May 17 2010
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Only 300 Writers Make a Living
This myth is so solid, I hear it repeated over and over again. And just today, a person I follow on Twitter repeated it yet again, sending all her followers to a web site that had some writer say simply “There are only about 200 or 300 writers making a living at fiction.” With nothing at all to back up the statement or even a second thought about what that statement meant if true.
The number is total and complete hogwash. I’m going to lay out some facts. And I will use math and other ugly arguments to show you that this number is a total and complete myth. And I hope to maybe dive a little into why this myth persists. Why beginning writers need it. So hang on. This myth is as ugly as it is stupid.
Before I go anywhere, there was an article in Publisher’s Weekly tracking the top book sales in 2009. For hardcover fiction, they list about 138 books down to 100,00 copies in hardback, for mass market the book had to sell above 500 thousand copies to even get mentioned, and trade paperbacks are added at certain levels. Go take a look at the article on Publisher’s Weekly and then read on.
Now, if you took a hard look at those numbers and authors, you would realize that even with the same author having more than one book on the lists, there are around 300 different names on those fiction lists. I am not on that list anywhere, neither is Kris or any number of writer friends who make their living writing fiction.
For the moment, let me leave that point and back up.
What is making a living?
For the longest time, I considered making a living at fiction at making more than $100,000 per year. Then in three or four workshops, I started talking to writers about reality. The writers’ reality and the amount it would take for them to “make a living.”
Most of the writers I talked to thought they would quit their day job if they were making fifty to sixty thousand a year with their writing. A number said that their spouse earned half their income, so they only needed thirty or forty thousand a years to make it happen.
After taking that poll for a number of workshops, I decided that six figures wasn’t required for “making a living” at fiction writing. Which just added in a lot more writers into the mix.
But for this discussion, lets just leave the number at one hundred thousand a year from your writing. Math is simpler. And besides, hard to argue with that number as a decent living in these recession times.
Right now, most new writers are saying, “Oh, I wish.” Yup, I would have to in my early days.
In the chapter FICTION WRITERS CAN’T MAKE A LIVING I talked about the Magic Bakery and talked about a theory where this 200 or 300 number comes from. So please right now go read that again and then come back, because now I’m going to jump off of some of those points. (And in the actual book this chapter will follow that chapter.)
Okay, now to that ugly math I promised above.
In the summary of book sales from 2009 in Publisher’s Weekly, the bottom book in Hardcover they listed had sold 100,099 copies.
So, the author makes on average 10% on each book sold (allowing for discount schedules and other contract things) and the book is priced at $25.00 (for easy math), the author makes $2.50 per book. 100,000 books equals $250,000. (Remember, that’s the very bottom PW figured was worth reporting.)
And it was for JUST THE HARDBACK. Now, if you went to the previous chapter on this topic and read about how a book or story works in the magic bakery, you will understand that this figures does not count any other income source for this one book. Paperback, audio, ePub, overseas sales to other countries, and so on and so on. And don’t even think about the money for possible movie options.
So bottom line, any author on that list from Publisher’s Weekly summary is making a LOT of money per book, far, far in excess of $100,000 per year.
On one book.
If you count all the different authors on those lists, which I did not exactly, but at a glance I can tell there are at least 300 different authors who made those lists. Some more than once. (See why the top brand name authors hit the Forbes Top Income Earners lists?)
Okay, so we’ve dealt now with the 300 top authors in fiction. But what about all the rest of us.
Or what about the fifty to one hundred writers who only sold between 80,000 and 100,000 hardbacks and didn’t make the list? Or what about those hundreds and hundreds of poor writers who only sold in the area of 30,000 copies in hardback and can only dream about that top list?
Let’s take one of them, shall we, and do that ugly math.
Same 10%, same $25 price, so author gets $2.50 per book. Author “ONLY” sells 30,000 copies in hardback, author only makes $75,000 in HARDBACK . Again, not counting all the other sales like paperback and overseas and so on. Again, we are back over six figures for that one book easily. Hundreds and hundreds more writers pile into the total number of writers who make a living.
I am still not included.
So, what about the writers who are more normal in publishing then the folks playing at the top levels? How do we make a living? How do us “working writers” do it who haven’t hit with any big books, or books that even sell 30,000 in hardback?
Actually, pretty simply. We write a lot more.
Back to the ugly math.
Say a writer does a small genre book. Books sells nicely at 20,000 copies in paperback actually sold. Writer got a $8,000 advance for the book. $6 book at 6% is .36 cents per book. Income is $7,200 so writer gets no more money than the advance, but publisher is happy and writer sells another book to them, or two or three.
So writer can do four books a year and makes $32,000 on just the advances from those books. (Now, remember that magic bakery?) Maybe not the second year at this pace, or the third, but at some point the author will have built up enough inventory that more things are popping. At four years, the author will have 16 novels finished. Overseas sales happen on a couple of them, audio sales happen every year on a couple of others, maybe a small option on one of them from Hollywood, rights reverted on two and the books are now selling on Kindle and other income sources directly to the writers.
And the pace just builds up. As each year goes by, more and more factors in the magic bakery kick in until at one point you find yourself doing just fine.
That’s the group I’m included in.
But understand I’m a lot faster than four books a year. I write across genres, I ghost novels for writers, I write a ton of short fiction as well. I make money on all of that as well with my little magic bakery.
Am I unusual? Oh, of course not. There are far more writers like me than writers on that big Publisher’s Weekly list. Or playing in the big books just under the list. In fact, the majority of writers who make their living at fiction seldom, if ever make that yearly list. Granted, those brand names on that list get all the press, but the thousands of us just working along do just fine and dandy.
SOME WONDERFUL NUMBERS
—Bowker reported that last year (2009) there were 75,000 publishers.
—Bowker reported that last year (2009) there were 47,541 NEW books published through standard fiction publishers. (Not counting POD at all.)
—Bowker reported last year (2009) that three were 29,438 new young adult books published.
(Get the full report here.)
That means that EVERY DAY through normal major publishers there were 213 regular fiction and young adult fiction novels published. (47,541 plus 29,438 divided by 365 days.)
Every day.
Let me repeat that one more time to let it sink in. 213 NEW FICTION TITLES EVERY DAY.
Ugly math: If a writer could manage four books a year, it would take OVER 19,000 writers doing four books a year just to fill what was published last year.
19,000 writers doing four books a year. Or 38,000 writers doing two books a year.
Yup, there are only 300 writers making a living writing fiction. SNORT! Anyone who repeats that number is just too stupid to do a simple Google search to find the real truth.
(And also Bowker announced there were about 250,000 POD books done as well in 2009, but they didn’t break then down as to how many were fiction.)
Still don’t believe the numbers? Want a test as to how many fiction writers there really are with your own two eyes?
Walk into a Barnes and Noble superstore and stand just inside the door and look around. Realize that most of those books you are seeing in that store will be replaced by the “turn” in less than a month. And the ones up front will change daily or weekly.
Now simply start picking up books and see if you recognize the author name. Up front you’ll find the brand names and the folks who are on that big list. But at the new release table how many names do you recognize?
Then walk the aisle of the romance section, the mystery section, the science fiction section, and then go to big section, the “fiction” section. Your eye will be drawn to the big names scattered in there, but look between them and the thousands of authors with books there THAT month. Most of their books will be replaced within the month by the same number of new books coming in by a different thousand authors.
And B&N can’t begin to carry every one of the six thousand new books in fiction being put out every month between adult fiction and young adult.
The truth: The publishing industry is a huge machine that needs product.
I have no clue how many thousands and thousands of fiction books a standard superstore holds, but if there were only 300 major authors making their living and writing one or two books a year, those shelves would be pretty empty, those stores soon out of business.
So, why do I think this silly number, this stupid myth gets repeated over and over?
My opinion only. (No math, no study behind this opinion.) Two reasons. First, I think it’s fear that causes this myth. And it works like this:
New Writer is afraid to actually take a chance and write and practice and put work out there in the real world. And if there are only 300 people making a living at writing, it is therefore impossible to do and so why should I even try.
In other words, those who hold that silly myth and repeat it need the excuse it gives them for there own lack of trying.
Second reason: Ego. New writer writes a book, sends it to an agent, no agent likes it, so therefore IT’S HARD to get published, and that has to be because there are only 300 people doing it. It CAN’T be the new writer’s fault, it can’t be because the writer can’t write well enough to even get into the 77,000 new fiction books being published in a year. It can’t be because no one who could actually publish the book has even seen it because of a myth the writer believes in with agents. It has to be someone else’s fault because the writer thinks their very first book is brilliant. Ego.
Well, no excuse. Over 200 new fiction books a day are put out by major publishers in JUST THIS COUNTRY alone. You stop making excuses and get past the myths and get your skill levels up and do four books a year, after a few years you are making a living. And if you write something that hits bigger for you and you end up on that Publisher’s Weekly list, you are pretty rich by most standards.
That only 300 people make a living at writing fiction is the stupidest and most destructive myth outside of the agent myths. Time to get past your fear and your own ego and chase your dream of making a living at fiction.
There are a very, very large number of us doing just that. After all, someone has to fill those shelves every month.
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Copyright 2010 Dean Wesley Smith
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This is now part of my inventory in my bakery. (Confused on that, read the Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about making money with writing.) I’m giving you this small slice as a sample. I’m giving you a taste, but not selling any of the pie.
If you feel this helped you in any way, toss a tip into the tip jar on the way out of the Magic Bakery.
And I would like to thank all the fine folks who have donated. Once this book is done, I will send you a copy. The donations and the comments both after the posts and privately are really keeping me going on this. Thanks!
If you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this chapter along to others who might get some help from it. Every week or so I will be adding a new chapter on the myths and sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned. Upcoming are chapters on bestsellers, having it made, more on agents, and so much more. This business has a lot of myths. An entire book full.
Thanks, Dean
Great post, Dean.
Without the hard numbers to back me up that you laid out, I have, regardless, argued this more than once with people.
I always said, if only 300 people make a living writing, and fantasy/sci-fi is only a fraction of the market, why can I name 30 fan/sci writer off the top of my head that are raking in tons of cash???
Would it make sense that 1 in 10 of the elite are from fantasy/sci fi alone???
Of course I got all sorts of blank stares on that one…
When I was president of Ninc (2008), I got a member who previous profession had been market surveys to do a survey of the membership, so I’d have a better idea of its composition, and therefore a better idea of how to serve members, as well as updated information for our PR efforts.
One of the stats that resulted was that approximately 1/3 of our members made their full-time living as writers. The org had 650-700 members at the time. So, obviously, if the “only 300 writers make living at this” myth were true… the corollary would be that “almost =everyone= who makes a living at this is a member of Novelistsn, Inc!”
I think we defined “making a living,” for the purposes of the survey, as “you support yourself or could support yourself on what you make,” and otherwise let people use their judgment.
I don’t place a monetary figure on “making a living.” That’s a question of lifestyle and personal perception, after all. A lot of people in this country are supporting themselves on minimum wage, while meanwhile, one of the wealthiest families I know is always complaining that they don’t have enough.
Tangentially related is this great post –
http://www.dianapeterfreund.com/back-in-the-saddle-again-writerly-economics/
Of course, having played “The Game” I was familiar with the math.
Awesome, as always.
Could another reason this myth is touted be because some of those big names want to make themselves look better? (Ego again.) And I bet it’s a good deterrent for new competition.
“Sure, kid, it’s great you want to be a writer like me, but only 300 people actually make a living at this gig. Maybe you should try being an agent. I hear that’s where the real money is.”
Another great post, Dean. Well done.
Makes me want to say to anyone who repeats that, “Then you’d better not try, eh?”
That would be pretty rude, but I am like that occasionally.
Rob, I don’t think that’s a reason. Every major writer I have ever met goes out of their way to try to help new writers. For some wonderful reason, none of us in this business look on new writers as competition. And why should we when there are that many books being published? Nope, if a bigger writer spouts that, it’s just because they heard the myth and never thought it through.
I’m not a psychic–and I don’t play one on TV. But I have a prediction…
This may be more controversial than the agents posts.
I know, on the surface, there’s no reason why this should be so.
But there’s so little logic in this myth (maybe even less than the agent myth) that it must be a creation of pure emotion.
This means, of course, that the internet villagers will be picking up their pitchforks and passing out the torchers.
The main problem will be that every professional or wannabe who’s circulated this myth will feel like they just got their teeth slapped out of their head.
