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Old 04-28-2011, 01:48 AM   #466
GreenMonkey
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Michigan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker View Post

As for your book sales funding your retirement, I'd like to direct you to some comments by Eric Flint. Aside from the sales of his own books, note what he says regarding books in general: The average paperback sells 15,000 copies, of which 80% are in the first three months.

Look at that number again: 15,000 books. That is for books that are in bookstores, sitting on the "new books" display, etc., that someone can find out about just by walking into the store. And that's paper books, books that anyone can read, not just the people with the knowledge and equipment to search them out and read them. If we assume that your ebook sells 10% as many copies as the average paper book -- all else aside, the market penetration of ebook readers and the visibility of pbooks in large chain bookstores are both major factors -- we're talking 1,500 books. If you make a profit of $2.00 per book, that's $3,000. You're not going to fund much of a retirement out of three grand.

And I'm being generous in my estimates there. Very, very generous. There probably aren't 1,500 people who have even noticed that your book exists, let alone who thought it was something they wanted to read. The economics of ebooks are not in your favor. Writing is not, except for a rare few, a lucrative profession. Unless you are one of a small handful of writers, you can't make a living (or even a good retirement nest egg) from writing. For every famous Dan Brown there are thousands of eternal unknowns.

I'll say again: J.K. Rowling's problem may be piracy (if a multi-billionaire has problems). Your problem is not being J.K. Rowling.

I have some more bad news for you regarding pirate sites, torrents, etc., that have your book listed: They have your book because either a) someone (probably someone who bought it) gave it to them, or b) because they sucked it off some other website. People who download it from those sites do so because it was packed in with a bunch of other books, and the one they really wanted "Twilight", but they had to take the whole zip of 1,000 books to get it. They're not going to read it; it's just clutter. It's baggage. They're not costing you sales because they're not reading your book. They're reading the three books in that torrent that they wanted, and maybe one or two others whose authors they recognize, but you're not any of them. Even the pirates aren't reading your book.

That's what you have to fix.

Yup. I've heard the same from a few other sci-fi and fantasy writers I like - that most people can't make an income on writing full time.

It's been argued by a few that as a writing virtual nobody, you are actually BETTER OFF for being torrented - because that gets your name and your work out there... which, as a not-Stephen-King writer, you need much more than anything else - to be known. If even a couple of people buy one of your books later because they read your book as the result of someone else giving it to them or something, you're doing better than you would have otherwise.

I don't know for sure if this is really true - but it has the ring of truth to me.

Last edited by GreenMonkey; 04-28-2011 at 02:31 AM.
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