
Revenue reality of a book on the New York Times best-seller list  - makimaki
http://www.genreality.net/more-on-the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller
======
mquander
I'm not too sympathetic, on account of the following:

\- Her figure of $24K is per book, and then she says (paraphrased) "well, if I
were to write one book like this a year." Most authors producing mass-market
paperbacks write somewhat more than one per year. The author in question
appears to write several per year (looking at the Amazon listings) which
probably gross a fairly similar amount. So, what's the meaning of this "if I
were to write one" business?

\- She expects to see the rest of her advance and some non-negligible amount
of money coming in in the future from royalties and other rights, so it's not
really fair to say that her "income" from this book is $25,000. As a
professional author, she would be earning that $25,000 this year and also
earning money from prior sales this year, and then she would be earning more
from this book later.

\- Finally, here's the Amazon synopsis:

 _Immortal Darkyn Lord Valentin Jaus and landscape artist Liling Harper are
two lost souls. Brought together by fate, bound together by passion, Valentin
and Liling find solace in each other's arms. But the ties that bind them are
deeper—and more dangerous—than either of them can possibly imagine..._

No offense to struggling vampire romance novel writers, but why is it
important that people are able to earn a great living writing books like this?
I don't think it's a big loss to society if people aren't getting rich at this
particular trade. When authors who are really advancing the art can't make a
good living, then let me know.*

* No, this isn't totally subjective. People will be reading Pynchon 30 years from now, but they won't be reading Lynn Viehl.

~~~
immad
In my mind, the issue is more to do with other people getting rich off the
back of this authors work while the author gets hardly any thing.

So the question is not the value of the book to society, but the percentage of
the value the author should get versus everyone else in the stack.

~~~
ardit33
well, I hope the ebooks will change this. With the costing of printing going
away, you don't need a publisher anymore. The only thing you really still need
to do is marketing.

~~~
timwiseman
Publishers with a good reputation will likely continue to act as a combination
of editor and gatekeeper. Anyone can put something out now, but saying that it
has been edited, approved, and possibly marketed by a major publisher will
likely to carry some weight.

In fact, there is a possibility some publishers or indpendent editors
functioning as publishers will begin to take that on as a primary role and
become very selective in what they attach their name to.

------
patio11
We have it ridiculously fortunate selling software/services relative to folks
whose IP requires a physical embodiment. If you think the _publisher_ is a
waste of money from the perspective of the author, why not consider what
_retailers_ get out of the transaction? Like most retail products, books need
to be keystoned to make money, which means 50%+ of the price you pay for the
book gets absorbed by the point of sale.

This has truly perverse effects such as an affiliate for Amazon who generates
one marginal sale of Bad Vampires And The Librarians Who Love Them getting
just about as much as the author does out of the marginal sale. (I mock but I
spent $50 this month on "urban fantasy" on my Kindle, so it is good natured
mocking.)

My little brother is trying to break into writing. For authors below the tip-
top, it requires endless participation in book signings, tours, and whatnot to
build a fan base and, essentially, move books at retail scales. This is, not
to put too fine a point on it, insane. Authors need to get savvier about
marketing their books on the Internet, and disintermediating as many players
as metahumanly possible.

(I've got high hopes for the Kindle bringing book readers kicking and
screaming into the mainstream. Granted, at the moment it makes you about as
dependent on Amazon and your publisher as you've always been. However, if it
goes iPod and moves the core book buyers from buying paper to buying bits,
then you could have alternate business models like "Thanks for buying Vampire
Loves Sarcastic Female Mechanic last week. It is the first book in a planned
series of seven. For only $49.99 you can buy a membership in the VLSFM fan
club, which in addition to our exclusive newsletter gets you the next 6 books
of the series -- each delivered a month before street date directly to your
registered device. Be the envy of your friends!")

------
netcan
From the comments:

 _Thanks for sharing this. As a writer, I still don’t understand why we
receive such a small pay check when the publisher reaps big profits. Yes, they
take the chance, put up the money, and promote the book, but they would have
nothing to sell if we didn’t write the book. Because of that, I’m self
publishing my next book. I figure that I only need to sell 10% of what I would
through a publisher to make more money than I would receive from them. With
the internet and a modest fan base I think this is possible._

This is the correct mindset. Currently publishers take 90%+ of the revenue.
They also take all the risk & also fund the unsuccessful publications. Authors
are trading risk for stability at (what seem like) a high exchange rate. I
don't believe that today & into the near future publishers really have such a
monopoly over the distribution & promotion of books that no one else stands a
chance of succeeding.

If the commenter is wrong & can't sell 5%-10% the number of books on his own,
then the publishers are adding the value that they are getting paid for.

They could try to do what the publishers do. They could promote & sell direct
to public online (I imagine >10% of all book sales are online, so if you can
keep the number of online sales consistent while writing off brick & mortar
entirely, you beat your goal). 1K true fans (or maybe 10k true fans) may be a
viable approach. Maybe the author can do the direct to public thing & sell
books at a fraction of normal retail price. I'd order a lot of books if they
cost $3.

The problem with all this is obviously that the author then needs to be good
at both writing & "publishing." For this to be scalable, there needs to be a
wider structure that works for writers that are only good at writing. Then
again, maybe that kind of structure exists and costs 90%+ of revenue.