No one ever thanks you for that kind of experience
Hey, Nathan, when did “logic” have anything to do with publishing myths? (grin) And with logic out the door, why stop there for these people. Bad business practices are just a moment behind tossing logic out the door.
I have no doubt that some will want to hold onto this myth, even with real numbers presented to them by Bowker and Publisher’s Weekly. Problem is with this myth, even if you divide the real numbers I was using in half, there are still thousands of us making our living at writing fiction.
213 new fiction titles every day not counting POD. You and I can write some of those, but not all of them. (grin)
Of course, if you are a new writer and hope an agent will make you rich if you just rewrite that manuscript one more time for the agent, then you have ZERO hope of making it to even selling, let alone making a living. You might as well be plugging money into a slot machine. You might make a hit if you get really, really lucky, but it won’t last. Maybe this myth comes from that batch of new writers as they rewrite away for an agent, knowing in their gut they will never make it. If only 300 have made it, then it makes them feel better.
And of course, I don’t know what I’m talking about because I can read articles with real numbers, have written Star Trek in the distant past, and have made my living for over 20 years writing fiction, so I don’t understand what they are going through. Snort… Sorry, too much snark in my iced tea tonight.
I think you definitely touched on it with the ego thing. As one of those new/beginning writers, I get this kind of stuff a lot from both other writers (I won’t make a living ever because they aren’t) and from non-writers (if people could make a living doing what they love to do, everybody would do it).
I think it is tough sometimes to hear that something is possible if you are sitting a place where it looks impossible (nothing but rejections, rewriting the same novel or handful of stories over and over etc).
Personally, I find the numbers encouraging
I used to believe this myth, absolutely. I agree with Dean in that I think fear is largely behind it. I also think laziness is twined intimately into the fear. It’s scary for new writers to accept the real numbers, because as long as being a pro writer is this magically unobtainable state which only a very fortunate, very lucky, specially-predisposed few can ever attain, the new writer never has to fully engage. They can flake out on their work whenever and wherever they want and not have to feel bad about it. Because nobody ever really makes it. Not reallly. Nobody but the mythic 300.
I think this is especially true in the burgeoning internet fanfic community. There are some hugely talented people playing around in internet fanfic who will never see a dime and never publish a single original work, because going independent and striking out on the “gold rush” path to original pro sales, is just way too hard. It’s so much easier to just keep playing with other peoples’ worlds and characters — as a hobby — and tell yourself you’re not in it for the money. As if that’s some kind of moral high ground? I say, bull cookies to that!
DISCLAIMER: back in my teens in 1990-1992, did exclusively fanfic, before I even knew there was a word for it. I didn’t even call myself a writer then. It was reading Larry Niven, and looking at my own stuff, then thinking, “Wow, Larry gets paid to do this,” that made me want to pursue sales.
That’s still true today, and the more obvious it is that being a pro is simply a matter of persistence, discipline, and work — hah, what in life that’s worth doing is not a matter of persistence, discipline and hard work? — the more obvious it is that many or even most writing myths cluster around people being afraid and people not wanting to put in much effort. They want to be Stephen King, but they don’t want to log the hours it took King to become King.
Easier to tell yourself that pro success and being a freelancer is this divinely-granted thing — that you have to be born with a best-selling contract in your mouth, otherwise you’re never going to get there.
One thing that keeps me going right now as I work for the next batch of “new writer” sales, is the knowledge that this is almost exclusively a volume game. I’m not worrying about my quality the way I used to because I have evidence now that the quality is there. (see: bathtub analogy) The key at this point for me, is production. Production, production, production. Hundreds of thousands of new words, every year. Year after year. Whether any of it sells or not! I have to keep producing. Until it does sell.
Tell that to the dilettante writer who only puts together a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of words per year, and (s)he is liable to wind up with a horrified expression on his or her face. What sane person chugs away at a few hundred thousand words per year, every year, without there being a guarantee? Better to remain a dilettante and polish The Perfect Story that never gets submitted anywhere, and tell yourself your goals are somehow loftier than money or publication.
Okay, sorry, engaging in some snark of my own. I suspect I am probably just mad at myself for all the years I used to swallow and spout this bullshit. I wasted so much of my own time, now when I see or hear about other people doing the same, I want to smack people. Forgive me.
I understand that there are a lot of myths surrounding agents, publishers, editors and the writers themselves. This blog is a huge source of information in countering those myths and finding a way into the writer’s world. But I think this post, and the one on the Magic Bakery, are possibly the most important posts you’ll write.
It’s not like I know anything about writing or the business of writing, but I do know my own weaknesses and fears. I know throughout most of my life I’ve looked at the situation I find myself in and back out because I didn’t think it was worth it. After all, if I’m not going to be the best, if I won’t even be able to hold my head above the water, why bother trying?
The fear that only a select handful of writers really make a living doing this is enough to hold anyone back, especially me. And that’s a shame because I’m sure this myth has brought a premature end to some fantastic young writers out there. I only hope that as my writing develops I will keep posts like this from veteran writers like you in the back of my mind and find myself willing to take a leap toward success.
But I do think the reasons for the existence of this myth are abundant. The most common and widespread one being that so many people know nothing whatsoever about this business–including people who ardently aspire to become PART of this business.
I meet people regularly, consistently, almost nonstop who think that all writers are dead; or that all writers are multi-millionaires and household names (and none of the rest of us exist); or that all writers are employees who just write what a genius editor tells us to write; or that we paint our own bookcovers; etc.
I also regularly, consistently, almost nonstop meet people who call themselves “writers” simply because they WANT to be writers, and who use my professional, hard-earned title (“writer”) even if they’ve never sold a word–and even if they hav never finished writing a manuscript.
At almost any convention or on any internet site these days, I regularly, consistently, almost nonstop encounter people who think self-publishing is the industry norm, and that you are “published” if you pay for having your own book printed and are responsible for trying to unload your stock on readers.
My entire professional life, I’ve been meeting aspiring writers who quit after a rejection or two, declaring it “impossible” to sell a book. And in their stunning lack of perseverance, they have a lot in common with every professional literary agent I ever worked with.
On any given day, you can log on and find hundreds of angry aspiring-writer blogs or chatboards or posts or screes declaring that publishing is a “closed shop.”
With all of this misinformation and disinformation out there… its not surprising that people think something as absurd and easily disproved (by pretty simple math) as “only 300 writers make a living in fiction.”
I think another factor in that myth is the ramp-up time. Overnight success takes years.
A new author, even one who is going to turn out to be the next JK Rowling and has a finished manuscript in hand, is going to have a delay of what, at least a year? two? before the big money starts rolling in. (Has any non-celebrity author received a six-figure advance on a first novel? A few times, perhaps. People win lotteries, too.)
The more realistic expectation, writing a stream of steady sellers but not blockbusters, will – as pointed out – take several years to stock the bakery to “making a living” levels.
And that’s not counting the time to learn the craft.
So, at best only a few authors make a living when they first start out. But so what? Doctors don’t start making a living when they’re accepted to medical school, in fact they go deeply into debt for years before it starts paying off. Ditto with any other profession with a learning/experience curve — but those are ones where the money is (if you’ve got the chops for it) long term. Writing isn’t that different – except that you can earn as you learn.
izanobu, I’m right there with you! I’m still so new at this, and I’ve never sold anything (got another rejection on Saturday), and without having validation that I have a chance to “make it”, myths like this one are soooo dangerous. I’ve heard this myth from non-writers recently, and believing it would be an excuse to give up, to stop being a stubborn dreamer (which they translate to “idiot”), and go focus on a real career.
I think this myth is a strong one not only because it offers a great excuse to give up, but it also can make failures seem less personal – in a bad way. It tells us becoming successful is either pure luck or a rigged game (only 300? that’s smaller than my high school senior class!). It blames The Industry for failure rather than suggesting we need to take responsibility to learn from our mistakes and practice and fight through the hard times until our eyes bleed. Not literally, though. I hope.
Anyway, thanks, Dean, for putting this (and so much else) in perspective. It helps… I’m word-less. It means that much
Dean, could it be that successful authors accept the “mythical 300″ as plausible because it makes their success look greater? As you say, a lot of them reach out to help new writers, so they must not be too worried about competition. But like we say where I work, “if it was easy anybody could do it.” Maybe they don’t want to think that anybody could do it.
I just want to say thanks for this series of posts.
I’m already a professional writer, with more than 15 years in technology and daily newspaper journalism. I started the happy, carefree freelance life in December, doing a mix of professional blogging, technology journalism, and Internet marketing consulting.
I finished my first novel this week, and this series of posts has me persuaded to bear down harder on the fiction, in the expectation that if I do it right I can turn it into another revenue stream over the course of a few years.
“Time to get past your fear and your own ego and chase your dream of making a living at fiction.”
Thank you for this, it’s enormously encouraging! I’m going to paste that sentence over my desk and get to work!
Love it! Thanks Dean. I’m going to be stupidly rash and predict what the counter-myth will be:
“Well, we all know that US publishing is going to crash in 2010. No 2011. 2012 at the outside latest, due to one or more of the following:
–Borders closing
–Amazon metastasizing
–iPad killing Kindle
–Kindle killing iPad
–eBooks killing print publishers
–eBooks crippling publishers so that a $5000 advance is the new $20000 advance (ref: Stross 4/1 blog post)
–Agents not selling eBooks and destroying their clients’ careers
–Agents selling eBooks in a way that destroys their clients’ careers
–Publishers crucifying any author who does not turn over their electronic rights to save them.
–And probably a bunch other ones that I missed. The sky’s gotta fall somehow, right?
And afterward, there will be the richest 300 authors, who can gold-plate their commodes and sell them on eBay for more than I’ll make in my writing life, and the rest of the authors, midlist on down, will have to take day jobs and write in their miserable garrets at night.”
Not that I should poke too much fun at the considerable challenges the various publishing industries are facing. Those are real. But still, disaster is a great excuse for not working too hard, don’t you think?
Thanks again for the encouragement! I was just swearing at a half-written synopsis, and this was just what I needed to read.
I was just looking at those lists on PW. Just looking at the hardcovers, it’s easy to see where that myth came from when even writers like Clive Cussler and James Patterson have to publish five novels each in a year and still not make the numbers that Dan Brown did with The Lost Symbol. Poor guys. (grin)
Thanks for the great comments, folks.
Early in my career I heard this myth a lot as well, and because I have business background, I just kept looking at the numbers and the math and saying, “That’s not right.” And that math helped me get through the times when I was part time bartending, dead broke, living in a tiny apartment, and everyone around me was saying I should go get a real job and use all my education in architecture and law. In their eyes, I was a complete failure, but the math of it being possible kept me going.
A couple of points that are basic to help you get through the math quicker.
1) Learn the business. And more than just what I’m talking about. Read the business articles, ignore all the stupid “sky is falling” stuff and ask yourself how you can start earning money in the new systems.
2) Write more. Give yourself more chances to start making money, more inventory. Every writer has his or her own speed, but that speed can always be increased with some focus. Do the math on the time it takes to write every page, add a little more time every day. Think of a car lot. One car on a lot to sell won’t make a living. Hundreds and hundreds of cars on the lot to sell and you can, over the income of a lot of sales, make a nice living.
3) Never let another person get between you and a sale. Hire an agent to help with the details, or a lawyer. But never let anyone, ever, not an agent, not a writing group, not your spouse, stop you from mailing your work to people who can buy it. Trust your own vision while learning to become a better crafts person.
I have at least one more chapter along the lines of this one, maybe more. The next one is on “talent.” You know that old myth that stops so many people from believing they can do this. “Talent” is a monster myth. Coming up in a chapter very soon.
Thanks everyone for the great comments. Glad they are making sense.
Heteromeles, indeed. It seems the one cannot log onto the internet without seeing at LEAST one of those claims these days.
I’m sort of puzzled by the nonstop claims (made exclusively, as far as I can tell, by writers who aren’t currently selling the major houses and/or by aspiring writers who’ve NEVER sold to major houses) that the major houses are going to disappear.
Clearly, they’ve lost their monopoly of the market, and their dominance will continue to decrease.
