditional, my publisher did “double them up” and released my six books as three to have the “bulk” that most epic fantasy readers are used to. My next two books (both 100,000 words each) will be released by themselves so now that I’m getting established they aren’t so concerned with the length. There are other authors that write shorter epic works—like Saladin Ahmed’s The Throne of the Crescent Moon and Jeff Salyard’s Scourge of the Betrayer to name just a few.
The authors that do do well in self-publishing are the ones with multiple titles (a few exceptions of course such as Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song which has now moved to Penguin). I started finding traction once I had 3 titles out—and yes with multiple titles, many are using the first book low-price incentive to get people to ‘take a risk’ as it were.
I’m not in the urban market…yet…I do have Antithesis that will be self-published and is urban fantasy, so I’m not as up on it as I am the epic space—but I’m sure I’ll be watching that space more closely once I publish it. As to how much of the list is heroic fantasy—I have no idea—I find the breakdown of Amazon categories to be a complete mystery—I mean why have Arthurian (very narrow) but not Adventure or Sword & Sorcery?
With the exception of the very rare (i.e. Rothfuss, etc) all authors (regardless of path) are better off with more titles in a timely manner than a one book per several year model. I would think that much of your success comes from the rate at which you generate quality fiction. But the self-published authors that do well are doing the exact same thing…putting out frequently and putting out a quality level that people are returning to time and time again. Logically that would seem to imply write more smaller books…and again a really savvy person might be adopting that model. But most don’t. My books aren’t 100,000 words because I know I can write 3 of them in the same amount of time it takes me to write a 300,000 word book—it’s just the size that I generally take to tell the tale I want to.
If I were going to council a new author (and regardless what path they go) I would recommend more books of smaller size—but most don’t listen to that advice as they can only tell their tales the way that works for them—and most don’t really think about the length beforehand. Should they? I don’t know I’m of two minds…“business” sense says yes but my “creative” side says—make the book the best it can be regardless of size.
Great post. Thanks for the info. This is the sort of thing I like to try to get from the proverbial horse’s mouth, so that when I speak on the topics, I don’t mislead people. The big breakouts in the new self model have all been writing shorter books—but I believe they’ve also been in different genres, where the books are naturally shorter.
From what you’re saying, there probably isn’t enough data (at least in epic) to back up my hunch, so leaving it as a hunch is probably for the best. Interestingly, I don’t suggest to new writers that they write shorter or longer with traditional publishing—I suggest that they write whatever length is appropriate to them creatively. However, this is in part because a publisher is unlikely to publish books in rapid succession.
In regards to myself, for example, I was still locked into the one book a year method for my first years—and my instincts say that is fine with a traditional book, but if I were launching a self published career I’d have wanted to have two or three coming out in a year rather than one a year. (Ideally.)
What you say makes a lot of sense about the mindset of the artists who are choosing this method. As someone steeped in the industry, my natural reaction is to look at the business side of which is better for which project—since, artistically, it would be the same either way to me. But it should have been obvious to me that many, even the majority of, newer writers are not going to approach it that way.
Another informative post, Michael. Thanks for your contributions to this subreddit. I always find them useful.
Here’s something you may find interesting. Check out slides 37-42 on this slideshow from Mark Coker. It shows that at Smashwords the bestsellers tend to be longer works.
Of course, someone may still do better with five 80,000-word ebooks instead of two 200,000-word ebooks (and probably would), but on the other hand it suggests that someone who can write fast should still consider releasing meaty novels. Having an indie novel that feels longer than most and still sells for a low price gives you another selling point, and probably leads to happier readers (obviously enough).
It may be a good strategy to do something like this: have 1 or 2 long novels for every 2-4 works that are shorter, such as novellas, novelettes, or collections of shorts. But of course many roads lead to Rome, and novels are always the main attraction.
I did find that interesting, Moses. Thanks for sharing it.
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