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Old 04-03-2012, 08:58 PM   #20
FizzyWater
You kids get off my lawn!
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Columbus, Ohio
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfCrash View Post
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.ph...cseen.html#new

This is an interesting topic at Kindle Boards.

Quote:
My first book, The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America, was published in 1996 by Putnam/Berkley (now part of Penguin USA). Even though it earned back its advance, and then some, they let it go out of print in 2000. I thought: well, that's that.

But in August 2010, after getting the rights back, I re-published it as an eBook. Sales were slow at first, gradually picked up, then surged after I enrolled it in KDP Select.

Anyway, I just realized that I've now earned more in royalties from the eBook than I did from the original, traditionally-published print edition.

Putnam/Berkley had to sell 20,629 books to pay me what I've earned from only 4809 eBook sales. I'm sure there is more than one lesson about contemporary publishing in that statistic. But right now, I'm just sort of astonished that I've reached this point.
I guess the point it that Indie authors can get paid and do well without a major publisher behind them. It is all about the marketing and how you promote your book. Mike McIntyre sold close to a quarter less e-books then he did traditional books and made the same amount of money as he did with the publisher.
This is an interesting point, but something to keep in mind is back in 1996, Putnam/Berkley would have spent funds to have the book edited, typeset, and to have a useful cover created (I would assume anyway). They put funds into it the "indi" author didn't have to when he re-released it (unless he put a new cover on it).

I'm not saying that negates the difference, but it does offset some of the difference. And that's not even talking about the difference between the 1996 dollar and today's.
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