But we’ve seen this pattern in related scenarios. Major network television lost its stranglehold over what gets on air, with the advent of cable, and its dominance decreased further with the advent of home video, home DVD, Netflix, streaming video, etc. But the original networks still exist–and various cable and subscription networks have risen in prominance and become powerhouses. Long tail distribution doesn’t mean that major corporations disappear, or that all companies and all distribution becomes equal; it means that opportunities are available to content-prodicers and consumers in the long-tail of the beast that aren’t (and have never been) contained in the head. The shape of the beat changes, but its head doesn’t DISAPPEAR. It just becomes less dominant.
Same with music. There are still major record companies. It’s just that no one HAS TO sign with a major record company anymore to get their music out there; and as a consumer, I have a LOT of options for hearing and buying music beyond the major companies. They’ve lost the dominance they once had. But they haven’t disappeared.
There is still more money in selling your TV show to NBC than in presenting it on your local cable access channel. There is still more money in signing a good deal with Capitol Records than there is in trying to market your records yourself as an unknown artist. I think that getting well-positioned as a writer by a major corporation is going to be better for a new author (and also for me) than uploading a book to Kindle and trying to convince the nation to buy it.
But, obviously, for someone who’s NOT being well-positioned by a major publisher–in the past, I’ve been published badly, and I’ve also had books that no major house would touch–there are now many more options for a writer to make some money, and even to aim for success, than there were 10 years ago. Or even 5 years ago. And this is the great benefit of long tail distribution made possible by new technology and the new market. But although profits shift and spread out, and some companies fold–I don’t think we’ve seen any examples of a business from which major corporations simply DISAPPEAR as one of the types of viable competitors/vendors.
heteromeles: “disaster is a great excuse for not working too hard”
Indeed it is — if you’re looking for excuses (not saying you are, I know you’re being rhetorical). There’s no question that publishing is undergoing some radical changes (see also JA Konrath’s blog). I see that as a reason to work even harder, to be in a better position in the aftermath. Maybe there’s room for 301.
I don’t know where this myth got started, but I have seen it used as propaganda by a fair number of vanity publishers, the logic being that since so few can earn a living at writing anyway, you may as well pay us to publish your book.
Of all the myths, this one seems the easiest to disprove, but somehow remains one of the most persistent.
What Laura said exactly. Nothing is going away. Just shifting. And the big shift that is happening is that writers are taking back some of the control they gave up over the years. That’s a good thing if the writers are informed.
Steve Jobs said something that is sort of on topic that someone put together as one of his major ways of thinking.
Steve Jobs said: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Yup, clear these myths out and go after what you want to become. As I have said hundreds of times over the years, I have the best job on the planet (for me). I love what I do. And I didn’t get lucky to find it. I looked for it and when I found it, I went after it putting everything else aside.
I also think that people saying “you don’t really need a publisher anymore” are saying that because they don’t understand what a publisher does. Or what an editor does. Or what cover artists, designers, and art departments do. Or what PR, sales, and marketing departments do. Or what the accounting department does.
The system is certainly flawed (and arcane, archaic, and even bizarre in various ways). But there’s a lot involved in getting from a writer’s draft of a manuscript to a professionally edited, packaged, produced, marketed, and positioned novel.
I hope that the pressures on the old system created by new technologues and competition will force improvements in it. But I think a lot of people who don’t understand the business well or really know what they’re talking about drastically underestimate what’s involved (as a NEW YORKER article recently pointed out that Amazon itself also seems to drastically underestimate) in taking someone from being a complete unknown with a MS and turning them into an author whose next book a hundred thousand people are looking for.
Alastair, yeah, but for fun, take one James Paterson novel and run the numbers for just the hardback. Then go down to the paperback list and take one of his paperback books and run the numbers (because the first book will do approximately that next year in mass market). Then add those two together (forget that he gets a lot better percentages than I used in my example.)
Then add in that he sells in 27 countries, has audio, movie money, and ebook money for every book and then multiply that by 8 novels last year (and forget the back list, which still sells like crazy) and you get a sense of how much money can be made. I have no idea what Nora does with her money. Or anyone at that level. The numbers are just too big and the cash flow too fantastic.
Yeah, that calculation will sure disprove that you can’t make any money in publishing. (grin)
Speaking of JA Konrath, and to put his (not at all shabby) numbers in perspective, he says he sells about 230 ebooks a day, or an average of about 800 per title per month.
At that rate, counting all his titles together, it would take how long to equal one year’s sales of Brown’s The Lost Symbol? Over 66 years. Taking a more realistic comparison in terms of content, to match sales of Janet Evanovich’s Finger Lickin’ Fifteen would take 11 years (or 100 years on a title-vs-title basis). And Konrath makes a living at it. (No comparison of skill or quality intended, I’m just comparing sales numbers.)
There’s still plenty of life left in paper. And the writers who are making a lot, are making a lot.
“I have no idea what Nora does with her money. Or anyone at that level. The numbers are just too big and the cash flow too fantastic.”
One thing that I know a number of them do is establish scholarship funds, set up foundations, and give to charity!
I think most of the myths just come from sheer laziness. It’s easier to whine than succeed. It’s easier to self-publish and say “NY is a bunch of idiots.” It’s easier to apply mystic and arcane layers around the publishing process than to learn the ropes, improve your craft, and never take “No” for an answer.
I just got a rejection yesterday for a book I’d almost forgotten I’d sent to the publisher. I’d already planned to put it out for Kindle. But I looked at the comments and thought, “Dadgummed editor is right!” I was taking the lazy way because I thought, after 10 books, I knew how to write. No, I’m just smart enough to realize how stupid I am. Now I get to be smart enough to work and make this book the best it can be, no matter what happens to it.
Scott Nicholson
I’m a newbie writer just getting back into writing after a 10 year hiatus and you just gave me a ton of hope. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thank you, Dean, for writing these. I sold three novels, had modest sales, then my life imploded and I stopped writing. I just finished writing a trilogy, and will be re-entering the market soon. The market has changed dramatically since 2004 (my last novel sale) and I’m using your articles as part of my opportunity to re-educate myself about the market. Only I intend to learn it much, much better this time. So again, thank you.
Leah,
Welcome back to writing. Some of our workshops are geared for writers in your position as well, to help them jump into this new world. We hope to be announcing next year’s workshops (yes, we are doing some more) in a month or so.
If 200 new fiction titles a day are being published by major publishers (and I’m not disputing your number), then most of those books are never even making it onto most bookstore shelves. Bookstores just don’t have that kind of space to stock everything.
And what they do stock, they don’t stock for very long due to the huge flood of inventory.
Also, there seem to be a LOT of authors on the midlist crying poor mouth. So either… they just can’t figure out the magic bakery concept (which is theoretically possible), or else they for some other reason aren’t able to do it. Because there are a lot of authors on the NY midlist who still have full time jobs because they can’t “afford” to quit their day jobs.
That’s what I hear them all screaming from their websites and blogs.
Are they lying?
I think also there is the issue of speed of writing. Not everybody can write as fast as you can and do it well. I know I can’t. I think I can POSSIBLY turn out two books a year and they not completely suck (one under each pen name).
But, I think it *does* take time to turn out quality fiction. It takes a story time to percolate. And everybody has a different process. Most of us don’t create gold on the first try. All my rough drafts are so awful I would never let a single soul ever read them.
I’ve also seen plenty of NY pubbed books that were clearly rushed and the author was writing more than one series and those books were crap. The author was too pressed on a deadline with too much other stuff they were producing and they couldn’t keep up.
You’re clearly a savant. Which is awesome. But not everybody can just churn it out like that. I know I can’t. I need some down time. If I felt like I worked in a fiction factory I would no longer love writing. And if I hated it, I may as well do something else. Lots of jobs out there to hate.
I think an author willing and able to produce several books a year, CAN make a living writing fiction. I’m not sure people who just want to do one or two books (for the most part) can, unless they start hitting lists.
Thanks for the post. All readers need to read this. It can be done. It just takes work.
Well, talent and a little luck don’t hurt.
Oh, my, Zoe, you just may have stepped in it here. (grin)
First off, one or two books a year is just fine and dandy for making a living. Not sure what myth you got that thinking from that it’s too slow, but most of my writer friends only write one or two books a year and they do just fine and dandy. Guess I had better talk about speed and making money in a chapter, huh?
And, of course, you haven’t read most of my chapters, otherwise you wouldn’t talk about speed having anything to do with quality. It doesn’t from either direction. Just because it is written slow doesn’t mean it must be good and just because it was written fast doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad. Just learning about how Hemingway, Faulker, Dickens, and many others wrote will cure you of that belief.
And me being some sort of savant just sent a bunch of my friends into rolling out of their chair laughter. Hell, at my Clarion, I was the worst writer, without a doubt. And trust me, I am not even in the running for the fastest writer working. I can’t even come close to what some writers do year in and year out. Not even close.
Are people lying that it is hard to make a living? From their perspective, nope they are not. But think about money and this recession for a moment. Those of us making a living just fine seldom talk about it. Those who aren’t do talk about it, just as those with jobs don’t go around bragging they still have their job while you hear about the ones who were laid off. Same thing both places. Nature of this society.
As far as bookstores stocking every book, of course they don’t. Not possible. But that doesn’t mean because Boarders doesn’t stock a book you won’t find that book down the street at another store.
And of course, you clearly don’t understand the “turn” which is why this can even work at these levels. Bookstores “turn” meaning freshen their inventory on a daily basis. A standard genre book has about 32 days now on shelves before it vanishes. A standard bestseller will hang around in the front of the store for about six or seven days before being pushed to the back and replaced. Scary is the fact that this “turn” or “churn” has improved with the advent of superstores. When the stores were in the malls, they would replace the entire fiction inventory “churn it” every fourteen days.
So you are right, they don’t stock any book for very long. Nature of the business. However, they reissue books with new covers all the time. (Yeah, don’t ask, makes no sense to me either.)
Zoe, not sure where your anger at this idea comes from, but alas the facts are the facts. No one is lying when they say THEY can’t make a living. But just because they can’t doesn’t mean you can’t. And honestly, you don’t have to write faster than a book or two a year to do it. Honest. It might take longer to ramp up than someone doing 4 books a year, but that’s the only difference.
Thousands and thousands of us making a living off of our fiction. All of us do it different than the person beside us. Heck my living comes in completely differently than my wife’s living. And we both write fiction for a living. No writer is the same. But facts are facts. Numbers are ugly, but they are accurate, unless you don’t believe Bowker (you know, the company that does all ISBN numbers for every publisher on the planet.)
Good luck with your writing and climbing over the myths. You really might want to read some of the previous chapters in this book under the header at the top to get you started. And the comments as well.
1 page = 15 minutes (for me 20-25 but still).
1 page a day (taking 2 weeks vacation off from all that labor) and taking Sat & Sun off to rest from that hellish load = 1 book a year.
So…2 pages a day = 30 min and 2 books a year.
What would happen if you actually, you know, went to work for 8 hours a day?
I’m going to tell you flat out working in a fiction factory beats the hell out of, I don’t know…working in a *real* factory. I’ve done both, you can listen to me.
How ’bout you take it easy, only right 2 hours a day? Or really push a work ethic and do 4?
First, you’d get better because you’re doing your job–not thinking about doing your job. Not thinking about how much more fun it is to have down time than it is to do your job. Not making up reasons not to do your job.
The first requirement is that you must WANT it. Want it more than TV, more than down time, more than internet cruising or anything else.
You have to want it enough to *not* accept anything but your best from yourself–and that includes putting your ass in a chair for hours.
Don’t want it. Don’t do it. But don’t say you’re special and different and need more down time or more family time or more any-kind-of-time. You’re not. You’re just like me. You’re just like Dean Koontz or Nora Roberts or Dean Wesley Smith.
Once you get better the rewrites take less and less time, the creative juices are conditioned to flow longer and more often.
Don’t be quick to dismiss a schedule long on ass-in-seat work ethic and short on artistic muse inspiration until you’ve *really* given it a chance.
Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t excuse failing before you even try. You can do it.
I’m rooting for you big. YA Zoe!
In terms of the relation between writing speed and quality work . . . I was disabused of this myth when I found out that over the course of one day Papa Hemingway wrote “The Killers,” “Ten Indians,” and “Today is Friday.” What’s even more amazing — or eye opening — about this is that “The Killers” was Hemingway’s first and only draft, that a word wasn’t changed, and that it may be the MOST anthologized short story Hemingway ever wrote.
