Back about a year ago I had just spent a wonderful day with eight or so other professional writers learning how to get a short story up on Kindle. Now understand, I was only six months away from leaving the church of Luddite and this was exciting and great fun. And so I put up a few short stories of mine and Kris’s and then watched the numbers for a few months and went, “Yeah, so….”

But then I did something not many people tend to do. I sat down and asked the science fiction question, “What if…”

What if the short stories sell only five copies total per month across all the dozens and dozens of different outlets and electronic stores? How much will that make? ($1.75 per story per month.)

What if Kris and I have all our backlist short stories up? How much will that make per month? ($1.75 x 600 = $1,500.00 per month)

What happens if we also sold a line of 5 story collections for $2.99? And those sold five copies per month each total across all sites. How much would that make. $2.99 x 65% = $1.95 x 5 sales = $9.75 per month per collection.

What would happen if we had all the stories in five story collections? 125 collections x $9.75 per month =$1,218.00 per month.

And what would happen if we sold ten story collections at $4.99 per collection and sold five of those per month total across all sites? $4.99 x 65% = $3.25 per collection x 5 = $16.25 per month per collection.

What would happen if we had all the stories also in ten story collections? 60 x $16.25 = $975.00 per month

So just putting up our backlist of short fiction, with no novels, and with bottom-line sales (our sales so far are way, way above those bottom numbers) we would make after they were all up, which would take a few years, we would make $975 + $1,218 + $1,500 = $3,693.00 per month. Or over $44,000 per year, all from short stories that are now just sitting in file cabinets doing nothing.

See, Kris and I have a different math, different circumstances. We don’t expect others to be like us, but you can see why we are pushing on this. And who knows what the novels are going to do. Or POD. We’re just starting on those now. But at the same time, we are still going to New York traditional publishing. In fact, Kris has two different novels coming out in May under two different names. And I have one under another name that I just saw a wonderful trailer for done by the publisher. Great fun.

But we plan on combining the income from traditional publishing and electronic publishing to make freelance fiction writing a lot smoother of a profession. Maybe level out a few of the bumps and make more hills. )

This doesn’t mean the backlist e-books aren’t self-publishing. They weren’t earning ANY money, and hadn’t earned money for years, before she self-published them. So this is great news and she’d delighted. But the gap between those earnings and what she’s earning with her publishers certainly doesn’t create any rational temptation to self-publish her next frontlist book rather than sending it to her professional publisher.

Then again, that math isn’t consistent across the boards, EITHER. Which is why there is no Right Answer. For example, I know a writer whose e-book backlist earnings are such that this writer is seriously contemplating self-publishing a frontlist book, since they think (with good reason) they’ll make more money that way. But unlike your example, this writer has got actual evidence, rather than a theoretical formula. They know how much they ARE currently making for a specific type of book in both types of venues–just as my friend in the above example also knows.

This means in each case, whether sending the next book to a publisher or self-publishing it, the writers in both examples are working off real information and real-world experience which is suitably specific (the information applies to their own books, to specific types of their own books, and to their experiences with specific publishers). And their rational conclusions are totally different: in one case, it’s better to stick with a publisher; in the other case, it may be better to self-publish -this- specific book (but this writer isn’t contemplating self-publising books which have been or can be placed at houses where the math is different than it is in this instance).

WHich is not to say your example couldn’t happen. It’s possible. It’s also possible that Patrick Rothfuss’ example could happen: Your first book sale gets a hefty advance and, after heavy editing by a very experienced, skilled, hands-on editor (which is indeed what he got; we have the same editor, and she is indeed very good at what she does), your book gets tremendous marketing support and becomes a much-lauded bestseller, as well as (via your agent) an international bestseller with sales in over 20 countries.

No, not likely. But it DOES happen.

So does this (I ate dinner with one such writer two months ago): Your first book gets a three-book offer from a house which is known for sticking with writers and building audience over time. Because of the other demands on your time (which this writer certainly has), writing is -all- you can handle, not also packaging, promotion, chatting on Kindle boards, etc.

And this happens, too (to quite a few people I know personally): You’re a midlist author who is making much better money in advances that so far -anyone- (or at least, anyone you know personally and consider credible) has quoted to you in terms of e-book earnings, and your books get top cover artists whom you couldn’t possibly afford if self-publishing, and your own self-published e-book old backlist sales are a nice bonus, as are the earnings on the books you never sold to a publisher but are now sprucing up and releasing as e-books, and you’re Really Really Happy about this new form of income… but it’s nowhere near what you’re making in advances from major houses for your new books.