~~~
jgrahamc
Publishers are not just marketing machines, they also have editors. One of the
dangers of self-publishing is not getting robust feedback from a good editor.

~~~
netcan
I disagree. Editors is the type of service that is defined enough in scope to
outsource effectively. It is one of the expenses of self-publishing, sure. It
shouldn't be skipped. But just like they can pay to have a book printed, you
can pay to have it edited.

I don't think that there is really an argument that all the stuff that
publishers do is unnecessary. Only that authors might be able to do it
themselves. The point that seems to be brought up every time (I've never
worked in publishing, so I don't know) is that their ability to promote a book
is not replaceable. The reason that comment caught my attention is that it
offers a solution to that problem: You don't need to match them, just get
within an order of magnitude.

I suspect that one of the hard to replicate aspects is the filtration that
publishers offer. They reject books with low chances of success. If they are
better then average at selecting, that should increase average ROI. This is
where the decade comes in to play. Printing smaller runs is getting cheaper
all the time. Distribution is getting easier. ebooks may make getting a book
out the door very cheap. If you don't have high up front costs, you don't need
filters.

------
jazzychad
> After paying taxes, commission to my agent and covering my expenses, my net
> profit on the book currently stands at $24,517.36

> ...the publisher’s portion of sales on this book has grossed them around
> $453,839.68. ... If I had to make a guess, I’d say they probably netted
> around $250K on this one.

Wow.

~~~
smallblacksun
The publisher makes more profit than the author, but they also take more risk.
The author is guaranteed $50,000, while the publisher could (theoretically)
lose $50,000 plus the cost of printing and distributing if the book doesn't
sell well.

~~~
gommm
When publisher's give advance that high it's because they know that the book
will sale. So I don't think they are really taking that much of a risk with
publishing this book.

------
gr366
This looks like another case of those controlling the means of production and
distribution primed for disruption. There's no shortage of "iTunes for Books"
ideas out there, but imagine giving authors a means to distribute their work
without a middleman taking _quite_ so large a cut. Similar to what's happening
in the music industry.

It wouldn't have to rely solely on digital distribution either… well-known
authors or books that meritoriously rise above the rank and file could then be
picked up by the remaining smart book publishers and given real print
distribution for those who still like to show off their bookshelves. Sort of
like people still buying vinyl even though they have the MP3s.

~~~
petercooper
There are some means, like Lulu.com, for example. Their charges aren't
unreasonable, though you won't be making much money if you want to roll out a
$7 paperback through them (for bigger, pricier books though, you end up with a
good margin).

The problem is the vast majority of authors aren't marketers and aren't that
_interested_ in marketing and promoting their own books even if they have some
ideas. The relationships publishers have with distributors can prove
significant in getting those first few thousand copies out the door. (And it's
certainly not as if I'm a massive fan of publishers here..
<http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/> )

------
teamonkey
I find this very interesting, but the way she explains it isn't clearly laid
out. Annoyingly, she keeps referring to her own income in terms of net profit
but anything else is gross.

Anyway, a link to her first post: <http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-
times-bestseller>

She got an advance of $50000 of which 1/3 was paid only when the book hit the
shelves. Expenses (including agent fees) approximate $9000. If she took a year
to write the book, her book would have earned her $35k (gross, $26k after
expenses) in July 2007, plus $13000 (gross) in July 2008. And that's it -
until she covers the advance, that's her income for this book to date. Hardly
stellar. You'd _need_ returns from other books to support yourself in order to
make a living from this.

She took back $40k against her advance in the first 4 months followed by a
buffered -$2k loss in the next 6 months. That's one hell of a short tail.

------
joshfinnie
I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem
to be making a better living then $25,000 a year. Stephen King, John Grisham,
Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves.

Even making only $25000 on one book a year, if you have written 5-10 books the
past 5 to 10 years, you have to be making money off those books as well...
Especially if her advance is $50,000 a book!

I have to agree that I have no real sympathy for this.

~~~
barry-cotter
"I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem
to be making a better living then $25,000 a year."

Serial writing is practically dead. Short story rates have stayed constant in
_nominal_ terms for decades, soinflation has eaten them.

"Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have
done very well for themselves."

Those authors combined are less than 0.0001% of the professionally published
novel writing population but I would be surprised if they took less than 5% of
all US author royalty dollars. Very, very skewed distribution.

------
z8000
Sad but then again just about every book seems to make it onto the New York
Times best-seller list.

Oh, right, I've been spending too much time in airports.

------
Alnoor
Clearly, we need to outsource book publishing to China.

~~~
jhancock
I assume your being snarky. To be a bit more serious though, China has a large
ebook publishing economy. An author in China would be thrilled to make $25k
off a book. Royalty payment in China are horribly low and accounting of books
sold or read is highly "inaccurate".