But still, it took ME an awful long time to accept that’s the way a lot of pro writers work. I think I finally have, and I’ve decided to use the rest of 2010 to write short stories, finish them, and send them out with the absolute MINIMAL amount of editing possible. Basically, typos, spelling, and blatant grammar errors. After that, they’re in the mail, never to be thought of again.
Unless, of course, and editor tells me she’ll pay me if I make some changes.
That’s it, Ty, you pushed me over the top. The next post is on the myth of talent. The most tossed around and not understood myth in the business.
And the biggest excuse for writers to not try. “I’m not talented enough.” People say those words and don’t have a clue what they mean, but those words have fantastic power to stop someone.
So, stay tuned. It’s time I take a gun to that sacred cow. Talent schmallent, only thing it takes in this business is the ability to learn and the ability to practice and mail your practice sessions.
hehe. Well I know midlist authors who make about $10k in advances per book. Most of them depending on where they are living aren’t living off of $20k a year. I know there are also subsidiary rights to consider, but not every author is able to sell those, and how does one even gain traction when most of their backlist is “out of print?”
I’ve read all of your chapters, actually. But just because you have a viewpoint doesn’t mean I agree with it.
And just because something is true for YOU doesn’t make it true for everyone. I know that *I* cannot write good fiction “fast.” Nor do I really want to. Writing four novels a year sounds like Hell to me. Too much pressure.
I’ve seen way too many authors just “cranking it out” where their books DO suck because they have too many deadlines they’re under. There has to be “something” bringing the quality down. And generally these authors are under deadline for several other books.
If that’s not true for you, then awesome. But I think for most people writing isn’t something that comes super speedy. I never said books written slowly were automatically good (frankly if you’re a crappy writer, writing less words per day won’t improve the situation, LOL) Nor did I say that writing fast meant the writing WOULD be bad.
But every writer *is* different, something you’ve also said. And many of us just can’t crank it out and maintain quality. I’ve seen this in action too many times.
I understand that I’m not a pro “in the business” like you are. But please don’t assume what I do and don’t understand about book turnover in bookstores. I already “know” books only have a few weeks on the shelves most of the time.
That’s not enough to allow most authors to gain much traction, IMO. If it was so many authors wouldn’t be losing their contracts because they didn’t sell enough books “fast enough.”
I have a good friend who has worked in a bookstore for years. I know how bookstores operate. Please don’t just assume what I do or don’t know about a topic. There are many things I don’t know about but that isn’t one of them.
And I do admit that info I have regarding the industry doesn’t come from “my experience” but from the experiences of others. But those others are people who aren’t just little peons. They’re people with some clout. So any misunderstandings or misinterpretations I have regarding this business are coming from the top. Since no one can agree on anything in this business I think there is a WHOLE lot of opinion and cases of “my experiences and that of my friends defines reality.”
The reissuing thing is another one of those things that makes me roll my eyes at the entire enterprise. Though maybe it’s their version of seeing what covers sell better? There is a lot of waste in this business and frankly I just can’t respect a business model that prints two books for every one they intend to sell. Maybe we needed the oxygen from those trees.
I mean I’m not a big tree-hugging hippie, but DUDE.
Please don’t ascribe anger to me that isn’t there. I’m not angry. Being passionate and enjoying debate doesn’t make one angry. When I’m angry no one has to wonder if I am or not. Trust me, I’m far from angry right now.
Again, I’m not doubting that you are correct. I’m sure many more than 300 people make a living at this. But the assumption seems to be that “anyone who really wants to and tries hard enough” can make a living at fiction.
I’m not seeing that. Most people, for whatever reason, cannot. But I haven’t once talked about “me” or what I think “I can do.”
If you knew me, you’d know confidence in my ability to succeed isn’t something I’m in any way lacking. But I’ve watched enough people around me to know that what comes easy for one person doesn’t come easy for another. We’re all very different. I fully intend to make my way financially doing what I’m doing (eventually). But I don’t intend to make a living publishing fiction with NY.
Just not what I want out of life.
Nathan,
I appreciate it, but I’m really not sure where anyone got that I personally was lacking in self-confidence or that I was doubting my own abilities. I would say my confidence borders on hubris and could probably stand to be taken down a notch.
I may not have published anything for awhile but I’ve been writing consistently long enough to know my own working methods and personal abilities/preferences when it comes to speed.
Writing more than 2 books a year would stress me out. I don’t need that. I like the speed I’m working at. It wasn’t a cry for help, just as statement of fact that everybody is different. I think Mr. Smith sometimes takes for granted that what he can do, everybody can do. I’ve taken for granted the same things. But the fact is that everybody is different.
I know that when *I* write faster, my quality is crappier. *I* need the time for a story to percolate some.
It’s true that over the years my rough drafts may get better and need less revision. I may speed up some. But if I do, it will be a natural development, not a goal.
Zoe. Define faster.
If you write 30 minutes more a day that’s 2 more books a year.
At 10k advance that’s 20k more a year. That would bring same 2-booker a year making 20k to 40k.
40k is middle class on the low end. In Kansas that’s real money–in Manhatten, maybe not.
Is 30-minutes more a day really going to CRACK you up into some kind of Girl Interrupted scenario?
Is it really going to turn you into a hack?
Or is a tighter work ethic going to double your income?
Speaking of “assumptions” (you used that word maybe just a bit) I thinking you’re making some.
You’re assuming that novels you (subjectively) found to be poorer than other novels are in fact (objectively) crappier and you assume that a) faster writing or b) more deadlines are to blame.
You don’t know any of that and can’t assume to then found an argument on that supposition.
They could have been just fine books that you didn’t care for. Or they could have actually sucked for a 100 other reasons.
Why would you want to write faster?
Because the worst day sitting in a room making up lies beats the hell out of the best day in some other job–for a writer.
Also because $40k beats the hell out of $20k.
For 30 more minutes a day. 30 minutes.
I could be wrong: you could already be sitting at your desk 6-10 hours per day and writing really Big Fat Fantasies, and thus 2 books a year.
At the moment your average speed is 2 PAGES A DAY. Try that kind of productivity at a sawmill. Or a law firm.
But given the 15 min = 250 words = 1 page rule of thumb, don’t you think that (and all your good hubris aside) you could A) write at least ONE more page a day than you are now? B) maybe your a little better able to stand up to the vast “stress” than you think you are (all good hubris aside)
You seem hell bent on justifying yourself out of 10 to 30 grand a year.
You can do it. Just 15 more minutes a day. Just $10 grand more in your pocket.
You can take it. And if 15 minutes more a day really makes you suck THAT much more then maybe you should drop some of that hubris and practice your craft by…writing more.
Go Zoe!
Zoe, didn’t say I knew you, just responding to the words you wrote.
Let me respond a little more, for no reason other than to talk about a couple of points you make. No intention of swaying you one way or another. As you said, every writer is different and you know yourself.
My assumption is EXACTLY what you read into what I said. I assume that anyone who wants to make a living at their fiction writing can do so. That is EXACTLY what I have always believed and I see no evidence to the contrary in all the workshops and being around professionals that I have done in the last 30 years.
However, as I have said over and over, everyone is different, and sometimes the choices needed to make a living with fiction are not what some writers want to make with their craft, with their writing. I have NO problem with that at all. Again, every writer is different.
But, that said, there is no big publishing machine, no secret handshake, nothing, that will stop any writer who wants it bad enough to reach the goal of making a living. Nothing. ONLY EACH WRITER STOPS HIS OR HER SELF.
Each writer makes decisions to take them on a certain road. Often the decisions are made out of nothing more than listening to a myth. ALL MYTHS are set up to stop writers from moving forward. ALL MYTHS are designed to stop you from reaching your dream. No exceptions to these things I’m afraid. And those myths turn into personal belief systems that we all hold onto. I was no exception, you clearly are no exception with a few of the myths you repeated back to me and then defended.
The last thing I would want is to try to turn people into writing my way. Or having my career. Heaven’s, I’ve screwed up so many times, it’s flat amazing I’m still here. And trust me you don’t want to write like I do. I am far too lazy.
So, let’s take your example of knowing some midlist writers who are making 10 K per book, two books a year, and not making a living. Yup. With luck, at some point you will be in that position on the road as well. Why? Because that’s a part of the road that’s natural.
Think ROAD. I am on one place on the road, a ways down the road. A midlist writer doing two books a year at 10 K per book is at a certain position in their career as well on that same road. I was there once myself. Almost all writers, unless they get lucky, have that period of time in their career. That’s normal part of moving down the road.
Also think ROAD with a bunch of off-ramps. Many, many writers I know decide to get off the road right at that point when something goes wrong. A number of things went wrong for me at that part of the road. It’s normal, from ending up with a bad agent to signing bad contracts to having the industry shift under you. Happens to everyone. The survivors are the ones that just stay on the road.
So I stand by my belief. ANYONE WHO WANTS TO CAN BECOME A FULL TIME FICTION WRITER. Anyone. When I started I HATED writing, couldn’t spell, couldn’t type a lick, couldn’t put a sentence together in a correct structure, and had spent years of college avoiding any class with a paper or an essay test.
When I started, I had no talent (ahh, that wonderful myth), no skills, no logical reason why I would want to walk this road. I went to Clarion workshop in my early years on this road and was the worst writer out of 21 and had no idea why they let me in. Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm told me why years later. Because I was driven. I wanted to learn. They didn’t care that I couldn’t write a lick, but they did care that I was driven and wanted to learn. I am by far the most successful writer out of that class. Why? Because I wanted it more than any of the others, that’s why.
So, if a person wants this, really wants this profession, and is willing to learn, willing to open their mind and try new things, willing to study and write a couple million words of practice, willing to make mistakes, willing to spend money to go to conferences and conventions and workshops, and willing to change their life so that all they do is focus on writing right after their family, then that person will make it if they never give up. Anyone can do it.
But most won’t have the drive or the willingness to open their minds and learn from where they can, be it from a blog post or at a workshop or a conference. Most will grasp the myths like lifelines tossed to a drowning person, hold onto them because it gives them a reason for not trying, for not putting themselves on the line. It gives them a reason to quit, because it is easier to quit then to go forward.
Good luck, Zoe. I hope you can get past some of the roadblocks that come screaming out of your words. If you do, I’ll be looking forward to reading your books no matter how fast or slow you write them.
Nathan,
I’m not on the same writing path as you. Please respect the fact that I’m different from you and want different things. I am not churning out 4 books a year. 2 is my personal limit.
There may come a time when that changes, but now is not that time.
You don’t know what goes on in my life or what all else I have to do. WRITING it isn’t the whole picture. You also have to edit it. And since I’m not traditionally publishing I have to format it, publish it, and market it.
And no, I don’t have the mental energy to write more than I’m currently writing. Please respect that I am not you.
All I know is that most authors I have read who started speeding up production and being under too-tight deadlines produced work that *I* find bad, and I don’t want to write work that *I* find bad. Your mileage may vary, and it’s fine if it does.
Dean,
I don’t disagree in principle with anything you’ve said. I merely think you assume things about me that just aren’t there. You’re assuming I’ve thrown up all kinds of road blocks. You assume things are screaming out of my words that aren’t there. You assumed anger that wasn’t there. It’s just not how you envision it.
I respect and admire you’re a passionate person who stands behind his views. I also respect and admire that you seem to be very anti-mediocrity and in favor of people getting off their asses and making things happen. Me too.
I agree totally with you that the only person who can stand in my way is me. And we ALL sometimes get in our own way. But… what I was trying to articulate is that for whatever reason most people do not make a living from fiction.
That’s not about me.
What “most” people do or can do has nothing to do with me. What the “average person” does has nothing to do with me unless my goal in life is mediocrity, and I can assure you it isn’t.
Some of it may be their fault, some of it may be stuff outside of their control. Who knows, who cares? I just think that behind the myth is some truth.
For “whatever reasons” most people publishing fiction, aren’t making a living doing so. Maybe that’s all their fault.
Again, who knows?
But this isn’t about “me.” I was just making a statement about the observation of what I’ve seen around me of the behavior and results of other people.
I am one of the most driven people most people around me know. I would bet I’m as driven as you are. I’m just driving down a different road, so I expect to reach a different destination. But I fully intend to get where I’m going and make good money doing it.
I’m not even to the end of year 2 of my 10 year plan here. I’ve barely started here.
