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Libbie

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It does seem to be about epublishing, although the figure of more than 100,000 novels published per year sure isn't coming from the publishing industry. A good number of those novels must be self-published.
 

ios

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Dan Holloway: Why Indie (For Me) Means NOT Having A Publisher

I found this post via this one. I had to share it because it comes the closest to describing me, as a self-publisher, out of all blogs and articles I've read. I don't want to change the world, however. Like I wrote in the comments, I just want to carve out a safe place for a specific niche.

Jodi
 
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Old Hack

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Dan's a lovely man and a good writer. He spends more hours than I thought each day contained promoting his work, and deserves to be far more successful than he already is.

Moving this to Interesting Links.
 

Libbie

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According to this article in Galleycat, Smashwords' CEO Mark Coker has said, "Smashwords retailers will sell $18 to $20 million worth of eBooks this year."

That's a huge turnover, which any business would be proud of.

The article also says that "Smashwords has published more than 138,070 books". Again, that's a huge number which any business would be pleased with.

However, if you divide the money by the number of titles published it doesn't look quite so good.

$20,000,000 divided by 138,070 gives an answer of $145.

And that's the average turnover per title, not the actual amount earned as Smashwords keeps a portion of the money before paying authors their royalties.

I know that there are quite a few writers who are doing very well with self-publishing , but from those figures I'd bet that there are many, many more who are selling hardly any copies and doing really badly.

So what I'd like to know is, how does Smashwords compare to Kindle? Do people here make 10% of their sales through Smashwords and 90% through Kindle sales? What's the balance? (And what royalty level does Smashwords pay, so we can work out what that $145 really represents?)

I sell about 300 units on Kindle for every 1 unit sold on Smashwords. Last week my Kindle royalties for a single book were over $650, while I sold one copy of that same book on Smashwords.

My experience mirrors that of so many other self-published authors: Kindle is by far the most important platform.

What's interesting is that with the new title I just released my Smashwords sales are already a larger portion of the total haul than usual for me. I don't know why that is; maybe the audience for this new book likes other reading platforms better than Kindle, or maybe it's just a coincidence.
 
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Captcha

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April Hamilton - giving up on... something...

It's increasingly difficult to know how much of someone's reputation is genuine and how much is self-styled, but April L. Hamilton certainly considers herself to be a "leading advocate and speaker for the indie author movement," and I've seen her name mentioned in self-pub circles, so her recent blog post may be of interest here...

Long Link!

She has apparently been having a rough time in her personal life, but also in her self-publishing life (she uses the acronym IAE to mean Indie-Author-Entrepreneur). She addresses the Konrath mythos with the same argument I've seen here at AW:
Being the next Konrath may not be realistically possible for most of us indies, anyway. Remember, Konrath went in with the advantage of already having a large back catalog of mainstream-published books (plus the royalties that go with them), and he was already a fulltime author before he went indie too. His journey to fulltime IAE was much shorter and less difficult than what the rest of us are facing.

She has concluded that:

... for me, it's just not worth it.

That said, I'm not quite sure what she's giving up on. She's still going to do all of the same activities as before, as far as I can see... it seems that she's just giving up on the goal/dream of being a full-time self-published author. Which maybe isn't a bit deal... most people can't manage to be full-time authors of any sort, after all.

But for someone who's been a leading voice (maybe) in the movement, I thought this decision was significant enough to post about here.

Thoughts?
 

shadowwalker

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Sounds like she's finally accepted what a lot of people have been trying to say for a long time - self-publishing is a business, which means long hours and for a long time.

As far as being the next Konrath, she does like to shove "indie" in front of nouns, so I suppose she's on the right path there... :Shrug:
 

thothguard51

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April Hamilton was a big voice for self publishing over at Autonomous. Of course, she preferred to call it indie publishing.

Yet, the whole idea behind Autonomous was to get a editor from Harper Collins to review and critique, and maybe, just maybe, get picked up by HC.

Sorry to hear she is calling it quits but it really does not surprise me.
 

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Merging with our Interesting Links thread.
 

AprilHamilton

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@captcha, shadowwalker & thothguard:

I am not giving up on anything, and I have always said, from the very beginning, that to earn a living as an indie author you must treat it like any other small business. This is not a new realization for me. :)

I was not on Authonomy for long because I was not interested in getting a mainstream contract. Many people were there just to exchange manuscripts, notes and tips or 'talk shop' in general. Unfortunately, at the time I was a member, there was a great deal of venom directed at self-publishing and no comparable, alternative online community for indie authors and small imprints existed. That's why I left Authonomy and founded Publetariat.com.

All I am doing in the blog post linked by Captcha is publicly stating my intentions as an indie author. I felt I needed to explain why, after saying for years how hard one has to work to become a fulltime, self-supporting indie author, I don't seem to be putting in that level of effort myself. I just wanted people to know I'm not furiously blogging, promoting, publishing and so on because achieving a fulltime living as an author is not, and never was, my goal.

