How much does the average author get paid?

[Taylor514ce]

So, when does MobileRead Publishing, LLC, go into operation?

[igorsk]

Baen's approach:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/03...anage-e-slush/

[bob_ninja]

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

Traditional publishing houses aren't going anywhere because they're absolutely and fundamentally necessary to the quality of the books you read, regardless of the means of delivery. There are always people who will manage without, but they are very much the exception. Without publishers, we'd be swimming in an endless sea of junk. We need them to figure out what the good stuff is. Really. Daithi is right to think of them as 'gatekeepers', but the problem with people rating stuff outside of that traditional mechanism is that they're likely to get very tired very quickly of trying to rate stuff that's really bad, and there's a lot of it out there. Way, way, way more than there is of the good stuff.
....

According to Charlie:

In practice, about 70% of the cover price of a book you buy in the shops is eaten by the distribution chain -- retailer and wholesaler. The publisher and author get to split the remaining 30%.

The main waste is 70% for distribution, so publisher's cut is a lesser problem. The gatekeeper function is valid, yet I don't see why it should be wholly controlled by publishers. As you point out they are overloaded, so much more likely to reject text that may be acceptable and good to a certain readers set. I don't see why publishers should have a monopoly on deciding what is worthy of publication.

As an example, many people no longer listen to movie reviewers. Many go to IMDB and look at the votes of ordinary people. Using this new technology it is now practical to open the publisher's functions such a gatekeeper to a wider set of people, perhaps even a mix of professional and amateurs.

Yes, publishers may very well play a role in the future as well, but will not and should not be the sole decision makers as they are now on many issues, including publication decision.

[bob_ninja]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Baen's approach:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/03...anage-e-slush/

This is a fantastic idea and a great start. There are many other examples such as Wikipedia where many people, both professional and amateurs can contribute. Now sure there are issues, such as keeping quality high and blocking biased opinions, etc. I follow several sites where people contribute ideas, knowledge, experience and even experimental findings comparable to what can be found at universities (or better).

So some sort of combination of professional publishers and open community can do a great job of gate keeping while not discarding texts prematurely. For open community one can always create a rating system like eBay for sellers say, whereby members are rates and can be kicked out when misbehaving too much. Meanwhile new/junior members would be given less access/privileges while senior high rank members would have more power.

Look at the book library here. Everyone knows Harry, Patrica, RWood, etc.
So even without a ranking system we know these are decision makers and you better listen to them. I imagine most users here comply with their requests without hesitation.

Anyway Baen's system looks very nice

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by bob_ninja

As an example, many people no longer listen to movie reviewers. Many go to IMDB and look at the votes of ordinary people. Using this new technology it is now practical to open the publisher's functions such a gatekeeper to a wider set of people, perhaps even a mix of professional and amateurs.

Although I agree with the idea of more small, independent publishers, I don't think this comparison is apt. The ratings at IMDB are all on movies that have already made it through a highly selective production process (as hard as that is to believe at times).

The Baen open slushpile model is a pretty good one. Offering a "finder's fee" for recommending a book that really does make it through publication and becomes popular might help to make it more worthwhile for people to wade through the slush. Increasing someone's boosting power based on the earnings of books they recommended would be a good way to help keep the random cronyism in check. E.g. as a new reviewer, I only get 10 points a week, and it takes 100 points to get a book out of the slushpile and into the inbox of a professional editor (whatever that might mean in this system-- probably someone who will get a more substantial share of the earnings, though not as much as the author). I can't spend more than 10 boost points on a single MS. But if a book that I recommended makes it through the editing process and starts to sell, I get more boost points per week, based on that-- and I can apply those points to the next MS I think is worth an editor's attention. Perhaps with enough of a boost ranking, I get an invite to become an editor myself, with a share in the profits of successful books. (It might depend on whether I have any talent in the midwifery of books-- not everyone who can pick a good MS is good at working with authors to help them polish their work.)