It sounds to me like Zoe is just saying that her process, at this point, is to write no more than two novels a year, and that she couldn’t write any more than that without her quality declining significantly. I could say exactly the same thing for myself, but I don’t even know yet if I can write two (good-sized) epic fantasy novels in one year. Heck, I don’t know if I can write 1.5 at that rate yet. But we all seem to agree that everyone’s process is different. Some write faster, some write slower. Some need more time for ideas to percolate, etc.
I have to comment on this idea, though:
1 page = 15 minutes/250 words
At this rate, it would be simple to work for two hours a day and produce 2,000 words. Or three hours and 3,000 words.
Man, I would love to be able to produce words at that rate. And if you can write at that rate, let me remind you that you are at least a little bit lucky. But that’s just not my speed, and I don’t think it’s the speed most people write at, from what I’ve seen.
But as Dean said, it is possible to do all right with writing just one or two novels a year. Your career might just take more time before it makes those blueberry muffins we’ve been talking about.
Mm, I’m hungry now. Thanks for another stimulating conversation, Dean & Friends!
Zoe.
“KEPT” looks great.
Loved the excerpt on Amazon.
I admit that when you started talking about “more than 2 books a year” and not having published anything “in awhile” that *I* made some poor assumptions about how I understood you to be representing yourself.
My fault.
I read your blog entry for May 14.
Disregard everything I said as completely unworkable for you. If you’d turn down a “trad” midlist contract (or a straight genre advance for paranormal romance running 5k-25k) because of “control issues” and wouldn’t really consider signing with a NY house unless it made you “ludicrously rich” then what Dean’s talking about here–and what I’m talking about by extension for that matter doesn’t fit into your Fashion Forward view of publishing.
Dean’s stated many times that he’s talking to “young” professionals or “new” professionals trying or wanting to build a long writing career.
Based on what you wrote in your blog your goals seem a bit more nebulous and I wish you well with them. There’s of course no need for someone with your game plan to write faster.
Now. I liked that excerpt of Kept. Yank it off Kindle, take your sales numbers, and sub the package to eHarlequin Carina Press. You’ll have to write a tight query and solid pitch but the sample is strong.
They won’t make you ludicrously rich but…with their traffic site driving traffic to your site your other Kindle originals in the Blood Lust series might just jump.
Worst they can do is say no then you put it back up. What could it hurt?
I’m pulling for you. But I warn you, once you get a little taste of what “trad” publishing is like you might not want to go back…
GO ZOE!
I find it interesting why everyone assumes I just sprang from the keys of a typewriter able to write quickly and so-so cleanly.
Oh, wow, do I wish that had been the case.
Start off with, I typed with two fingers, used more white-out than should be allowed on one page of paper, and it often took me hours, and I do mean hours, to finish one page. I looked at the likes of Harlan Ellison who could write a story in an afternoon in a store window and Bradbury who wrote a story per day for years as Gods who could do the impossible.
But I continued on, slowly getting faster, firm goal in mind. Soon, after looking up most words twice, I learned sort of how to spell by memorizing the dictionary, I learned how to touch type after I got my first computer (two novels into my writing.). I was so fantastically proud of myself for writing ten pages one day about year two that I decided in year four to write a first novel that fast as well. Ten pages per day, 30 days. It worked, but it damned near killed me. By the time I reached the speed I am at now, I was ten years into my career. (Yup, that’s overnight.)
I do not expect anyone to write as fast as I can write, and I still ain’t that fast. But I do suggest that if you focus on slowly getting faster, after a number of years, it just might happen without taking away any quality. Actually, for me being able to type faster helped me with quality because it took me from critical voice to creative voice. A huge jump in my selling when that happened.
But I do find it funny with my history that people assume I just always wrote fast. My friends that knew me back in my early days just snort at that.
Thanks, Moses!
That’s exactly what I’m saying.
And anybody who can type a decent speed can string together 250 words in 15 minutes. BUT, are those the words you wanted to say? I don’t bring the internal editor to the table during the crap draft but writing random words without any thought whatsoever isn’t conducive to real productivity either. At least not in my world. Others’ mileage may vary. And if it does, I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s just not how I’m going to do it.
And that’s the great thing about being a writer. We ALL have a different creative process, and different things that are comfortable for us and help us get in whatever zone we need to be in to write and actually enjoy what we’re doing. After all if we turn it into a chore we hate, what’s the point?
I’m not making a widget here.
Actually, Zoe, I read it before I responded to your first post, and I agree with Nathan. Some of my assumptions were coming also from your blog posts. (ain’t Twitter and Google wonderful things? (grin))
And I agree with Nathan, that part is great, and avoiding New York seems to be a plan that you have, but in the same instant, I believe a more rounded approach might be in order. Nothing wrong with internet publishing and freedoms, but nothing wrong with also some work getting the big push. The two paths are not mutually exclusive. At least not yet.
Keep firing and thanks for the great discussion. Great fun.
Nathan,
Thank you for the compliments on Kept, but I don’t want a trad publisher. At all. Ever. I LIKE being indie. I enjoy the challenge of what I’m doing. I want to see how high I can climb AS an indie. How big a platform I can grow AS an indie over several years with a backlist, etc. etc.
Things are changing with digital and I want to see what I can do in that landscape. I want to be the little engine that could, the tortoise, the whatever other little happy things you can think of… because to me it’s worth doing.
It doesn’t have to be what “you” would do in my place. But it’s what I want to do.
And I get that Dean’s blog addresses a different audience, but again, when I was replying to him, I wasn’t talking about me, I was talking about what I have observed and what I personally believe to be the truth about the issue. That doesn’t make my opinion fact, it just makes it my opinion. But it was never about “me.”
(Except me inserting my comments about my writing speed, which I admit conflated the issues a bit and may have made the whole thing more complicated than it had to be. Had I never mentioned the speed issue I think that the discussion wouldn’t have become about “me” at all.)
Actually, I got a taste of what indie publishing is like, I love it, I’m happy with how I’m doing things.
Thanks, though!
Awww, Dean, you really read some of my blog posts? haha I just assume that most people I come in contact with aren’t reading them, which is silly on the Internet!
I can understand that. I have an “angry” tone a lot of the time. That’s just me. My grandfather once “yelled at” a friend of mine but he wasn’t yelling at her, he was just yelling cause that’s just him. She thought he was mad at her, he wasn’t. Unfortunately I’ve inherited some of that temperament.
I do come off angry and hostile sometimes, but I’m not angry “at” trad publishing. I’m angry at this Kool Aid mentality that has everybody goose stepping without considering if that’s really what they want from their lives or what they’ve been trained to want. (I was really inspired by the book: “How I Found Freedom In an Unfree World by Harry Browne)
If someone really wants a NY publisher I’m totally cool with it. (And I get most people do.) But I hate that we live in a world where any independent production and distribution of fiction is frowned upon. I want to live in a world where we recognize indie authors aren’t always that way cause “nobody would take them.”
Sometimes people want diff things. So yeah, I come off a bit angry and hostile sometimes, but I assure you I wasn’t angry here. Well, a little irked later when people kept saying: “Come on, you can write faster!” It sort of made me feel like a hamster in a wheel. Ick.
I really want to stay in control of my own work. It’s really important to me. But I understand as a “no name” that I can’t have that with a trad publisher. And that’s okay cause I’m not asking for anyone to bend over backwards to do me any favors.
That’s why the only way I’d ever take a contract is if I was in the power chair. I don’t “expect” it to happen and I’m not “waiting for it to happen.”
If it ever “did” happen, I’d cross that bridge then.
Also, thanks for the discussion. I appreciate you taking the time.
Dean, I’m glad you mentioned that, about how you started off as a relatively slow writer and worked your way up to your pace. I don’t think if I’ve read that before, and I find it very interesting and encouraging. I didn’t have an assumption about how quickly you wrote when you started out before this discussion, but at the same time, that’s not what I would’ve guessed.
Nathan, with no disrespect intended, your tone toward Zoe feels patronizing to me. She doesn’t have nebulous goals–quite the opposite. She just intends for her goal of a long and successful writing career to be conducted an indie author rather than as a traditionally published author. I hope this doesn’t offend you, but I can tell you that she knows exactly what she’s doing, and is doing pretty well, too.
Speaking of two paths — and I’ve mentioned this on Konrath’s blog where I’ve seen Zoe post a lot (hi Zoe) — I’ve got two novels nearing completion. Actually one’s done now and come Dean’s novel workshop next month, it’s going out to NY publishers. When the other’s done I’m going to epub it.
If the first one is at all viable I expect/hope it to do better with traditional publishing, but I expect cash flow from the epub novel sooner. It will be an interesting experiment. (And because they have to be different books, not a perfectly controlled one, but close.)
I’m just wondering if I should use a pen name in case something goes horribly wrong.
Completely up to you, Alastair, but remember, you can always switch to a pen name IF something goes wrong.
Interesting, Zoe. For me, writing slow and rewriting is what I hate and hate about writing. I love creating new stories as fast as I can think them up and type. That’s the fun for me.
Very different there, that’s for sure.
Zoe, nothing at all against going solo with books. Nothing, working that way myself on a great deal of work, actually. But you clearly have a hatred or a dislike set in a belief system for standard publishing that I find interesting, not in a way that I want to change you, but more in a way of a question. How does a new writer develop such a dislike for a system without ever taking part in the system?
In the past, when I read that coming from a new writer, my assumption, and I grant you, it was an assumption and nothing more, is that the writer has heard some myth somewhere and reacted. Or had a friend who gave up and reacted on that one case. I will not make that assumption about you, but of the hundreds of new writers like you I have met over the years who want nothing to do with “traditional” publishing, those have always been the reasons.
And on one person I tried to help, the reason was simple fear of the unknown.
And where your assumption is way off, and I guess I need to do a myth chapter on that as well, is that you lose control when working with New York publishers. Nope. If you sign a decent contract and know what you are doing, you actually gain control, not lose it anymore than putting your work up on Kindle. And the more income you make, the more power you gain.
So thanks, this discussion has shown a pretty strong light on two chapters I might have skipped. A chapter on the myth that you have to write fast to make a living and a chapter on the myth that by selling to “traditional” publishing you lose control of your work.
Those chapters coming right after the “talent” myth chapter. Stay tuned, this could get fun. (grin)
By the way, the last book I finished was for a new start-up online publisher who is going to make the book a really nifty multi-media read. Just about as far from traditional publishing as I can get. I am currently working with a great guy who is doing the same thing with a massive universe. All multi-media and new forms.
Why did I get lucky enough to be a part of these great new, ground-breaking projects? Because I have a “traditional” career. (grin)
On the writing fast thing- I came to this whole issue from another direction. I learned to touch type as a defensive measure against my utter laziness while in college. I’d leave myself no time before deadline on papers (sometimes pretty long papers) and basically had to learn to type like crazy but still accurately in order to pass my classes.
Then I took a fiction writing class in college and did the same thing with a short story assignment. Everyone else in the class was talking about how it took them weeks to get their stories done, while I’d written mine up (by hand) and typed it up in one sitting. I made the mistake of mentioning that, and got ripped apart in critique more than anyone else (some of that was deserved, I won’t claim it was a great story either and some of that was because I’d written that icky genre stuff).
But I thought I had to slow down to write “good” fiction. And learn to edit. (It was ironic that I later got a job doing editing in the department, because I hate editing and never do much of it even academically). So I started making myself write more slowly and edit as I went and edit more after I was done. And I stopped writing much, because it wasn’t fun.
I had to re-teach myself speed when writing fiction. There were a bunch of years where the idea of doing a story in a day would have seemed impossible, at least not a “good” story. But, for me at least, re-learning to just let the words come as they will has really helped. I find getting faster freeing, and I got faster by making more time to write. Like a lot of writers I talk to, I have about a billion ideas in my head. The more I can get written, the more ideas get out of there (though then more show up, damn them!).
So I guess what I’m saying is that when I hear someone say they can’t get faster, I think “okay, write more often.” In the end I suppose that depends on individual goals as well. As Zoe pointed out, she wants to put out two books a year, that’s her goal. My goal is more, so I’m learning to write better, faster (and spend more time doing writing, but I’m super lazy, I’d rather just type faster). Seems to me if the goal is to have a nice publishing career and making a living at it, then whatever works for the individual is clearly just fine.
However, I do tend to squint at people who say they “can’t do it” or “it’s impossible to make a living (because they haven’t been able to)” and then also refuse to try something new (like speeding up, or spending more time writing or any number of things, because the benefit of so many unique paths to the same goals seems to be that there are a lot of paths to try in case one doesn’t work out).
