This is how much a writer makes with a traditional publishing house

[Greg Anos]

I certainly seem to have hit a nerve.

Minimum wage in the US is $7.25. If you worked 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, you'd earn $14,500. $26,000 in a year doesn't sound so much. (I pulled $45 W-2P on my last programming contract. W-2P means the company pays your matching Social Security. Hmm...Do writers pay Social Security?)

If you want to take a vow of poverty and become a writer, be my guest. The lesson here is unless your work becomes a blockbuster, you will live a life of poverty. That has always be the lot of the artist.

The question at hand is - are you better off getting 100% of a tiny pool, or a few percent of a much larger pool. Steve Jordan here took the 100% percent route. Lynn Viehl chose the latter route. I am merely showing the economic difference. Whose "long tail" will earn more, over a lifetime, I cannot say.

As to indie musicians. There's been a nearly endless stream of musicians with the "big record contract" who find out that they have to make a record that meets the approval of the big label, using the big label's studios, at the big studio's prices, and at the end end up owing more money to the studio than they started with...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by basschick

er... i must have missed something here. she was paid 25,000 and you say she made about $3 a book. 80,000x3 is 240,000, not 25,000. 25,000 for 80,000 books equals 31.25 cents per book.

Firstly, she didn't sell 80,000 books. The print run was 88,500 books in July 2008, with a RRP of $7.99. But the first two statements show that, of that 88,500, 27419 have been 'returned' (destroyed) by the end of May 2009, and the publisher expects another 13,790 or so to also be 'returned'.

So the actual sales of the print run are expected to be 47291. That's about 54% sell-though - a bit less than average, which I'm told is about 60% in the US.

Secondly, she didn't make $25,000, she made $50,000 - her advance on the book. The royalties due on the 47291 that sold were not $25,000 either - they were $30,155.69. About 8% of 47291*$7.99.

And what did the publisher make? Well, not 47291*$7.99. 55% goes to the distributor, the publisher's gross income was about 47291*$7.99*0.45 = just over $170,000. Out of which they needed to pay the author's advance - $50,000, and they had to pay for the print run. For 88,500 books, that's (say) $50,000. And the cover artist would be an up-front cost, say $2500.
So now their gross profit is $72,500. Out of which they must pay the for the typesetting, the editor, and all the other costs of running a publishing company.

So - for taking the risk of an actual outlay of over $100,000 cash, on a paperback that made it into the Top 20 Bestsellers list, they made less than $75,000 dollars gross profit.

Just how many books do you think make it into the top 20 each month? And how many paperback books are published each month?

This book did extremely well for the publisher. Most will not, but will hopefully cover their costs. Some lose money.

The author made about $1 per sold book. If it goes into a second print run, and sells well, that might drop to $0.64 per sold book.

The publisher spent $2 per sold book. So far, the publisher has made $1.50 per sold book. If the book goes into a second print run and sells well, that might rise to $1.95 per sold book. Or if the second print run sells really badly, could drop to $0.75 per sold book.


Compared to the music business, publishing is amazingly good to the creative people.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by Kemp

Marketing is the unfortunate beast that cripples the indie author. Marketing takes a lot of time and effort. The indie author, who most likely has to support him/herself with another occupation (or two), doesn't have the time or expertise to really hammer at the marketing parts.

That's also the one big publishing expense that outsiders leave out of the formula. I know when The Heretic first came out (yikes! over ten years ago) it was published on the Web as an ad-supported freebie. That generated enough money and following to fund a paper edition that went on to sell a whopping 1,000 copies. At that I did everything I could, short of spending lots of money on advertising, to promote it. Had I made it my only job, I might have gotten it to go further, but I have this strange fondness for things like eating and paying rent.

[Scott Nicholson]

Plenty of indie authors are doing well on Amazon at $1.99 prices, making more than they would for the typical first advance of $5,000-$7,500 they would get from NY. I am not selling more than 10 copies a day of a book that's been out of print for 5 years that sold 35,000 copies yet didn't keep me up there in the majors (for now). You say 10 copies a day isn't a lot, and I agree, except in three years at that rate i will make more than I did from NY with no worry about being dumped out of print. Other writers are getting movie deals and major NY deals from their indie releases.

I'd still take the "suffering" of getting "only" a $50,000 advance and having to scrape by on royalties of backlist, but for now I do what I can do. Amazon authors sell many times more than they do on Smashwords.

Scott Nicholson
The Red Church

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by Seli

LOTR was a hobby sure. In this case this was her 7th published work or thereabouts), and her net take was usually 30-40% whatever that means. Tobias Buckell gathered data on first advances and IIRC those were around 7k.



Lots of assumptions and really big targets, especially for an unknown writer. She'll still need an editor/proofreader to look at her work, make sure people can find her work, be able to sell the copies for the amount you suggest ($1 to $2 seems more prevalent to be honest).
Writing is still more difficult to sample than music.

That appears to be one of the main weak point of the indie authors. I'm curious, though, hasn't anyone thought about setting up shop to work as an indie editor?

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I certainly seem to have hit a nerve.

Minimum wage in the US is $7.25. If you worked 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, you'd earn $14,500. $26,000 in a year doesn't sound so much. (I pulled $45 W-2P on my last programming contract. W-2P means the company pays your matching Social Security. Hmm...Do writers pay Social Security?)