Here’s another possibility: You’ve got one genre or series or set of books you’re able to sell to a major house, and another which you’re not (I pitched sooo many books early in my career that I never sold), so you can experiment, benefit from both avenues (one of which simply did not exist when I was a new/young writer), and see what the results are. Keeping selling one set of books to a major house, and self-publish another set, and watch your results over time.

I also am not convinced that MORE CHOICE is what most readers are looking for. I’ve read numerous articles in the past few years (usually with regard to consumer goods, rather than specifically about books) wherein study after study shows that people feel paralyzed by too MUCH choice. In an article I read 3-4 days ago, the SMALLER quantity of choice offered for each product is credited as one of the reasons Trader Joe’s is successful: Their customers like choosing from only 10 brands of peanut butter, all of which are good quality, rather than choosing from 35 brands of peanut butter at a superstore. (I didn’t even realize it until I read this article, but I am such a person exactly, so I completely understand this.) So I think as e-readers proliferate and soon everything ever written down, including someone’s reminscience of their favorite backyard picnics, is being self-published as e-books… There will be a benefit to being professionally packaged and promoted to a level of name recognition in a huge sea of selection, in a field (books) where the majority of readers in our time have always chosen their reading material from the bestseller lists, because they WANT to choose from 10-20 already-vetted books rather than choose from 50,000 titles that they don’t know how to differentiate. (And it’s no good telling me they’ll learn to rely on reader chatboards. Most of my friends, for example, have full-time jobs, travel for work, raise kids, care for elderly relatives, AND try to have social lives, so they want the choice of a book to read to be easy, immediate, and high-profile, not something they have to lurk online to learn about.)

This is not to say that self-publishing is a dead end. It’s to say, I think there are SO many variables that the math in your argument is unreliable.

And what Laura said about Hobby writers. Exactly.

And Big Ed, I really like your attitude. A lot! Thanks.

(By the way, I tried to insert links, but the blog software wouldn’t let me post it. Thought it was ‘spammy’)

Short form: Borders is withholding payments from “some publishers”, and at least one big six has suspended shipments of new books to Borders.

Ouch.

This connects back to what I was saying earlier… Mike Stackpole has predicted that the standard print publishing model would collapse in June 2012… With this sort of accelerant, we could see that pushed forward some. Borders carries $450 million in returnables. If they go under this year, those all equate to a net loss for the publishers involved, which is huge. Even if they only start doing mass returns to pay debts, that’s still all loss.

I know the publishers are working hard to prep for a big change in business model, Dean, in no small part because of your wife’s excellent articles on the subject. But I wonder how many are ready for it if it’s forced on them in 2011?

This sort of thing just makes me feel like publishing traditionally is more risky than ever.

I do find it really hard sometimes to get across to readers that a good portion of “indie authors” are actually traditionally published authors putting up backlists. There are some people on the Amazon Communities who were pretty rabid about how rotten all this self-publishing was. Of course, a number of them don’t know that they’ve been buying self-published books all along….

But that’s all changing really fast.

In thinking of the past year, and looking forward to the next, I couldn’t help but think the famous line “You ain’t heard nuthin’ yet!”

Which, of course, came from The Jazz Singer, and were the golden words that ushered in another sea change in the movie industry 83 years ago. (I ended up blogging about it.) Although now that I’m thinking about it, with Borders announcing that they will delay payments to some publishers, etc., maybe I should have quoted All About Eve – “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night!”

And it is no one’s responsibility that you can’t find help but your own. Don’t expect it to come from editors. Not their job. I couldn’t afford the help either when I started. But I went and got it anyway. I found a way.

And I don’t think it’s sad that people self-publish. Why would I, I am doing it myself. I just find it sad that some writers will put up their very first book, get discouraged and go away. Writers who might have made it through the old system. But at the same time, some writers will make it that would have never made it through the old system. So down the road twenty years there will be a new breed of long-term writers. And not a person on this planet knows what that will be or the repercussions of this change on the new generation of writers. No one. We’ll know in hindsight in twenty years.

Lawrence Block, grandmaster of mystery, is doing a ton of self-publishing of his older books and just this week outed a pen name of his that no one had found before. He’s doing many of his hundreds of old novels as Lawrence Block writing as (Pen Name). And he’s doing all the work for the most part. His series are still in New York and he’s a Times Bestseller, but also an indie publisher. Just as I am. And Kevin J. Anderson is, and Mike Resnick is, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch is, and so many thousands more traditionally published writers are. That has to mess with some indie publisher’s minds who think they are doing something special and different.