(I’m going to quit rambling now and go write. See? Lazy me
)
This post in one word – excellent!
“We hope to be announcing next year’s workshops (yes, we are doing some more) in a month or so.”
Out…frickin…standing. This year is just not in the cards for me, but I will definitely attend at least one next year, come Hell or high water.
I’m well behind these comments, but I wanted to add something on the potential for ego strengthening this myth. I’d also doubt it, because anyone who’s successful at anything will always tell you exactly how they did it if you ask. However, for most people their answer produces undesirable information, like Dean’s (i.e., he worked for years to get better at what he did and works still, submitting like a madman). Not true for everyone, but for most people, that sounds like far too much work and therefore an impossible path.
Lastly, on the topic of speed, or more precisely Heinlein’s #3, I am currently working through a project (finally – too many reasons before not to work. I’m now back on it). Right now, I am in the middle of a scene that is important. But the way I’m writing it, it is going to really suck. I don’t care though. I intend to write it to conclusion and then start on the next scene, writing until I’ve finished the whole story.
Once I’m done, once through for typos and grammatical errors, and then off to my first readers. Then I’ll fix what is terribly broken (like that scene, most likely), and it will go out. Period.
And then I’ll start on a new one, with a couple of pieces of knowledge:
1. I need broader conflicts to write a novel. This one is most likely going to be novella length because there’s not enough there. But it will be my first completed one.
2. I need to have better plot ideas to advance the story. That scene isn’t working because I have a vague idea what my MC will do to grow in it. As a result, I’m sort of meandering through the scene, and I’m not even sure right now how they will get out of the situation they’re in.
I’ll probably start a new short story tonight instead of continuing on that one. I need to write and submit one this week, anyway.
I gotta say, I love your method, Dean. It’s exactly what I’ve been working for, because it makes the most sense to me. Right in the sweet spot. As you say, every writer is different, but I guess some of us are similar.
Moses, no offense taken.
I certainly wasn’t mocking her writing sample if that is what you mean. I would never do that and I did, in fact, mean, sincerely, what I said about it.
Now. As far as addressing “indie” arguments about “trad” publishing and the way I saw them articulated on her blog…
It would be a reasonable assumption for the casual reader to sense a certain amount of irony in what I wrote.
However, the observations here are about “Killing The Sacred Cows of Publishing” and are not observations about “Killing The Sacred Cows of Self-Printing.”
So, my points about DWS’s essay(s)–or her arguments against them–not applying to her career path could have been written as a straight apples vs. oranges comparison and stand on their own, without irony, and should be read that way.
“Why did I get lucky enough to be a part of these great new, ground-breaking projects? Because I have a “traditional” career. (grin)”
Speaking of which, here’s a good analysis in the Huffington Post of why he self-publishing revolution isn’t the path to success that I see so many aspiring writers now describing it as, and why J.A. Konrath isn’t a realistic role model for them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pinter/the-konrath-effect-will-n_b_579455.html
I wrote about this topic on my FB page yesterday, too: Newcomers who don’t know the business think they don’t need publishers because they don’t really know what publishers do.
P.S. Look forward to hearing more about the multi-media project when it’s released!
“How does a new writer develop such a dislike for a system without ever taking part in the system?”
Well, what I have always seen spread far and wide at conferences, in writing groups and orgs that invite me to speak, and for the past decade on the internet is that aspiring writers hate the idea of having to pony up to enter one of the most competitive professions there is. They want it to be easy. They DON’T WANT to sit in slushpiles, wait a long time for responses, receive rejections, write MSs they can’t sell, spend years working up to a good income level as a writer, etc. They want the fulfillment of their writing aspirations to be EASY, FAST, and IMMEDIATELY GRATIFYING.
Which very, very rarely occurs in a profession as competitive and demanding as this one. So people who’ve never even entered the profession (and people who have never even made a serious attempt to enter it) revile it, dismiss it, whatever. And now that there is indeed an easy, fast, and immediately gratifying way to exercise their writing aspirations, they also declare that the professional publishing industry is a dinosaur or on its way out, or a lesser choice, etc.
“I am by far the most successful writer out of that class. Why? Because I wanted it more than any of the others, that’s why.”
And that’s pretty much what it always comes down to. Something that simple—who wants it the most, works the hardest, never quits trying.
A writing career is FAR more about will and perseverance, drive and desire, FAR more about getting up off the matt over and over again than it is about talent (let alone luck). And MOST people who think they want a writing career don’t want to do what it takes to have one, because they want the fulfillment of their own writing aspirations to be easy, fast, and immediately gratifying.
I don’t care who uploads their books to Kindle or POD format to get gratification. What does it matter to me? But I do get rather tired of assertions that doing that is in some way comparable to what I do professionally. To me, it comes across very much like someone telling me what a successful actor he’d be if only his stage fright weren’t so severe that he won’t even audition.
RE this renewed “pace” discussion—I only write two books a year or less. Two books/year is a tough pace for me, but it’s my pace now because my publisher emphatically wants two books/year from me in order to achieve its sales goals for my work. The market is so competitive that that’s the release schedule their very-experienced sales force says we’ll need to have a shot at taking this series to the market level that my publisher has established (with my enthusiastic agreement) as our target.
I make a living on two books/year. If my publisher’s goals are achieved (or indeed, even just by making strides toward those goals), my living will further improve.
I am working on a goal of increasing my pace, to be steady, reliable, and comfortable at two books a year. Hence my consultations with an experienced writing coach who’s exploring new habits and process experiments to help me increase my pace.
My pace is not based on how many words I can slap down on a page against a ticking clock. I write slowly. I rewrite more than I write. And I THINK a lot. The stories I write are (for me, at least) complicated and require lots of thought—which sometimes holds me up for days before I figure out how to make something work. These books also require a modest amount of on-site research and a very LARGE amount of reading-research, which also consumes time. And the books I’m currently writing are 100K-110K per year.
So for me, that’s a very full load. I’m struggling to do two books/year. If I can reach a point where that’s a comfortable pace for myself (which I am working on), I’ll stop there and be happy happy happy to have reached it. I have no interest in trying to write more than 2 books per year.
RATHER, my interest is and has always been in getting PAID MORE PER BOOK. And that’s a goal I don’t see being discussed here.
My current advance level is such that I can make a comfortable living on two books per year. My current advance level when I started –out-, 22 years ago, was not quite 1/8 of my current advance level. I didn’t start out making what I make now, I worked up to it over the years, as one does in almost any profession. And I have goals for continuing to increase my per-book advance level.
“And the books I’m currently writing are 100K-110K per year.”
Er, per BOOK, I meant.
BTW, RE setting a goal of being paid more per book, as a way of increasing income, in addition to what I’ve described above (i.e. my publisher has set ambitious sales goals but says I’ll need two books/year to have a good shot at achieving those goals; better sales means bigger advances and more royalties and subrights earnings–so I am currently pursuing my more-money-per-book goal by trying to increase my pace enough to write two books/year comfortable and well), there’s a very wide variety of strategies a writer can work on to try to increase her advance level.
None of them are GUARANTEED. There are no guarantees. This is a highly competitive profession, after all.
But here’s a guest blog I did about some strategies pursued by smart writers which did work for them:
http://magicalmusings.com/?p=8167
What a fantastic, lively discussion. I’ve really enjoyed reading all the comments, thanks to all.
Dean wrote: “We hope to be announcing next year’s workshops (yes, we are doing some more) in a month or so.”
I saw this buried up above and just wanted to give it a shout out. Hooray! I want to attend the Marketing Workshop but the one this October interferes with other plans. I’m thrilled to hear the possibility of more next year!
Hey Dean,
Totally agree with you about “you can switch to a pen name” IF something goes wrong. Maybe you should write a myth about that because people get REALLY up in arms about how you’ll “ruin your shot at EVER having a traditional publisher if you self-pub and fail.” And not even just self-pub, but there is this myth that floats around of if you do ANYTHING wrong… you are done. Forever. And that’s just silly.
Make up a new name, write something else, and keep going.
Also, I LOVE the rewriting part. That obviously a difference in temperament/process and I can totally see what you’re saying about speed and enjoyment of the writing process. I forget that most people don’t love rewriting/editing. I do.
I don’t think I have a hatred for the system so much as for the fact that so many people just don’t respect anyone doing anything differently. Sure, lots of crap gets self-pubbed, no denying that. But people who publish their rough drafts aren’t the same as people who CARE and strive for quality. I know I still have growing to do as a writer (and the day I think I don’t will be a bad day indeed because we can always get better). But still. I guess I find it frustrating because people tried to naysay me out of it.
If I’d listened I’d be miserable. I understand the rewards available in it. I understand what I’m giving up. But to “me” the trade-off is worth it. I know self-pub isn’t right for all or even most people, but I hate to think about people being unhappy doing what everybody else told them to do, when they could have done what they wanted to do instead.
Though, I guess the counterargument is that the person who can’t rise above the naysayer would just give up at the first roadblock anyway.
As to your question (and sorry I wrote you a novel before I even got to it!) I am REALLY independent in a lot of ways. I don’t like to work for other people. I’ve had 33 jobs. Zoe does not play well with authority. Zoe doesn’t like being told what to do. I’m willing to risk falling on my face, learning from it, and figuring out how to rise above it, rather than give up control to my own stuff. It’s just a personality wiring.
It’s kind of how Laura feels about agents. I realize she had personal experience with agents, BUT I don’t have to stick my finger in a light socket to know it’s going to not be pleasant. Given the fact that in many ways she and I seem to have a similar temperament, her views regarding agents pretty much reflects how I feel about it.
I’m just a control freak basically. And I’m willing to sacrifice any perceived benefit from giving up that control to do things my way. If I never rise any higher than I am right now, I’ll still be happy because I have readers who love what I’m writing and I love what I’m doing.
It’s really not about any myths. I WOULDN’T have control of my cover, or my title, or a myriad number of other things with a trad publisher that I want control over. (I know you have a counterargument to this.) I didn’t get rejected and it hurt my crybaby feelings.
I just wasn’t happy doing things that way.
When I was at the fork in the road, trying to decide, the one thing I couldn’t get away from is that if I didn’t go indie I’d never find out what I could do on my own. And I wanted to find out. It’s not so much just about “rejecting” trad publishing. (That’s sort of a side effect that comes along with bumping up against the stigma of self-pub). It was about “embracing” the DIY ethic and deciding that if comic book creators, video game creators, music makers, and filmmakers could be indie and be respected for their work, it was absolutely STUPID that an indie author couldn’t do the same.
I want people to be able to be indie authors without being spit on. Because not everybody wants the same freaking things in life.
You are correct obviously that people with good contracts get some control and the more power they have the more power they gain control wise, BUT… most authors don’t seem to have that “great” of contracts or a way to get a great contract since they constantly complain about this or that.
You may call it “paying your dues.” But that’s the great thing about owning your own business and being the boss, you pay dues, but you pay them on your terms, not under the authority of another.
The one thing you can’t argue with me on is ebook pricing. I do NOT like how publishers are handling digital. And a small epub who is actually doing it right, can’t do more for me than *I* can do for me. Pricing my own product is a matter of control I’m not willing to give up.
I also need to be able to track my sales so I can see what promos are working and what promos aren’t working. Having 18 months of radio silence where I have no clue what the hell is going on with my sales, is a vacuum I don’t want to live in.
I can’t work for other people. Every time I do it ends in apocalypse. I don’t want a “good working condition with someone else in charge.” I want ME in charge.
I understand the trade-offs I’ve made, and I accept them.
Looking forward to the new chapters! And I totally agree with you on the talent myth. But the others you know I’m going to be like “yeah but…” on.
Also, Hi Alastair!
OMG. I just hit the post button and it’s waiting moderation but I CRINGE over how long that reply was. Sorry for the epic verbosity.
Alastair, one thing that may be an issue with that plan is the non-competition clause you’d have in a contract with a publisher. They pretty much always request seeing your next book. So if you get a traditional contract, it might be a problem to just epub your second work. I don’t know enough about this to say, but you should look check into that. I know Joe mentioned that as an issue on his blog just recently.
Using a pen name for the epub *might* get around that, but then again, it might open you up to legal problems, and it might not be legit at all, so I don’t think that’s likely to be the right solution.
