Self Pub Do Sell, and sell Lots

[VydorScope]

Stumbled on this blog post that I thought would give inspiration to many of you here...

http://victorinewrites.blogspot.com/...dont-sell.html

[arjaybe]

That's nice. I hope it encourages the authors who hope to make money through self-publishing.

Now, cue the yabbuts.-)

rjb

[Lemurion]

Yes, some self published books do sell very well.

Others don't.

Amazon claims over 1 million books in the Kindle store, and the number could easily be several times that. Looking to the blog post, that means that over 800,000 of those books don't sell even one copy a day, and the 13,161 ranking she gives for 10 copies a day means a book that's selling better than 98.7% of all the other books in the Kindle store. Then she mentions the top 1000, saying those authors are making serious money. Yes, they are, but they're also in the top one-tenth of one percent of all books on Amazon. They had BETTER be making money if they're outselling 99.9% of the competition.

There's lots of money there; millions of dollars.

The hard part is getting your ebook to those rarefied heights, and that's the part the original post ignores.

[latepaul]

The problem with the article is it tries to use numbers to make a point that the numbers don't make. She wants to counter "most self-published books don't sell" but in fact that statement is true. The fact that the tiny proportion of books that do sell happens to be a lot in absolute terms doesn't change that.

So from a pure numbers point of view the odds aren't good. However you can improve the odds for a given book by working hard on the quality of the writing, by promoting it well and so on. If you want to encourage self-pubbed authors then that's the way to go I think. Of course it would be hard to measure that. It'd be cool to show that for example authors who'd had their books properly edited did better on average than those who didn't but I think it'd be hard to get the data.

[VydorScope]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygr...paign=20131230

Acording to Forbs... Self pubs are beating out some of the Big 5 publishers.

I think the point is that Self-Pubs do sell, and sell lots. The contra point is that most BOOKS (ebook or dtb) do not sell - regardless of how/who published.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygr...paign=20131230

Acording to Forbs... Self pubs are beating out some of the Big 5 publishers.

I think the point is that Self-Pubs do sell, and sell lots. The contra point is that most BOOKS (ebook or dtb) do not sell - regardless of how/who published.

I think that a better point is that Self-pubs can sell lots, not that they do sell lots because most don't. They also don't do better than the Big 5. Even the numbers in that Forbes article say that.

If you compare aggregates, all the BPH bestsellers to all the self-pub bestsellers, you get 899 for the BPH's and 99 for the self-pubs. Given that there are more self-pub books in a year, that means that commercial publishers are more likely to produce a bestseller than self-publishers.

Yes, every self-publisher combined did produce more bestsellers than either Harper Collins or Simon & Shuster on their own, but each of those publishers produced more bestsellers than any single self-publisher.

Self-publishing is hard. It can be very successful, but the numbers are clear and the chances aren't better than with commercial publishing. The big advantage is that because authors make more money per book sold, there's a lower barrier to success. Making some money is relatively easy, making a lot is incredibly difficult.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Self-publishing is hard. It can be very successful, but the numbers are clear and the chances aren't better than with commercial publishing. The big advantage is that because authors make more money per book sold, there's a lower barrier to success. Making some money is relatively easy, making a lot is incredibly difficult.

So I agree with this. I pick some nits with the rest of your post, but this is right. The hard truth is that...

Some Indies are killing it - making 6 figures a year off their books. I know this first hand from multiple authors.

Some Indies are doing okay making a livable wage at it. I know this first hand from multiple authors.

Some Indies are making a good hobby salary off it (4 figures). I know this first hand from multiple authors.

BUT - and we must not forget this - the vast majority of books DO NO SELL. For example - the top 1,000 best selling indie books according to a Smashwords 2013 survey (limited to their own books/channels) make up 50% of the sales. It is a long tail market.

An inde can make it. That is a proven fact. BUT that does not free you from having to produce a quality book that people actually want to read - AND doing all the marketing, promotion, fan interaction, etc - yourself. It is a lot more work than the traditional route. In exchange you are your own boss, and make 60-70% royalties.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

So I agree with this. I pick some nits with the rest of your post, but this is right. The hard truth is that...

Some Indies are killing it - making 6 figures a year off their books. I know this first hand from multiple authors.

Some Indies are doing okay making a livable wage at it. I know this first hand from multiple authors.

Some Indies are making a good hobby salary off it (4 figures). I know this first hand from multiple authors.

BUT - and we must not forget this - the vast majority of books DO NO SELL. For example - the top 1,000 best selling indie books according to a Smashwords 2013 survey (limited to their own books/channels) make up 50% of the sales. It is a long tail market.

An inde can make it. That is a proven fact. BUT that does not free you from having to produce a quality book that people actually want to read - AND doing all the marketing, promotion, fan interaction, etc - yourself. It is a lot more work than the traditional route. In exchange you are your own boss, and make 60-70% royalties.

I don't disagree with your facts, but I think you're overstating the likelihood of success when going indie while ignoring the benefits of commercial publishing.

Both options have advantages and disadvantages.

Self-publication has a much lower barrier to entry, and it is easier to make at least some money through self-publication.

Commercial publication has significant barriers to entry, not least of which being that each publisher only has so many openings in their catalog, some of which are taken years in advance by their biggest sellers.

It's harder to get in, but the minimum return for an author who gets commercially published is much higher. Overall sales numbers are generally better, too.

However, because self-publishers get to keep more of their money, they can easily undercut the competition and still make more money. If you go with Amazon's 70% option, you can make more than three times as much from a single sale at $2.99 than a commercially published author does from a sale at $7.99.

On the flip side, it's often easier for a commercially published author to get those three sales than an indie author.

It cuts both ways.

The truth is there's no one best choice for everyone.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The truth is there's no one best choice for everyone.

