Musa Publishing

Amadan said:

Hell, if all you want is double-digit validation, you can do better than that on any fanfiction site, or CreateSpace, or FictionPress.

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Oh, I want more than double-digit numbers, but as I said, since I'm a new author I didn't expect to sell more than I have on a short story and a novella. My expectations weren't awfully high. I'm sure if they were higher I'd see the numbers as more dismal than pretty damn good, but I lean towards the latter because I feel that's pretty damn good for a short story by an unknown author in the horror genre.

I just returned from LonestarCon in San Antonio, which this year hosted the World Science Fiction convention. One of the workshops I attended was "Scams Aimed At Writers." The panel consisted of several international authors (including a Hugo Award nominee) and an editor well known to AW regulars, Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

In the Q&A section at the end, one of the audience asked what the panelists considered to be "low sales" that should alert an author that the publisher was one to be avoided. One of the authors was from Holland, where low sales are fairly common and agents are mostly unheard of (authors regularly submit to publishers.) He considered anything under 1,000 unacceptable. Teresa said that in New York, anything less than 5,000 would be considered poor sales.

I've pubbed with small epresses, along with small, medium and large print presses. Even with the small epresses, 500 is what I consider to be my threshold for whether to stay with the pub beyond one contract term. I would also have little sense of humor about the pub not doing even the bare minimum of publicity, which is print or electronic ARCs to a dozen or so sites/mags at no cost to me or effort on my part.

I have to agree with Fae. Set your sights higher, guys. How else can you get to the point of a career at writing?

Cathy C said:

I just returned from LonestarCon in San Antonio, which this year hosted the World Science Fiction convention. One of the workshops I attended was "Scams Aimed At Writers." The panel consisted of several international authors (including a Hugo Award nominee) and an editor well known to AW regulars, Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

In the Q&A section at the end, one of the audience asked what the panelists considered to be "low sales" that should alert an author that the publisher was one to be avoided. One of the authors was from Holland, where low sales are fairly common and agents are mostly unheard of (authors regularly submit to publishers.) He considered anything under 1,000 unacceptable. Teresa said that in New York, anything less than 5,000 would be considered poor sales.

I've pubbed with small epresses, along with small, medium and large print presses. Even with the small epresses, 500 is what I consider to be my threshold for whether to stay with the pub beyond one contract term. I would also have little sense of humor about the pub not doing even the bare minimum of publicity, which is print or electronic ARCs to a dozen or so sites/mags at no cost to me or effort on my part.

I have to agree with Fae. Set your sights higher, guys. How else can you get to the point of a career at writing?

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I'm just curious, is that 500 for ALL lengths of books, or just novels? What about a short story from a new author, in the horror genre?

Depending on the price point, a short should actually sell better than a novel, especially at this time of year. Low sales of a short speaks directly to the publisher, IMO.

I've actually sold more than a hundred of a story that's available for FREE on Tor.com. With a good cover image and good editing, I don't see any reason why a short can't sell 500 easily.

Cathy C said:

Depending on the price point, a short should actually sell better than a novel, especially at this time of year. Low sales of a short speaks directly to the publisher, IMO.

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Thanks. I'm starting to wonder if I should've had higher expectations for my short.

Haunted_October said:

Thanks. I'm starting to wonder if I should've had higher expectations for my short.

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What price is your short? I know I'm likely to buy a low-priced short since I'm a) broke and b) short on free time.

Haunted_October said:

Thanks. I'm starting to wonder if I should've had higher expectations for my short.

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I don't agree that shorts usually sell more than novels. Not in SF/F/H anyway. I'm sure some authors have a short that does really well, but overall, novels win the day in terms of sales. That said, I don't think 500 sales is an unrealistic goal with a publisher promoting it.

Self-publishers are the ones who start slow, because they have to build up a reputation. It usually takes several books before the sales get going. With a publisher, they're using their reputation and fanbase to give you a head start. So it sounds like you had self-publishing expectations (where 50-100 sales would be a great start) rather than trade publishing expectations.