If you really want to do both, I wonder if epubbing the first would be the right way to go. Then if your numbers and reviews are good, it might help you sell the second book.
Moses, nope, doesn’t work that way.
The “option” clause in a normal book contract gives the publisher the right to see your next book INSIDE THAT GENRE, IN THAT SERIES, UNDER THAT SAME NAME. Nothing more. God, if it did what you suggested, none of us would make much money except the bestsellers.
Of course, authors have been stupid enough to sign contracts that do what you suggest, and then you hear them complaining that the publisher screwed them. When they signed it. Option clauses are easily negotiated down to very, very pointed books, only in the series of the first book, only in the same subgenre, only under the same author name.
Zoe, no problem about length at all. Great stuff for discussions. Thanks.
And Laura, thanks for posting how you write, which I think is critical here to make sure writers reading this understand there is no one RIGHT way, just your way. You and I have different writing methods, no question. And guess what, it works for both of us, which has to be great news out there for anyone listening.
The key is to not get settled in on one way before you start selling. If you stuff is not selling, you haven’t yet found your right method, no matter how “comfortable” it feels to you. Push the edges, experiment, and when you hit on some method that creates stories that sells, try it again. And so on. That’s what the early years of writing are all about. I bothers me hearing new writers tell me they know how they write when they have never tried another way. I always want to ask them if they are selling and if not, then clearly their method isn’t working.
And yes, Laura, I agree that as time goes on, we tend to get more money per book, and also we have more inventory which can earn us money along the way. The problem for newer professionals is that they start getting the 10 k per book, two books a year, and think that’s what it’s always going to be and give up. We were all on that spot in the road. Those of us who didn’t give up at that point are the ones making more money now.
As for speed, well you all know where I sit on that. Just on the opposite fence of Laura. I am frighteningly lazy and thus have never reached my full potential with writing. My best year was 11 novels, last year I wrote two. Working on the second one this year right now. My fastest novel was a western in one of the series that I did the 60,000 words in 6 days. I wrote one Star Trek book in seven days that has sold just over 3/4 million copies and it went right into print first draft. I wrote the original novel I did with Jonathan Frakes in seven days to fit the cover that Tor already had done and was needing to ship, but didn’t have an interior to go inside the cover. I was hired because I was known to be able to do an original book with publishable quality fast. That one was 80,000 words.
But I like to spend about two months on a book. That feels comfortable for me because, as I said, I’m lazy, like to play on eBay, like to do blog posts, like to spend time in junk shops, like to play poker. But when I am writing, I tend to do five pages an hour. Doesn’t matter if I am under deadline or just screwing around, it’s always five pages an hour. (about 1,250 words) Sometimes I even work two hours a day. Tough life, I know, but someone has to do this.
Thanks, everyone, for the great discussion. Great stuff.
Thanks Dean. Granted, I don’t know the ins and outs of the option clause like you do, but when I heard Eric Flint explain it at a seminar, it sounded like it’s extremely hard to negotiate your way out of the option the publisher has to look first at your next book under your name in that genre. If it’s _only_ within the same series, though, then that clause is not as strong as I thought it might be. I don’t think that’s what I was told by others, though.
“the non-competition clause you’d have in a contract with a publisher. They pretty much always request seeing your next book. So if you get a traditional contract, it might be a problem to just epub your second work. ”
Er, no, though this is one of the common misconceptions about contracts among people who don’t understand the business.
An OPTION clause means you have to show the next specified book project to the same publisher. An option clause can be written in many ways. A good one, for example, would say that I have to show the next Esther Diamond novel to DAW Books, and that they’ve got 30 days thereafter to make me an offer, after which time, if they don’t respond or if I don’t like their offer, I can show the book to other houses. (Additional permutations may involve a “matching” or “topping” clause, or may specify that the clock on my submission can only start ticking after D&A of the final book on the previous contract, etc.) A -bad- option clause (which an aspiring writer or bad agent might leave in a contract) would say something like, I have to show my next fantasy novel to the publisher; that’s very broad and limits what other submissions I can make until/before fulfilling that clause. A TERRIBLE clause would say simply my “next book.” A bad clause would also fail to severely limit how long the publisher gets to make up its mind before I’m free to submit elsewhere.
A no-compete clause has nothing whatsoever to do with this. Although no-compete clauses are in many book contracts, their primary role is in nonfiction, where subject matter is the key selling point. (By contrast, -execution-, NOT subject matter, is the key selling point of fiction.) If I’ve sold a guidebook for beginning scuba divers exploring the reefs of Belize to Random House, then my no-compete clause prevents me from selling ANOTHER book to Penguin which is -also- a guidebook for beginning scuba divers exploring the reefs of Belize. One such narrowly-targeted nonfiction book by me clearly damages a publisher’s sales of another such narrowly-targeted book also by me on the identical subject.
Whereas, if I’m selling a sword-and-sorcery series to Tor, I only even have to -show- them a separate sword-and-sorcery series I’m pitching if I’ve got a bad option clause. And whether I don’t have to submit it there, or whether I submit it and they don’t like it, the no-compete clause IN NO WAY affects my right to sell the new sword-and-sorcery series elsewhere, while the old S&S series is still in print at Tor (or, indeed, while I’m still writing new S&S books for them). This is precisely why you see so many novelists writing books in the same genre for two different houses; we CAN. Indeed, I could even sell a book in the -same- S&S series to another house if Tor rejected it. (It’s unlikely that I’d be able to, since very few houses want to pick up a stray book in a series that’s being published elsewhere. But my inability to sell such a book elsewhere would be governed by the market decisions of other houses, NOT by the no-compete clause in a Tor contract.)
This is a nice blog post on the option clause from BookEnds, LLC.
I guess it’s a matter of negotiating on that clause, whether or not the “next book” is just your next book in your genre, or whether it’s the next book in your _series_ (among other things).
It sounds like it could be an issue, then, if Alastair wanted to write under his name for his second work (for epubbing) and had an option clause with his first book contract that required him to give his publisher the first option on the next book in his genre.
“I think is critical here to make sure writers reading this understand there is no one RIGHT way, just your way. ”
Indeed. Exactly as Mary Jo Putney (with multiple New York Times bestsellers and multiple award winning-books) was saying on her Word Wenches blog a few days ago, part of being a Real Writer is finding out what works for YOURSELF in terms of process, because there is no Right Way, no one-size-fits-all solution, no Secret Handshake or actual answer about How To Write A Book Well.
Moses, yes, THEN it would be a problem, depending on the Option clause in the first book contract. But why would anyone want to do that? (grin)
Actually, in reality, the option clause is very, very easy to negotiate in almost all contracts. It’s critically important to an author’s income stream and as Laura detailed out, it takes a number of different roads. But if an author signs a bad option clause, they only have themselves to blame for it.
“Bad option clause” is simply a clause that restricts an author outside of the need of the publisher for the next book in the same series or world in the same subgenre. No need for a publisher to do that, no need for an author to sign it. Very easy to negotiate to the right position. Unlike electronic rights, there is no monetary gain to the publisher by not negotiating.
By the way, Zoe, and all of us, did you see the news this morning that Barnes and Noble will start this fall offering self-publishing electronic books for their barnesandnoble.com and Nook pub devices. It is called PubIt and more details coming later in the summer.
So like getting something on Kindle, you’ll be able to do the same with Pubit to the B&N distribution souces.
That’s huge and yet another income stream for all of us.
Moses, if I get an offer (and contract) on the first before the second is ready to e-publish, I’ll be a very happy camper, and play it as it lies from there. I just don’t think trad pub moves that fast. (I’m not starting from scratch; the second already has 50k words written. I’ve got 15k of outline and scenes for a third. The second is same universe but totally different characters and 40-50 years earlier, the third is a different sub-genre. It might make more sense to e-pub the third and hold on to the second as part of a package with the first.)
If not, a clause like that is moot because it would no longer be my next book but my previous book. Although I’d probably be happy to sell them the e-rights as well as the paper rights if they wanted it enough.
Alastair, also, as a second book, or third, there is a good chance a publisher won’t care about a self-pub edition at all. Not in the same scope as they deal with. And one new way of coming into New York publishing that hasn’t got there yet, but happens occasionally is that a publisher will pick up a self-published book that shows some legs.
There are a few writers who think that self-publishing will be the slush pile of the future, and that’s how publisher’s will find a lot of their new stuff. Interesting theory, way too early on that to speculate.
Dean,
Re: B&N Self-pubbing, YES! I saw it and I am SO excited. I’m going to blog about it on the Indie Reader bog. Right now I’m going through Smashwords for B&N, but the ability to track my sales on B&N and perhaps have more control over search terms and my description page like I have on Amazon Kindle is so exciting to me. I can’t wait! I signed up to be notified when it’s ready. It seems like every day there is a new opportunity for me to jump on.
Incidentally, there are ways around even (some) bad contract clauses. For example, a well known SF writing duo (names omitted because it’s not important and I might screw up some details) invited a third author in on a book to side-step a contractual obligation that applied only to the duo, not the trio. (They did ultimately fulfill their contract, of course – that out-of-contractual-sequence book may have been a favor to another publisher.)
Good point, Dean. As I recall, Tor picked up Scalzi’s Old Man’s War because of the response when he self-pubbed it on his website.
Dean,
OK, I’m a little lost here. Maybe I haven’t read all the comments as closely as I should have.
My understanding is once I write a book, I send it off to NY publishers. I start with the big publishers first, work my way down to smaller presses until accepted.
Where does the Kindle, the Nook, and other ebooks fit into this scheme?
I would assume that putting a book in eformat is something the publisher would do … but maybe I’m wrong.
Thanks.
Jeff, nope, you are right. That’s what I call the “traditional” model and so far, for 97% of all books produced, that’s the way it works.
And yes, you are correct that in your contract with a major publisher, you will sell them electronic rights and they will put the books up on the different sights and you will get a percentage of that money back through your contract agreement.
However, the world is changing and there are a number of writers experimenting with Print on Demand (POD) self-publishing and electronic publishing. And the electronic is easy and wonderful for backlist, meaning stories already publishing in books or magazines. Gives them a new life and new income streams for the writers.
Also you hear all over the web writers like Zoe who have a belief system that self-publishing is the way for them because of some control issue or hatred of New York for one reason or another. At the moment, no statistics back up the value of going that way very hard, besides a few exceptions widely quoted like Konrath. However, it is VERY exciting for all of us working in the business, and I am on a list with many bestsellers from every genre and keeping up on this stuff and doing experiments in it is a major topic.
Things are moving at light speed for an industry that usually takes decades for even small changes. So stay tuned. Right now and for the future big publishing will still be the best game in town. But smaller games are springing up and are fun to watch and play in.
Interesting, Zoe, but sights like Smashwords and Fictionwise and the like are publishers as well, just like in New York. They decide where your book goes and how much you get of their cut. Same as a New York publisher. Thought you didn’t like that model? What do you see as the difference. Very confused there.
If you go direct to Kindle and do the work you are the publisher, this new direct to PubIt for B&N will be the same as Kindle. Schribd is the same for downloads. But Smashwords and Fictionwise are publishers who take a percentage of what you get off of Kindle. Just like New York publishers. Exactly, only without the tight restrictions.
Dean, I’m glad to hear the option clause is easier to negotiate than I previously thought. And thanks Laura for explaining some more about it and the no-compete clause (which I initially confused the names of).
The PubIt move by B&N is yet another exploding bomb in the opening up of the e-market to indie authors this year. By the summer, it’ll be an absolute cinch to get ebooks onto Kindle, iBooks, B&N, and other locations for royalties around 60-70%.
I look at all of that and think, wow, authors have two very legitimate publishing options these days. I think the developments are great for authors and readers. Not sure about for publishers per se, but what a liberating time to be a writer.
I hope we’re getting to the point where writers can respect whatever paths other writers take to reach their readers and earn a living. I don’t think it takes anything away from traditionally published authors to have viable new avenues opening up. It’s all about getting paid to tell stories, right? We can all play together in the same sandbox.
I have to say, Dean, a site like Smashwords is totally different than NY. Smashwords doesn’t reject any books submitted to them, they take absolutely no control over the work and have no input on it (perhaps a blessing or a curse), and they pay 85% royalties to authors for ebooks sold on their site. For starters
Smashwords is significant because they are one of the eight vehicles you can use to get into the iBookstore, and IIRC, you end up with a 60% royalty rate when going via Smashwords to iBooks.