That much I agree with, but I feel you are way overstating the traditional case, esply as I see more and more self pubs turn down contracts because they are making more than they are being offered.

Publishing as we know it is in a state of flux. It maybe 5-10 years before we see how this plays out, I have my predictions - and so do the big publishers. I am betting on mine, just like the rest of the industry is betting on theirs.

Right now Amazon KDP is the biggest game in town (for both medium/small pubs and indies), but I do not think that will last forever, too many pieces in motion right now.

[Lemurion]

If anything, I'm understating the benefits of commercial publishing.

Commercial publishers produce a greater absolute number of bestsellers despite the fact their total output is only a fraction of the number of books released by self-published authors.

That is not to say that there aren't lots of self-publishing success stories, some of whom have made millions of dollars. However, the numbers don't lie. A smaller proportion of self-published authors get rich than commercially published authors.

That doesn't make self-publishing a bad idea. I'm taking a similar tack with a couple of friends. The money is there, but there are a lot of people competing for it, so it's really hard to stand out from the crowd.

[VydorScope]

The self-pub number of books right now is ridiculously inflated because there is no bar to entry. None. The gatekeeper has shifted from the publisher to the reader (where it belongs). Once the gold rush emotional high everyone is on passes, that will sort itself out for a large part.

BUT that affects Trad and Self-pub alike. Amazon, B&N, Apple, and others treat the books the same. That means any new Trad Pub author is competing with the same books as any new self-pub author.

I think good authors with good business sense make it, and bad author - or bad businessmen don't as a general rule.

[arjaybe]

Has anyone crunched these numbers:

A new author getting published through the conventional means and making money, relative to

A new author self-publishing and making money?

[VydorScope]

Just a side note...

From B&N's press release..
src:http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/pre...s_release.html

Customer demand for great independent content continues to dramatically increase as 30% of NOOK customers purchase self-published content each month, representing 25% of NOOK Book sales every month.

There is good reason to believe Amazon has similar numbers (though they do not report). Same with Apple, and others. Conservative estimates put self-pub at 25-30% of the overall market. That puts self-pub as a group on a par with the biggest of the big 5, Penguin.

Also, as of a new release today - Smashwords is the largest US producer of EBooks - and they ONLY do self pub.

Are there tons of self-pubs who will not make it? Sure. Are there tons of trad published authors that will not make it sure.. assuming you can even get in the door.

I guess the best take away is: There is no reason not to consider Self-pub today, unlike 5-10 years ago when self-pub was a blackhole that few emerged from. I have recently been told by a traditional publisher that your best bet to get into a trad contract is to prove yourself through self pub first. So even if trad pub is the route you want to go, you still probably should consider self pub.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Has anyone crunched these numbers:

A new author getting published through the conventional means and making money, relative to

A new author self-publishing and making money?

Well, it depends on that author. Here is an example:

If a self-pub sells 1,000 books @ 2.99 on Amazon with they take home $600-$700 gross. If they sell 1,000,000, they take home $600,000-$700,000 gross.

If a trad pub author does that they take home 0 until they have earned out (as I understand it), if they ever earn out, then they take home probably around $50-$100 (for 1,000) and $50,000 to $100,000 (for a million). (rough statement - not based on first hand knowledge - need a fact checker on this one)

So while I do not know all facts about trad contracts here, I am very sure that the 70% gross take home of the self-pub blows away any take home of event the biggest names in trad pub.

Something else to consider. Once my book is ready (back from my professional editor, has cover art, and etc), its 12-48 hours before it is for sale - EVERYWHERE as ebook. Paperback hits Amazon in a couple days - and a few weeks later is available for order at all retail chains. The trad pub authors I have spoke with say, the lead time is more like 6months to a year. That is lost time, and lost sales.

There are advantages to trad pub (esply in marketing, and shelf space) but those are eroding. Its a great time to be part of the market, the wild ride is sure to continue a few more years at least...

[Lemurion]

The two systems offer very different business models, but it is possible to make some comparisons.

The first thing to remember is that commercial publishers pay the author up front, while a self-published author makes all their money on the back end.

The way it works in commercial publishing is that the publisher tries to predict how many copies the book will sell in all formats and calculate the royalties from those numbers. They use that figure to determine the "advance," or more properly, the "advance against royalties."

This money is paid to the author regardless of how many copies the book sells. If it sells more, the author gets the additional royalties on those additional copies, if they sell fewer copies than predicted, the publisher eats the loss.

So, the author gets paid for so many thousand copies whether they sell any or not. Advances vary, but they're usually at least 5-10,000 for a genre novel from a major house and can go much higher.

In contrast, the average ebook earned $297 from sales in 2012.

It's no contest. The average commercially published author took home in excess of ten times what the average ebook author (whether commercially or self-published) generated in sales.

The catch is that it's difficult to get signed by a commercial publisher, and the process can take years if not decades.

In contrast, self-publishing is open to everyone; and that $297 average in the first year is a lot more than you can hope to get from submitting a manuscript that keeps getting rejected.

The royalty numbers are much better, too. As I said earlier, the 70% on a self-published $2.99 book is about three times what an author gets from a $7.99 paperback.

You get far more money per copy, but earn less per title. However, if you can keep a popular series running through self-publishing you can get a steady stream of income that can easily rival or exceed the average for commercial publication.

If you are willing and able to take the time to build a career and can catch the wave, you can leverage the larger royalties into real money.

The one thing to remember is that while it's much easier to make less money than a commercially published author through self-publishing, it's not easier to make a lot of money. It can be done, but the big numbers aren't on anyone's side.

If a self-publisher sells 1000 books for $2.99 they'll take home $2100 - but the average book sells fewer than 150 copies.