RLMcKeown said:

What price is your short? I know I'm likely to buy a low-priced short since I'm a) broke and b) short on free time.

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.99 cents for the short story

$2.99 for the novella

Polenth said:

Self-publishers are the ones who start slow, because they have to build up a reputation. It usually takes several books before the sales get going. With a publisher, they're using their reputation and fanbase to give you a head start. So it sounds like you had self-publishing expectations (where 50-100 sales would be a great start) rather than trade publishing expectations.

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I think that's a key point in all this. People who submit to Musa, realistically, are probably not choosing Musa over a Big 6 contract. I'm not saying e-pubbing is a slum, I'm just saying it doesn't have the sales or prestige of 'New York' style publishers. So most people who decide to go with an e-pub are doing it because their genre, style, length, or, yeah, maybe quality, isn't a good fit for the big publishing houses. (I work with e-pubs myself - I'm not slamming them. I'm just saying that if I'd had a choice between my e-pubs and, say, Random House, I wouldn't have been working with e-pubs.)

So comparing Musa to the Big Leagues doesn't really make sense. We should be comparing Musa to other e-publishers or, yeah, to self-publishing. What does an e-publisher offer that self-publishing doesn't? A writer can pay for editing and for cover design, so really what e-publishers offer is a way to get the books in front of an audience. They have their name, their have promo channels and connections, they have relationships with reviewers, etc. They get the books in front of the buyers.

If they don't do this, as it seems Musa hasn't for many of its writers, then why is the writer with them, instead of self-publishing?

Haunted_October said:

.99 cents for the short story

$2.99 for the novella

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I'm not an expert, but the pricing for the short story seems spot-on, but maybe the novella is a bit too high? That could be stopping people from buying it. Does anyone know how novellas are usually priced? I'd say $1.99, but I haven't read enough of them to say for sure.

I do think you could hit 500 sales if Musa did more promotion. They supposedly have a fan base built up, or at least should.

RLMcKeown said:

Does anyone know how novellas are usually priced? I'd say $1.99, but I haven't read enough of them to say for sure.

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As a data point, Tor.com is selling my novella for $1.99.

I signed with Musa very early on. My novel was published November 2011, and it’s sold 32 copies. I’d be surprised to learn more than a handful of those sales were due to efforts outside my social media announcements, website, BLOG, newsletter, interviews....

I’ve tried to monitor this thread when it’s actually on the topic of Musa, and my views and experience probably reinforce what most have already surmised. Musa will edit your work with low paid editors who feel they’re building their credentials by working at Musa. You might luck out, you might not. Musa does a good job with cover art and text layout. They put the novel up for sale and make it available for purchase at the major sites.

My primary complaint, like most of the authors I've read here, is the lack of promotion/marketing. Musa maintains a current website and BLOG, posts on social media, and claims to send new releases to an extensive list of reviewers. I suspect they do indeed send releases to reviewers, but it seems resulting reviews are very limited. I had one review from Musa’s efforts. Beyond that, they regularly offer advice and pointers about how to market your own book. Grumblings about lack of sales or marketing are immediately turned around to point responsibility at the author for not marketing it better himself.

Authors' expectations are as widely varied as their reasons for publishing in the first place, so I'll not chime in on how many sold copies qualifies as successful. Based on my experience, Musa is a poor choice if an author expects a publisher to not only put out a good product but also to stand behind it and promote it and depend on it to make sales. On the other hand, if an author wants a story or novel e-published and put up for sale with a nice cover and no costs to the author -- and that’s all the author wants -- Musa could be a good fit. I don’t know enough to speculate on their longevity, but, like others, I wonder if they have enough sales to survive very long, and I recommend prospective authors make sure the reversion clause in the contract suits you.

kap

I'm just curious what "posting on social media" means? I'm on Twitter, have friends on Facebook and regularly visit review blogs and GoodReads. Where do the ads or posts exist, since I've never actually seen an ad by them? Really, I'm not trying to stir discontent, but I've never seen an ad for any of your books outside of your sigs here on AW.