This could be a writer's workshop, as well, similar to other online writer's workshop models in which writers comment on each others' work, and can't get comments on their own work until they've commented on a certain number of other MS.

[JSWolf]

I'll happily volunteer to do some eBook formatting and get paid for it.

[nekokami]

But would you be willing to do it on commission, i.e. for a percentage of sales, rather than for cash up front?

Or if not, how much would you charge the author?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by nekokami

But would you be willing to do it on commission, i.e. for a percentage of sales, rather than for cash up front?

Or if not, how much would you charge the author?

A percentage of sales would work too. It should not take too long to do the average eBook as they don't need all that much in the way of anything fancy with the format.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by nekokami

[SNIP]

The Baen open slushpile model is a pretty good one. Offering a "finder's fee" for recommending a book that really does make it through publication and becomes popular might help to make it more worthwhile for people to wade through the slush. Increasing someone's boosting power based on the earnings of books they recommended would be a good way to help keep the random cronyism in check. E.g. as a new reviewer, I only get 10 points a week, and it takes 100 points to get a book out of the slushpile and into the inbox of a professional editor (whatever that might mean in this system-- probably someone who will get a more substantial share of the earnings, though not as much as the author). I can't spend more than 10 boost points on a single MS. But if a book that I recommended makes it through the editing process and starts to sell, I get more boost points per week, based on that-- and I can apply those points to the next MS I think is worth an editor's attention. Perhaps with enough of a boost ranking, I get an invite to become an editor myself, with a share in the profits of successful books. (It might depend on whether I have any talent in the midwifery of books-- not everyone who can pick a good MS is good at working with authors to help them polish their work.)
[SNIP]

Neko:

Baen's model isn't quite an open slushpile. The volunteer fan readers are all people who have been selected by someone at Baen. Originally, they were chosen by Jim Baen as being people who were "not buttheads" in his opinion from his experience reading their posts at Baen's bar. I'm not sure how they're chosen now, as I haven't been around there much since I really dove into dissertation-writing last fall.

On the "finder's fee" and "points-per-week" front: When Jim was alive he told his volunteer slush readers that we each had one (and only one) judgement call token. We could use that judgement call by direct email to him. As in "Jim: That book over there is so great that I'm putting my judgement call token on the line to get you to look at it." The idea was that he'd have a look. If you were wrong, no more token for you. If the book was either an immediate buy or really really close, you got your token back.

To the best of my knowledge only one reader ever used their token. Jim bought the book (or so rumor has it). I never encountered something in the slush pile that was so wonderful that I was willing to risk mine.

Now that Jim is dead, I rather suspect that the judgement call token is gone too. Although a volunteer reader could probably get the official professional slush-pile reader to move a book way up on her reading list.

I think that I should mention that in the slush-pile reading that I did, the average submission was really REALLY bad. Thankfully only a few descended to the level of making me want to pluck my eyes out with a spork. About 5% were good enough that I suggested that a pro editor might want to have a look -- but even most of those I expected to wind up as "give this guy some tips and encouragement so that his next submission might be good enough to buy." I'd be surprised if they actually achieved a 1% purchase rate based on the quality of the submissions that I saw.

Xenophon

P.S. I have the dubious honor to be the wise-ass who originally suggested turning selected fans loose on the slush pile. I thought I was joking about being desperate for more to read. Jim Baen saw an opportunity and made it happen. I guess that's why he was a successful editor and entrepreneur, and I'm not.

[SandySchwab]

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

Traditional publishing houses aren't going anywhere because they're absolutely and fundamentally necessary to the quality of the books you read, regardless of the means of delivery.

Exactly. Traditional publishing houses improve the quality of the books that are being published not only by deciding which books they're going to buy, but also by editing these books. Editors are the guys who help authors to make the best of their books by providing valuable feedback. And they're not just anybody, they're professionals who know the market and who know what sells. And they understand stories. You might sigh and groan when you get an eight-page revision letter from your editor, but you know that his suggestions are going to improve the novel. I wouldn't want to a novel published that hasn't gone through the editorial process before.

