Based on six weeks of Kindle sales, I am probably going to make more on my first novel this year than I did from its original advance. I am so confident I will make more than NY will pay me that I’m releasing an original novel on March 1, a novel that somehow the (former) agent never seemed to remember.

Smashwords–they supposedly get you into a lot of outlets eventually and handle different formats, so I am trying them. And many outlets don’t want to deal with an author directly, preferring an “aggregator” like Smashwords or Fictionwsie.

Fictionwise: I had a deal with them in 2002. I got checks a few years but didn’t get any for the last three or four years, plus they kept selling my stuff long after the contract expired. Literally six months and 30 emails later, I finally got them to pull my books. Still no checks. They really went in the crapper after they sold to B&N, proof that B&N is really behind the curve on ebooks.

On this day, I am convinced Amazon is the best and most generous publisher on Earth. Especially when they start the 70 percent royalty. They take no rights, you put up your own cover and categories, and you can leave at any time. Your vision. Your reward for your work.

Control: I am thinking of buying back the rights to my NY novels because Kensington isn’t making them available in any format. I can wait the 7 years for all the licenses to expire, but I will lose thousands of dollars.

Moral: I now know what my work is really worth. And it’s not what NY tells me it is.

Scott Nicholson
http://hauntedcomputerbooks.blogspot.com

Quote:
How are royalties calculated?
Smashwords pays the author, or the author’s designated publisher, 85% of the net sales proceeds from the work. Estimated proceeds are clearly disclosed during the publish process in a pie chart, and are calculated as follows: (Sales price minus transaction fee) multiplied by .85 = proceeds to author/publisher. The royalty rate for affiliate sales is 70.5% net. For most retail distribution partners, Smashwords pays the author/publisher 85% of the net proceeds to Smashwords, which works out to 42% or more of the suggested list price you set for your book.

So it sounds compared to Fictionwise that the author gets more of the money. I don’t recall if they actually put it up on Kindle or not, which would change that picture some. It does work like you mentioned, but perhaps they take a smaller portion of the net than Fictionwise.

So far since I put my novella there (Infinite Realities), 15 people have looked at it, but no sales so far. Probably standard for an author few have heard of. I priced it at $2.49 whereas the paperback book’s list is $9.99. So I can’t verify the numbers they give with actual sales yet.

I guess the advantage they give you is distribution for sacrificing 15% of your net. But, like a lot of places, the number of people there with this or that published makes it hard to get noticed.

So I’m up in the air about throwing my other book on there. I’m still debating it.

In essence, Fictionwise and from what I understand (I may be wrong) Smashwords and a dozen other sites like them are functioning as publishers, just as book publishers do, only these new sites figure your percentage from what they get, not from the cover price as paper publishers do.

So (using round and not accurate numbers…check these as they vary from site to site), an author puts up a short story on Kindle for $1.00. By the time the fees and such are done, author gets about 40 cents. Or 40%. Nice profit margin by any business standard. And very little work and no upkeep at all.

But if that same story is give to Fictionwise or some such site, Fictionwise does the minor work and puts it up and gets the 40 cents from a Kindle sale. But then they turn around and give the author 30% of that. So author now gets 12 cents for each Kindle sale instead of 40 cents.

Again, these numbers are not accurate but just used for illustration. But they are in the ball park. So that said, I’m not much of a fan of those sites.

And, as Mike and I have been saying over and over, you give too much control away. And have you ever tried to find a single author on Fictionwise anymore? Stunning number of authors are there, making the noise factor fantastically high and the ability of Fictionwise to give any one author or story attention less than you would get in New York. Better to never let the control go unless you have to. But that is just my opinion.

One thing you could comment on in relation to digital self-publishing, is what are your thoughts on Smashwords.

In case you’re not familiar, it is a self-publishing site for creating digital books in several formats “automatically,” along with the ability for people to download samples of the book. The formatting isn’t as good as what I can do myself, but sufficient (with promises that in the future authors/publishers will be able to insert your own versions in place of the automatically generated one).

Have you heard anything about these guys? I placed my novella up there as a test. So far, so good.

Alright end of plug, I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Cheers,

Steve