KAP just said "post on social media" not run ads on social media. By which I imagine he means they have accounts and promote to people who follow their accounts on FB and Twitter, which is probably mostly Musa authors.

Haunted_October said:

See, I never expected to sell hundreds of copies for a short story, because it's a short story, so almost 100 copies seems rather good to me. those numbers don't bother me as much as they would others, just because they're short pieces and I figured that being a new author, I wouldn't sell too much on shorts.

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You thought wrong. I'm not trying to be mean here, honest, but the idea that as a debut author and with a short/novella you should expect to sell less than a hundred copies in a year with a publisher is patently untrue. If someone told you that, then they are wrong. Look, my very first book was novella length. I had no social media following because this was 2007 before Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram. That novella (28k words) sold 980 copies its first month. It's first MONTH. Now, that's still very small beans compared to NY publishing, but it was a number I was and still am proud of. I didn't sell a single one of those copies. No one I know sold any of those copies. My publisher (an epress by the name of Ellora's Cave) sold those books. Every single one. Why? Because that's their job. That is what they do. I'm getting ready to self pub a book under a new penname with no readership and I anticipate it will be much harder at first because I don't have a good publisher backing me.

You didn't have a good publisher backing you, either, I'm sorry to say.

Haunted_October said:

Oh, I want more than double-digit numbers, but as I said, since I'm a new author I didn't expect to sell more than I have on a short story and a novella. My expectations weren't awfully high. I'm sure if they were higher I'd see the numbers as more dismal than pretty damn good, but I lean towards the latter because I feel that's pretty damn good for a short story by an unknown author in the horror genre.

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See my response above. Length and unknown author are not a detriment to sales if you have a good publisher backing your work. Period. No way around the truth.

Cathy C said:

I just returned from LonestarCon in San Antonio, which this year hosted the World Science Fiction convention. One of the workshops I attended was "Scams Aimed At Writers." The panel consisted of several international authors (including a Hugo Award nominee) and an editor well known to AW regulars, Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

In the Q&A section at the end, one of the audience asked what the panelists considered to be "low sales" that should alert an author that the publisher was one to be avoided. One of the authors was from Holland, where low sales are fairly common and agents are mostly unheard of (authors regularly submit to publishers.) He considered anything under 1,000 unacceptable. Teresa said that in New York, anything less than 5,000 would be considered poor sales.

I've pubbed with small epresses, along with small, medium and large print presses. Even with the small epresses, 500 is what I consider to be my threshold for whether to stay with the pub beyond one contract term. I would also have little sense of humor about the pub not doing even the bare minimum of publicity, which is print or electronic ARCs to a dozen or so sites/mags at no cost to me or effort on my part.

I have to agree with Fae. Set your sights higher, guys. How else can you get to the point of a career at writing?

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This exactly. I recently tested out a new to me epub that I very much enjoyed working with on a lot of levels but the sales are just not there unfortunately, so I've decided I probably won't be sending them anymore work. It's a purely business decision and that is what writers need to look at. I don't understand making excuses for poor sales by blaming yourself. No way am I taking the blame for a publisher not doing its job. That's on them. It's only on me if I keep going back to that obviously dry well. I'm glad to hear you won't be doing that, Haunted October. I hope your next publisher does much better by you.

Captcha said:

I think that's a key point in all this. People who submit to Musa, realistically, are probably not choosing Musa over a Big 6 contract. I'm not saying e-pubbing is a slum, I'm just saying it doesn't have the sales or prestige of 'New York' style publishers. So most people who decide to go with an e-pub are doing it because their genre, style, length, or, yeah, maybe quality, isn't a good fit for the big publishing houses. (I work with e-pubs myself - I'm not slamming them. I'm just saying that if I'd had a choice between my e-pubs and, say, Random House, I wouldn't have been working with e-pubs.)

