Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson
If he GAVE AWAY the next book, then it might be a lure. Otherwise, why should a writer have to be bribed to do his job?
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I think "paid" is a fairer term, myself.
He's commented that he regards this as an "advance" on the new book. When established authors work with a publisher, the publisher will generally pay them an advance toward a book. The author generally uses that as cheese and bread money while writing said book, then will also get a (small) percentage of the proceeds from the sales.
In this case, he's trying to get rid of the publisher, by kick-starting the advance off of an existing book that folks want an e-version of.
One thing of note: if I recall correctly, Mr. Stackpole used to be
very concerned about sales numbers. I recall reading an author's note (and I believe it was one of his) lamenting the whole used book market because the publishers had no visibility of sales in it, so the true popularity of an author was masked. (Of course that ignores the fact that if that weren't so, it would apply across the board to all authors and the numbers would all be higher, but relatively the same as they are now, but I digress).
The point I'm getting at is that Mr. Stackpole has apparently experienced a
significant shift in perspective from a place where he regarded used book sales as a threat, to a point where he's willing to not only sell e-books (something that's
really scary to a lot of authors), but sell e-books
without DRM of any kind.
It seems to me that some appreciation of that journey might be in order rather than kicking the man because he hasn't reached what we might regard as "full enlightenment."
To my mind, if you want the book, and the terms are agreeable, then buy it. Otherwise don't buy it. Griping about the guy only taking baby steps seems to me like ... poor form.
Another point, 10,000 units at $5 is only $50,000 in
revenue, not in
profit. Using the numbers he gives in his blog posts, if
all the sales were through his site, he'd clear 86% of that, or $43,000. Taxes, since he's self employed, run about 1/3 (~$14,000), and don't forget Social Security, it's 8% (of the gross) for the self-employed ($3,440). That leaves a whopping ~$25,227 -- a nice chunk of change, but not all that much for he and his family to
live on for a year while he's writing the next book.
Just some things to consider.