I've also said from the beginning that each author must define 'success' for him- or herself, based on his or her specific goals. Some, maybe most, definitely want that JK Rowling, Stephen King brass ring, but not all. In the blog post, another thing I wanted to say is that I think either choice is valid.
 

ios

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OliverCrown

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Interesting Article on Self (e) Publishing

It's an article that came up on my Publisher's Weekly Flipboard a couple-few days ago:

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/hugh_howey_self_publishing_is_the_future_and_great_for_writers/

Several interesting points. My favorite was this:

"There are two possibilities. Your book might be in the top 1 percent of what readers are looking for — whether by the magic of your plot or the grace of your prose — in which case you are far better off self-publishing. You’ll make more money sooner, and you’ll own the rights when it comes time to negotiate with publishers (if you even care to). If, on the other hand, your work isn’t in the top 1 percent, it won’t escape the clutches of the slush pile. Your only hope in this case is to self-publish. Which means there isn’t a scenario in which I would recommend an author begin his or her career with a traditional publisher. Not a one. Even Jim Carrey is going the self-pub route with his children’s book, and he’ll make a mint because of it. The new top-down approach is to self-publish and retain ownership. The course of last resort would be to sign away your rights for the rest of your life."

Thought I should pass it on for those who didn't catch my FB post on it.

Thoughts?
 

shadowwalker

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This part - "You’ll make more money sooner" - assumes a lot. Too much, IMO. Self-publishing is basically putting your book in a public slush pile. Depending on your prowess (and luck) at self-promotion, the book, no matter how good, may or may not rise to the top of that slush pile.

As to Jim Carrey, once again this is a case of a person who already has a fanbase, plus the built-in publicity wagon that goes with fame. Hardly the situation for a new writer.
 

OliverCrown

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This part - "You’ll make more money sooner" - assumes a lot. Too much, IMO. Self-publishing is basically putting your book in a public slush pile. Depending on your prowess (and luck) at self-promotion, the book, no matter how good, may or may not rise to the top of that slush pile.

As to Jim Carrey, once again this is a case of a person who already has a fanbase, plus the built-in publicity wagon that goes with fame. Hardly the situation for a new writer.

Completely agreed on the Jim Carrey part.

I find that at least with e-publishing it allows customers to sort through the slush pile, which they cannot do with a trade publisher. Everything out there is bound to get a couple of eyes on it (on the internet) which is something that has changed the way we look at self-pubs.

Related, the technological advances with POD have also changed the game, though not as much. There is still a great deal of luck for an indie book to get to the top of whatever pile - or even noticed - but there are far more hopeful options today than there were twenty or even ten years ago.
 

slhuang

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I think one thing the article fails to take into account is the promotional machine a publisher can bring to bear. What if you're in the top 1 percent but if you self-published into the big public slushpile (as it were), nobody would ever find your book and it would never gain traction? Whereas a trade publisher would bring enough promotion to gain a critical mass of readers and media attention for your book to find the word-of-mouth popularity it wouldn't have gained in self-publishing?

A self-publisher also acts as his/her own publisher in terms of editing, cover art, publicity, etc. -- and many writers either cannot afford to hire professionals for these jobs or don't care to.

And what about the authors who aren't in the top 1 percent? Honestly, a lot of commercially-published books I've read are . . . not what I would consider the top 1 percent. But some of their authors make a good living because their publishers have promoted their books enough that people are buying and reading them, even though they're not the top-top-top authors ever ever ever.

The thesis here seems to be that everyone should self-publish because the lower 99 percent would never get through the slushpile anyway and the top 1 percent will always be found by the public, but I don't think either of these things is necessarily the case.

(Note that I'm saying all this as someone who plans to self-publish without trying commercial publishing first, for various reasons. But I think declaring that self-publishing is ALWAYS the best option for EVERYONE is disingenuous.)
 

juniper

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I find that at least with e-publishing it allows customers to sort through the slush pile, which they cannot do with a trade publisher.

I, as a reader, do not want to sort through the slush pile. I don't have time or desire to look through every bit of writing that's put out there.

I used to look at and even buy some self-pub stuff, to support other writers, but rarely now. Too little time, too little money. Most self-pub I buy from writers I see here at AW, or know in person. Same with micro-press publishers.
 

shelleyo

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I think one thing the article fails to take into account is the promotional machine a publisher can bring to bear. What if you're in the top 1 percent but if you self-published into the big public slushpile (as it were), nobody would ever find your book and it would never gain traction?

Something unspoken in the article that I think Hugh would have been better off making clear is that the person with that top-1%-of-books-readers-are-looking-for has to self-publish it well for it to be a great idea. Not everyone can do that. Not everyone wants to learn how to do it. Not everyone wants to pay someone to do it for them.

Experienced writers with some business savvy really can do very well, as many trade-published folks now also self-publishing can attest to. Newer writers willing to learn to write great stories and willing to put the proper emphasis on the cover, formatting, content and everything else can do well, too.