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I think if someone is choosing an epublisher based on the fact that their book isn't good enough for NY or has been rejected by everyone else then maybe the low sales have less to do with the publisher and more to do with the quality of the work. Or lack thereof. Epublishing is a great choice for lots of reasons. "Because no one else wanted it" isn't one of them. :/

I don't know that we can compare erotic M/M short story sales to horror short story sales in an epub market? Samhain sells horror scifi, fantasy, and romance. I almost never see the horror shorts, novellas or novels on the Samhain best seller lists except the ones that are being offered free.

Cathy C said:

I'm just curious what "posting on social media" means? I'm on Twitter, have friends on Facebook and regularly visit review blogs and GoodReads. Where do the ads or posts exist, since I've never actually seen an ad by them? Really, I'm not trying to stir discontent, but I've never seen an ad for any of your books outside of your sigs here on AW.

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I'm with you. I've never seen anything Musa. At all. If it wasn't for AW I'd never have a clue.

gingerwoman said:

I don't know that we can compare erotic M/M short story sales to horror short story sales in an epub market? Samhain sells horror scifi, fantasy, and romance. I almost never see the horror shorts, novellas or novels on the Samhain best seller lists except the ones that are being offered free.

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I don't follow Samhain's horror, but I agree with you they we need to be comparing apples to apples. Erotic to erotic and horror to horror. Right now erotica is huge. Maybe in a year horror will be all over. All it takes is one book to change the fads.

I will say I self-pubbed a short (7k) with an okay cover and have never done any promo for it. I admit being lazy. I've sold maybe 50 copies this year and it came out in 2012. I've sold more doing nothing than most Musa authors do busting it. Sad. I think what's been said above holds true. Get with a good pub or self it. Why pay 60% to someone that isn't doing their job?

Old Hack said:

I have friends whose debut novels sold 3,000 copies in their first week of publication.

If most of Musa's titles sold in reasonable amount but a few only sold a few tens of copies, we might be able to blame the books or the authors concerned; but as it seems that the majority of Musa's titles sell very few copies we have to consider what the common denominator for those titles is: and sadly, it seems to be Musa.

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I'd eat my own leg to sell 3000 copies of either of my first two books. To be honest, I did wonder if my low sales were down to my writing, but as I'm definitely not the only one who's looking at sales in the teens, I don't think it is.

Haunted_October said:

I also stated that I wish that Musa would help more in Promotions, because that would help the sales of their books, but from what I've seen only the highest sellers get more than a nod on FB and Twitter. There's no reason that I can see why they can't set up blog tours, interviews, and send out more review copies. One can only hope that after the Roger Rabbit book is published in November that they'll put just as much effort into the other authors in their stable.

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Bolded - I've noticed this, too, and have to wonder about it. Giving promo to books that are already selling while letting the ones that are overshadowed remain overshadowed seems a strange way of doing things. As for the Roger Rabbit book, I have to wonder if someone interested in that will give two shits about my tales of horror, violence and general misery. I'm guessing not so why would that release have any effect on my sales?

RLMcKeown said:

I'm not an expert, but the pricing for the short story seems spot-on, but maybe the novella is a bit too high? That could be stopping people from buying it. Does anyone know how novellas are usually priced? I'd say $1.99, but I haven't read enough of them to say for sure.

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My novella published through Dark Fuse in a couple of weeks is $2.99. As far as I know, all their novellas are that price.

KAP said:

Grumblings about lack of sales or marketing are immediately turned around to point responsibility at the author for not marketing it better himself.

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Absolutely true. I'm happy to tell people about my books, but I'm not an ad man. My job is to write the next book to the best of my abilities, not spend any writing time I have online to pimp myself or email out review copies.

Cathy C said:

Really, I'm not trying to stir discontent, but I've never seen an ad for any of your books outside of your sigs here on AW.

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Neither have I. Anywhere.