Yes, an author might have beta readers, an author might have a crit group, but still, ideally your most valuable ally is your editor.


nekokami wrote:

I have a hard time imagining anyone with decent taste in books being willing to spend hours each week voluntarily sifting through the slush pile without compensation.

Editors do. They usually go through the slush pile in their free time.


Steve Jordan wrote:

Publishers do make decisions as to who would and would not get published... but those decisions weren't based simply on quality, they were really based on sale-ability and publisher profitability... which we all know aren't necessarily the same thing.

Of course, sale-ability plays a role for traditional publishing houses. Still, I dare say many if not most of the manuscripts that are sent to publishers are of poor quality. And given the horror stories that you hear from editors, quite a number also reflect a distinct lack of professionalism (no, you don't send in a handwritten ms; no, you don't send in a ms sprinkled with perfume; and -- gosh -- pink paper is also a Very Bad Idea)

[dstampe]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Regarding books published through a publisher, the common procedure is for the author to be paid an "advance" or a flat amount toward the potential royalties a book might earn. I've heard the amount for fiction is US$3000-5000 per book. If the amount of royalties generated by book sales ever exceeds the amount of the advance, the author gets more payments, but this isn't especially common. However, book sales drive future contracts, so by buying an author's books we can at least make it more likely that the author will be contracted for another book.

For my non-fiction book, I was paid an advance of $500, and I doubt I'll ever see another payment.

My experience with publishers is somewhat out of date, but in 1993 I was paid $3500 for a book that made it onto the nonfiction/computer bestseller list. Still never saw an extra cent from it, but then I didn't expect to.

Software writing was far more lucrative: a program I wrote further back put me through university with plenty left over. But that was back in the late 80's, when there were still a number of populat platforms and the market was therefore fragmented. So you didn't have to have a team to create a competitive product, and a single programmer could still make a big splash with "kitchen table software". Publishers would depend on a few titles and that may have effected rate of royalties as well (it worked out to about 20%). But this rate may have been high because everyone involved knew in advance that it would be a bestseller.

[TallMomof2]

I read a lot of shorter books from very small ebook publishers and the editing is bad to horrible. Personally, I would like to edit almost every single one of those books. Only spell check is run on most and there are many instances where a homonym (there, their) is used instead of the correct word. In other books it's OCR errors that drive me batty. Don't get me started on mixing up loose and lose. Continuity is also a frequent issue.

I would want to be a technical editor if that is the correct term for the position and would do it for a percentage of sales.

[nekokami]

Xenophon, I knew about the token, but hadn't realized the slush pile readership was by invitation only. I just knew by reputation that submissions were pretty weak and I already have too much to occupy my time to want to take that on.

SandySchwab, I hadn't heard that editors go through the slush pile in their free time. However, I'm guessing they're salary? So there's sort of a fuzzy line dividing free time from work time in their case anyway... and it's to their direct advantage to find something good in the slush pile.

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by nekokami

However, I'm guessing they're salary? So there's sort of a fuzzy line dividing free time from work time in their case anyway... and it's to their direct advantage to find something good in the slush pile.

Seems like US working treatys are very different from the ones in the EU.
If I work for salary I normally have a fixed amount of hours I have to work each month (e.g. 160h). Of course overtime is a regular and sometimes you even get money for overtime. But .. there is a very clear distinction between "work time" and "free time".
And its only to their advantage to find something good if they get paid royalties - AFAIK not every editor gets more then his normal monthly payment.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

I would want to be a technical editor if that is the correct term for the position and would do it for a percentage of sales.

Your talking about copy editor. I wrote a book which had two editors... a technical editor and a copy editor. The technical editor verified the content of the book (since it was a technical book) first and made suggestions. Then the copy editor would make sure it was English.

So, I read the book I wrote at least 4 times. Initial draft. Personal edit. Review of technical edit. Review of copy edit.

BOb