To be fair, she does mention that she writes more than one book a year. The question becomes: how long does it take to write a book she can sell under similar conditions?

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And what did the publisher make? Well, not 47291*$7.99. 55% goes to the distributor, the publisher's gross income was about 47291*$7.99*0.45 = just over $170,000. Out of which they needed to pay the author's advance - $50,000, and they had to pay for the print run. For 88,500 books, that's (say) $50,000. And the cover artist would be an up-front cost, say $2500.

I wouldn't know about the rest, but as for the cost of the print run, it costs way less than that with such numbers. To give you an idea, printing around 300 books costs around $1.5 a copy. The way printing goes, you can very safely assume that for about 50000 copies, the individual cost is under 50 cents.

[Kemp]

Originally Posted by Trenien

That appears to be one of the main weak point of the indie authors. I'm curious, though, hasn't anyone thought about setting up shop to work as an indie editor?

There are plenty of people who offer freelance editing services. I considered it briefly, as an editor can really provide a second pair of solid, polishing eyes. However, it's very expensive; some people charge around $900 for a novel under 100k words. Other people have price quotes with contact, but I would still guess they'd charge $20-40/hour for their work.

Of course, freelance editing can have the same stigma of unpublished writing; it's hard to judge quality, unless they've specifically got years of experience working on manuscripts that actually sold. Then the price is even higher.

One could say it would be a prudent investment in one's work, but that still might not stop a thrilling manuscript from gathering dust in a desk drawer.

[DrZoidberg]

An author, no matter how good he is, needs a good editor. All the best editors work for the big publishers. That's just fact. There's quite a long period between the editor getting attached to a book project and the book getting released. These guys are expensive. Factor into that marketing, lawyers and crap. There's a lot of people needed to guide a book from the pen to under a reading lamp. The publishing industry is a notoriously ruinous business. It doesn't take many flops to break a renowned house. They need to aim for a tidy profit or they simply won't survive.

It's easy to get ones knickers in a twist if one chooses to see every number as pure profit.

[J. Dean]

That sounds about right. Unless you're someone like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, who REALLY break through, don't expect to become a millionaire.

[DrZoidberg]

Originally Posted by J. Dean

That sounds about right. Unless you're someone like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, who REALLY break through, don't expect to become a millionaire.

Once an author is huge the profit per sold book for their publishing house shrinks markedly. The author has a better negotiating platform. There's no shortage of authors who switch publishers after they break through because they get a better deal somewhere else.

Publishing is rough regardless if you strike gold or not.

[DD1509]

Originally Posted by Kemp

Marketing is the unfortunate beast that cripples the indie author. Marketing takes a lot of time and effort. The indie author, who most likely has to support him/herself with another occupation (or two), doesn't have the time or expertise to really hammer at the marketing parts.

One thing I don't see anyone addressing yet is the reseller margin!!! And they can return whatever they want to return.

She said the publisher is giving 60% margin to the reseller...that # is unheard of in just about any other reseller model in any other industry.

From my reading the publishing industry is a questionable model. I hope eBooks eventually offer a better profit motive for everyone involved.

I think the author is way underpaid and there are too many people in the process with their hand outstretched and too many costs in general.

I think self publishing will eventually become a significant model in the near future.

[DD1509]

I self-published a technical eBook in 2003 and I sold it myself one-at-a-time on the web to a very small niche market. To date it has sold about 4k copies with about $88k in revenue. Of course in this model I kept almost all of that revenue with a small amount of marketing/selling costs. No returns, no inventory, no printing, no agent, no publisher and did it without an editor. I did a lot of personal selling using various methods over the years but it is an indicator that self-publishing definately has its place in the growth of the eBook.

I easily netted $20 per sale. Of course, the fiction market is a different animal but eBooks and self-pub will change the entire industry as we know it today.

[kennyc]

Congratulations.

[Winter]

Originally Posted by DD1509

I self-published a technical eBook in 2003 and I sold it myself one-at-a-time on the web to a very small niche market. To date it has sold about 4k copies with about $88k in revenue. Of course in this model I kept almost all of that revenue with a small amount of marketing/selling costs. No returns, no inventory, no printing, no agent, no publisher and did it without an editor. I did a lot of personal selling using various methods over the years but it is an indicator that self-publishing definately has its place in the growth of the eBook.

I easily netted $20 per sale. Of course, the fiction market is a different animal but eBooks and self-pub will change the entire industry as we know it today.

If someone tried to sell you a novel for $20, would you call them mad? I would.

Regards,
Ryan

[llreader]

Originally Posted by Winter

If someone tried to sell you a novel for $20, would you call them mad? I would.

Regards,
Ryan

Yeah, novels don't sell for $20 apiece, at least not in that volume. Also, if he netted $20, the sale price was probably closer to $30.

[lmpreston]

Originally Posted by DD1509

I self-published a technical eBook in 2003 and I sold it myself one-at-a-time on the web to a very small niche market. To date it has sold about 4k copies with about $88k in revenue. Of course in this model I kept almost all of that revenue with a small amount of marketing/selling costs. No returns, no inventory, no printing, no agent, no publisher and did it without an editor. I did a lot of personal selling using various methods over the years but it is an indicator that self-publishing definately has its place in the growth of the eBook.

I easily netted $20 per sale. Of course, the fiction market is a different animal but eBooks and self-pub will change the entire industry as we know it today.

Wow! That's very impressive. Coodles to you! Where can I find your book?