Whereas a trade publisher would bring enough promotion to gain a critical mass of readers and media attention for your book to find the word-of-mouth popularity it wouldn't have gained in self-publishing?
They could, but they don't always. Not every published writer gets that kind of promotion, and more and more trade-published folks talk about how much promotion they have to do themselves and the expenses they incur. I don't think major promotional backing is something someone should automatically expect, but it's worth hoping for.

A book in the top 1% of reader wants will probably get that push if it ends up at the right place, but that doesn't mean the financial rewards will be the same or comparable. So much depends on so many factors, that straight-up comparisons are hard.

A self-publisher also acts as his/her own publisher in terms of editing, cover art, publicity, etc. -- and many writers either cannot afford to hire professionals for these jobs or don't care to.
This is true. Some also handle those things themselves, which means we wear even more hats. Some don't want to do that either, and that's a fair enough reason not to want to self-publish, IMO.

If you (general you) take the trade route and get the book to an agent who sends it to publishers, the decision-making falls mostly on other people. If you self-publish, you make the rest of the decisions yourself. And in the end, it's still not up to you whether your writing sells or not. That's the dang old rub. You can make decisions to try to push your stuff in the right direction and really work at it, but there are no guarantees either way.

A lot depends on the genre you plan to self-publish, too. That always seems to get left out of these articles and discussions. Some are much harder sells than others. Too often people look at a success story and don't take genre into account. Romance novels have a decided market advantage over literary fantasies written in second person. What you write should factor into your decision-making and your expectations.

Hugh thinks it's the best way, and I know exactly why he does. His reasoning makes a lot of sense, though I don't completely agree. I think it can be the right way for good writers who have some business savvy and are willing to go that route by either outsourcing some things or learning to do them well. It can be the right way for people who feel like they're getting screwed in trade-publishing and want to get their backlist up themselves.

I also think that it could be a great option for some people who don't really understand what's involved and who think it's far different than it really is, so they discount it. (I think this is the group he was speaking to a lot of the time, in fact.) This usually happens because they get bad information from people who also don't do it well, whose friends also self-publish poorly, who use those experiences as proof that self-publishing is bad.

It's not for everyone, but it can be a great choice for many people. It's right for me. Even so, there are a couple of projects I'll probably seek trade-publication for. Another thing left out of many articles that champion one side or the other--it's not an either/or proposition.
 
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OliverCrown

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There are several other things in the article that pop out at me, including that apparently there are several writers out there that are making a nice supplemental income. It's not something to live off of, but it's more than nothing.

Some folks don't want to give a self pub a shot, and for understandable reasons. Just as there are those out there who won't give paper a chance (they like the cheaper price/convenience of an e-reader) or vice versa. However the industry is changing toward an electronic format, and with it comes a great deal of self pub.

I'm not suggesting that self pub = better/good/passable writing. Just as "Reality TV" is not neccesarily "Good TV". Yet there are a ton of folks who love American Idol.
 

shelleyo

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An email loop of self-publishers (which others can join via a link on this page) recently took an informal survey of members. Questions asked included things like how many books do you have, how many did you sell in from 2010 onward broken down by year, what's your most successful book, etc. There are some heavy hitters on this list, like Courtney Milan, Elizabeth Naughton and Liliana Hart. And while their numbers are inspirational, I think the real value is in the smaller numbers that still show the same types of patterns over time.

Several responded with their numbers (some pretty impressive numbers, at that), and some gave more information and advice than was asked for. Good stuff.

http://e-bookformattingfairies.blogspot.com/2013/04/author-know-thy-business-self.html
 
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Alice Xavier

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Something unspoken in the article that I think
A lot depends on the genre you plan to self-publish, too. That always seems to get left out of these articles and discussions. Some are much harder sells than others. Too often people look at a success story and don't take genre into account. Romance novels have a decided market advantage over literary fantasies written in second person. What you write should factor into your decision-making and your expectations.
I agree with most of what shelleyo is talking about, but this right here is key. I write erotica. I started in mid-December, and I'm a slow writer, so I only have six short stories released (two of which were total bombs). I'd never written erotica before outside of crappy fanfiction ages ago. I haven't promoted my stories other than creating a half-assed website (soon to be less half-assed) and making good covers. I've sold over a hundred copies of six stories across all vendors. That's over $200 (minus the small cost of domain and stock images) that I didn't have before. Not serious money or anything, but hey, it's the supplemental income Hugh was talking about for low-mid listing authors.

Do I have a flaming passion for writing erotica? No. I enjoy writing other stuff (like fantasy) and discovered that erotica was a good genre in which to self-publish. I'm self-publishing because I'm in it for the money, not because I want to see my precious snowflake stories in (e)book form.

I have some precious snowflake fantasy stories (still unfinished after years and years) that I'm not particularly interested in self-publishing. Until then, self-publishing is a good place to practice writing and learn about what sells and what doesn't.