Just another data point: my novella, a PNR at 35,000 words, priced at $5.99, sold 40 copies in its first week, just from the publisher's website alone. And I suspect a lot more since. Now, admittedly, I did a small burst of promo (3 guest posts on well known blogs, plus blurbs on blogs of my critique group members) then one more guest post about a week and a half later. But that's it--I've let it languish since, due to family issues. And it still sells. Loose Id does very little promo--they send it out on a list of new releases and let the reviewers choose whether or not to pick it up--but they are a large, established company with a strong readership and consistent editing. They can get away with that. I'm not sure Musa is big enough, or has established enough of a name for itself yet, to follow in their footsteps.

Fae Sutherland said:

You thought wrong. I'm not trying to be mean here, honest, but the idea that as a debut author and with a short/novella you should expect to sell less than a hundred copies in a year with a publisher is patently untrue. If someone told you that, then they are wrong. Look, my very first book was novella length. I had no social media following because this was 2007 before Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram. That novella (28k words) sold 980 copies its first month. It's first MONTH. Now, that's still very small beans compared to NY publishing, but it was a number I was and still am proud of. I didn't sell a single one of those copies. ....

I think if someone is choosing an epublisher based on the fact that their book isn't good enough for NY or has been rejected by everyone else then maybe the low sales have less to do with the publisher and more to do with the quality of the work. Or lack thereof. Epublishing is a great choice for lots of reasons. "Because no one else wanted it" isn't one of them. :/

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I don't understand. You say that you know your EC sales were "very small beans" compared to NY publishing, but then your last paragraph makes it sound like you think people choose e-publishing over NY publishing. Can you clarify why you think people would choose to publish their work through a publisher they know will get them lower sales? (I'm assuming that all of the issues I mentioned in my original post mean that the author isn't really choosing, since NY wouldn't want their work).

(And I agree with those who say you really can't compare erotica to horror in terms of online sales. I'm not saying Musa is doing a good job, but for whatever reasons, horror is a harder sell online).

gingerwoman said:

KAP just said "post on social media" not run ads on social media. By which I imagine he means they have accounts and promote to people who follow their accounts on FB and Twitter, which is probably mostly Musa authors.

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Ah. That explains a great deal. So the only readers to see the ads are those who follow this particular publisher. The trick with that, though, is that it relies on readers even knowing the publisher exists to go find the list of authors.

For example, I just flipped through a random issue of RT Bookreviews (which reviews most genres, from mystery to YA, SF/F/H, and general fiction--not just romance) and while I found reviews and ads for other epubs like Samhain, Carina, Entangled, Midnight Ink, Loose-ID, Riptide and others, there's not a single review or an ad for Musa. While there are some authors who pay for ads themselvoes, the publishers usually contribute in some form, from paying part to ad design or some such.

I worry about a company that is now well beyond a start-up in terms of age (this thread was started in 8/11) that's still acting like a start-up.

Cathy C said:

For example, I just flipped through a random issue of RT Bookreviews (which reviews most genres, from mystery to YA, SF/F/H, and general fiction--not just romance) and while I found reviews and ads for other epubs like Samhain, Carina, Entangled, Midnight Ink, Loose-ID, Riptide and others, there's not a single review or an ad for Musa.

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No reviews in RT, and none in Locus for Penumbra or their SF imprints. Getting a book review in Locus isn't always easy, but the short story reviewers regularly look at new magazines and imprints. So does Lois Tilton, who writes a review column for Locus's online edition. All you need to do is send her the issues.

If anyone from the Musa management is browsing this thread, it would be handy if they could comment on the issues raised here.

seun said:

If anyone from the Musa management is browsing this thread, it would be handy if they could comment on the issues raised here.

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I don't think they need to comment here, imo. They just need to address the problems going forward.

eqb said:

I don't think they need to comment here, imo. They just need to address the problems going forward.

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Possibly true, but if they did, it would be a big help for current and potential authors to hear in detail that a) they know there are problems, and b) exactly what will be done about them.