Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Thanks for the pointer. Now I've heard of him. I was wondering how he was able to churn out so many titles so fast, but I see that he basically releases his titles a chapter at a time. I've heard that was a popular method of maximizing revenue in the kindle indie world.
I can see why I haven't heard of him, post apocalyptic novels aren't really my cup of tea, but hey, I'm glad that he's had such success. Still doesn't really put him in Scalzi's category outside the indie fan base. That's not a put down, a number of authors have made good money writing Star Wars, Star Trek, et al novels and are quite well known in that specific group of people.
Ok, so John Scalzi gets a $3.4 million dollar deal over 10 years. We are, of course, talking about his advances, not how much he's actually making.
Let's do the math -
advance -
John Scalzi - $3.4 M
Hugh Howey - $0
Yea, they are both apples and oranges comparisons. You compare just Scalzi's advances to Howey's total proceeds. I compare Scalzi's advances to Howey's advances. In the indie world, no advances (except maybe crowd sourcing), so it's not a fair comparison.
I point out that your math only looks at the ebook sales, which Scalzi said was a quarter of his earnings while a book is out in hardback. No idea what Howey makes for audio books, paper book sales and foreign sales. To actually compare them, you would need to look at their total takes. Can't really compare ebook "sales" since Howey is producing chapter books (I think that's the term that they use) that he sales for a buck. Not sure how many chapter books are grouped together to form a novel. The Wool Omni edition, which is Wool 1-5 is 550 pages and sells for $5. So each book is roughly a third of the size of one of Scalzi's novels (a bit over 300 pages for his top three books).
I would also point out that the Scalzi posted his sales figures for Lock In - 2,000 ebooks per month which is used as the high end for all of Scalzi's books in the analysis you posted.
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Having actually read the first Wool, I can tell you it is not just chapters but a complete story in itself. I read it for the sole purpose of finding out how it was written.
As per the advances: how long did it take Scalzi's book to earn out or did it?
Now as to your top hundred indies, yes there have been a few. There are also indie New York Times and USA today bestsellers.
Would you like a list of 6 figure indies?
I can think of several in numerous genres.
Blake, Crouch, Ward, R Brown, H Ward, a couple of Joe's and the list goes on.
I know one indie that is now co-authoring with a traditional author. He made the WSJ list.
Another had a TV series on Fox.
Now silly question, does advance money spend better than other money?
I don't get the difference. Other than the timing of the paycheck.