
Publishers are paying writers a pittance, say bestselling authors - Tomte
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/27/publishers-pay-writers-pittance-philip-pullman-antony-beevor-sally-gardner
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TangoTrotFox
I'm unfamiliar with this industry and articles like this, as usual, focus
almost exclusively on some pathos driven storytelling than actually informing
the reader.

Why aren't more authors self publishing? Is there a demand for some sort of
system such as 'Steam for Writers'? Are revenues still predominantly from
brick and mortar retailers as opposed to online? How are book sales doing in
general? Has there been a sharp increase in the number of people trying to
sell books?

Just lots of questions that would provide some much needed context.

~~~
cableshaft
Self-publishing is a numbers game. The way to make decent money in self-
publishing is to put out like 12+ books a year, churned out as fast as
possible (which often means a very short and formulaic genre book with a very
cookie cutter story), and building a readership by promoting and marketing
constantly.

It takes a certain kind of author to do that, and most people writing in their
spare time just don't have the time or energy to do that.

There are exceptions to that of course, but that seems to be the best way to
gain any traction as a self-published writer right now, is to build a giant
catalog of samey books that if one reader likes they can keep churning through
your back catalog.

I have three published stories that have been part of a local group's short
story anthologies, that self publishes one every year, and my total royalties
from three anthologies has been $10. I enjoy it, and have grown a lot as a
writer through the practice, so I still do it (one more is about to be
published and another is in final draft), but it doesn't make money (granted,
they don't do a lot of promotion either).

Meanwhile I've been working on my first novel for over 8 years now.

That seems to be the key in general for this age of easily consumed media, is
to find something you can churn out quickly and consistently and build up an
audience over time that way. It's why Youtube personalities chatting crap off
the top of their head about games or current events see so much more
popularity than individuals who put together scripted content, it's just
waaaay simpler to consistently put out videos when you're just talking crap
instead of scripting everything ahead of time, so you can quickly build a back
catalog and keep popping up in people's news feeds with new material.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Just to bump this on your replies thread list, I responded elsewhere [1] with
something that I think is appropriate here as well. I'm quite curious on your
take.

[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17408703](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17408703)