Whether or not you want to be a fully independent author is a huge question, but now there are some fascinating options out there.
“Actually, in reality, the option clause is very, very easy to negotiate in almost all contracts.”
Indeed. In fact, I’ve only ever had trouble getting exactly the phrasing I want on ONE option clause, and that was strictly and specifically because of (naturally) a literary agent. An agent “negotiated” a weak option clause in a contract of mine, and balked when I asked the agent to go back and fix this oversight. By then, I was so exhausted and demoralizing from fighting about so MANY things with this agent, I didn’t have the energy to keep fighting about this, too, and I wound up signing the contract.
That was a mistake and I regret it. It’s also the only weak option clause I’ve ever signed. I’ve never had trouble getting a good one myself.
An option clause is rarely an attempt to “tie up” a writer in some way. Mostly, it’s a show of good faith. PUblishing’s VERY competitive, there is always another writer easy to take your place, and a good pairing of author/editor/publisher matters. So, in most cases, if an author is really unhappy at a publishing house and wants to leave, most houses will let you go.
Mind you, you can’t just walk away and sell an option book elsewhere WITHOUT PERMISSION. That’s breach of contract. If you want out of an option, you have to do it PROPERLY. One standard way is to send a publisher a proposal for a book you know they won’t buy (and, in most cases, a book you have no intention of writing for anyone else, either), and also telling them (to make sure your feint works) that you’ll eb tripling your advance level for this masterpiece.
Another way, more straightforward (but a little too bridge-burning for some people) is to phone up your publisher and say: “Hi. I’m so unhappy here. This really hasn’t worked out well for either of us. We’re not well suited. I don’t want to write for you anymore, and I have the distinct impression that my departire won’t break your heart. So how about being a sport and letting me out of my option clause?”
In general, publishers don’t intend to (and have no need to) shackle a writer with the option clause. The only time it -is- a shackle if it the writer’s books are VERY lucrative for that house. Then the house has a serious investment in the writer and a serious profit-motive for keeping the writer. For example, a writer I knew wanted to leave a publishing house that wasn’t doing enough for this writer’s books. Another house thought so, too, came along, and tried to buy the writer away, offering roughly triple what the writing was making, as well as a lot of marketing and publishing perks that the writer wasn’t getting. However, the writer was a VERY profitable writer for the firstlhouse, and they realized that if THEY would just put in a little more effort (as the other house was prepared to do), they could push the writer’s sales over into INCREDIBLY profitable territory. So they invoked the “topping” clause in their option clause, whereby they managed to keep the writer–who by then WANTED to leave–by offering an advance even higher than the much-higher advance being offered by their competitor. And thus the terms of the option clause were used to keep captive a writer who wanted to leave. (And, in fact, despite that moment of competitive resolve, the first publisher did NOT do anything differently after all, and sales still didn’t grow. So the author left anyhow after that contract; and, at the next house, where a lot more was done for the next book, the writer made the hc NYT list.)
But, like I said, something like that only happens if a writer already has a serious level of success, if the writer’s sales are good enough that, rather than the writer competing for a publishing slot, publishers now compete to acquire the writer.
Mostly, the option clause is just sort of a good-faith way of clarifying that you and the publisher hope for a long future together and will try to do another deal together when this one is over.
Thanks, Dean, that makes a lot of sense.
I would think a writer like JA Konrath is an exception that proves the rule (whatever that means). I mean, he made it the traditional way, still has an agent, still is selling to NY publishers (at least I think he is).
My understanding is that he’s self-publishing his unpublished work on Kindle. That make a hell of a lot of sense.
It’s one thing, is it not, for an established writer like Konrath, or Scott Nicholson, or yourself, to self-publish in ebook form, but something VERY different from someone like myself, right?
Moses, I agree with the no control, and the direct sales are fine and dandy if the books sell on their site. No issue.
But ibooks give a royalty rate to Smashwords for each book sold and then Smashwords takes its share of that percentage. I don’t have the exact percentage here in front of me, but I’ve worked with Fictionwise for a long time because they were the only game in town for a while and a story sold on Kindle through Fictionwise (they don’t do that anymore) got Fictionwise 35% and then Fictionwise passed on something like 35% or 50% of that money, so by the time it reached the author, there were only pennies left. Same as New York.
Publishers with standards and publishers without standards are still publishers.
Jeff, not really that different, actually. What is slowly becoming a truth is that quality climbs through the “noise” of the internet and finds readers. An author has to have a web site, have social networks, that sort of thing, but the quality of a story will bring the readers. Crap doesn’t sell and will sink and go away.
So if Konrath and Nicholson and me can write quality stories because we’ve been around and had more practice, then yes it will make a difference. But a great new writer writing quality work will soon have that quality pull them to readers. Nature of the “noise” everyone talks about on the web.
Dean,
Smashwords isn’t really a “publisher” so much as a publishing platform and distributor. I maintain all control over my work when I use Smashwords. I don’t “sell them rights” and certainly not exclusive rights. Fictionwise isn’t a publisher either. It’s an ebookstore/distributor, same as Smashwords.
In what way does Smashwords or Fictionwise act as publishers? Do they do editing? No. Do they do cover art? No. Do they market your work for you? No. (no more than any other bookseller.) Do they assign your work an ISBN? Fictionwise… no. The publisher assigns the ISBN.
Smashwords does have an option where they can be “technically listed as your publisher” so you can get a free ISBN. But it’s all semantics. On Smashwords I use my own ISBNs. So that doesn’t apply to me.
*I* am a publisher.
Because if I was doing the exact same things for someone else that I do for me, I’d be called a publisher. I own my own ISBNs. I have a publishing company name. I make sure the cover art, editing, marketing, etc. gets done. The bizarre idea that in any other industry a business can be the creator of it’s own product “except” in publishing which is mystical and magical, is something I don’t accept.
If your argument is that Smashwords and Fictionwise are “just like publishers” you aren’t doing your argument for publishers and all their benefits any favors.
And I don’t have “hatred” for NY. I don’t hate the player, I hate the game.
Even then, hate is a strong word. I’m more like really annoyed and slightly disgruntled.
Kindle takes a cut too. So you’re now trying to say Kindle is a publisher?
I don’t think you’re really that confused on the issue. Smashwords doesn’t do ANYTHING a publisher does. What they do is what a DISTRIBUTOR does.
Baker and Taylor and Ingram are ALSO distributors. They take a percentage of money to list you in their catalog and distribute you to booksellers and such.
If Smashwords is a publisher so is Ingram.
Also, small publishers put books on Smashwords and Fictionwise. A publisher doesn’t have a publisher. That makes no sense.
I need to keep an IV in me for these comments. My reader can’t keep up!
Oh… and I missed one thing, sorry. Smashwords doesn’t decide where your book goes. YOU decide. You can opt out of premium distribution and only put your book up on Smashwords if you like. Or you can choose to distribute to the iBookstore, but not Sony, etc.
I opt out of using their distribution channel for Amazon because I deal directly with Amazon. And once I get to deal directly with B&N, I’ll opt out of distribution for Smashwords for there too.
But major publishers use distributors too, such as Ingram. Using a distributor is just part of publishing.
Dean, congrats for being one of the relative few who sees through the smokescreen misconception that JA Konrath has only done well via Kindle because he had a traditional publisher. If you follow Konrath’s blog, you’ll see that he’s debunked that common notion time and again, as have many other authors who post there with their own results. He’s also pointed out authors doing well on Kindle (or even better than him) who don’t even websites or blogs. A good book on Kindle with a low price, good cover, and good description, will sell on its own. You don’t even have to do much self-promotion, though obviously that doesn’t hurt.
As for the royalties, I don’t know Fictionwise’s royalties, but IIRC, Smashwords pays authors 85% on books sold through their site, and authors get paid 60% royalties on books that sell on iBooks via Smashwords. Amazon paid 35% for a while, but starting June 30th, they are paying 70% to indies on ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99. And B&N’s PubIt must be somewhere around that 60-70% range (or close to it), because they say they are going to be “competitive” with the other major services. This is one way in which these new options are very much unlike NY.
Of course, NY has its own tremendous advantages, as well.
Moses, so you are telling me that say you put a book up on Smashwords for $3.00, you get 60% of that if it sells on iBooks?
Or do you get 60% of what iBooks gives Smashwords? Huge, huge difference, and I read it as 60% of what they receive from iBooks platform. Guess I had better go back and read that a third time, huh? Because if you are right, then I’m happy. But not happy if I have to take 60% of 35% of $3.00 which would be 63 cents for a $3.00 book ($2.99) while on Kindle starting in July I would get $2.09 for the same sale.
I will go do my research yet again and be back with you all. Sigh….I have read that stupid stuff twice and all their guidelines on submissions and FAQ questions. One more time into the silliness, but worth it if you are right, Moses. Sure hope you are.
I’m just about positive about that, Dean. You, the author, make 60% of the list price if you upload your book to Smashwords and then the ebook sells on iBooks. On Amazon, it’s even better (70%, starting June 30th). PubIt must be similar.
Okay, Zoe, whatever you say. Your belief system and information has an interesting twist to it, but if it works for you, it works.
By the way, you never sell anything to any publisher. (A huge myth pushed by those who do not understand copyright.) You license use of a form through contracts, and let me think, oh, yeah, by agreeing to the agreements on Kindle and Smashwords and so on, (you know, that little button you click without reading that you agree to their terms) you are basically signing a contract with a license for use. But whatever you say, because I won’t argue the distinction anymore. If you have a problem with publishers and want to think that Smashwords and such are not publishers, be my guest.
But truth be told for everyone else reading this, they are publishers. Just a slightly altered form, but still publishers.
And where did you get the idea that publishers don’t have sub-publishers? Holy crap, of course they do, and you control in your contract with a New York publisher exactly what you will sell and won’t sell to which subrights publishers through your main publisher.
Oh, yeah, kind of like on Smashwords opting out of some subrights publishers and staying in with others. But again, what do I know?
Sorry for being so snarky, but hard to argue against your irrational thinking about publishers. And your lack of understanding as to how publishing works and what you even sell. You are spouting so many myths, it just scares me, especially coming from someone clearly as smart and driven as you are.
Do you even understand copyright? Or exactly what you are selling on Kindle? Or any other source, for that matter?
And this to everyone. Folks, if you don’t read those fine print contracts when you try to put something up on Kindle or Smashwords or the like, you really should understand what you are clicking away. Really.
Now off to research once again those Smashword royalty rates, because even though their formatting is interesting, I want to use them.
PubIt rates won’t be released for another few months and they won’t be up and running until the fall sometime.
Yup, love Kindle rates at 70%. Going to research Smashwords now, not that I don’t believe you, but again I like knowing real details instead of hearing things secondhand. Back later.
More good news for you then, Dean
This list on PubIt says that “Details on the compensation model (read: profit split) will be announced “in the coming weeks.’” So we should know about PubIt’s royalties soon.
Also, here’s a blog post I wrote when the news came out about Smashwords/iBooks. It was right around the time that JA (Joe) Konrath was changing his mind on the viability of the indie route for a new author (first week of April, it looks like–ancient history now). I mention the 60% figure there, and I remember at the time reading some of the actual agreement that was posted by either Apple or Smashwords (I forget which) and double-checking that figure that way.
Dean,
It’s not my “belief system.” I defined a distributor and a publisher. You just want to make distributors the same as publishers to prove some point about it’s “the same thing” and I somehow “have” a publisher. (If we want to get REALLY into semantics then technically everybody who publishes their own blog content is a “publisher” but that’s not the way most human beings define a publisher.)
If you want to debate things on the merit of the argument, okay. If you want to agree to disagree, okay. But don’t brush me off as if word definitions are matters of opinion and my “belief system.”
I really don’t know what you’re trying to prove. If you are trying to argue that Smashwords and Fictionwise are “publishers” then very clearly your definition and others’ definitions of what a publisher “does” or “is” are very different matters.
It’s ultimately a game of semantics. What I’m doing is VERY different from signing a contract with a traditional publisher. (And yes, I read everybody’s fine print before I clicked any buttons.)
I’m not sure what your goal or interest is in trying to make me “see the light.” Do you think if somehow you get me to agree that Smashwords is my publisher I’ll just say: “Oh, well I should just go try to find a NY publisher then instead of doing this silly indie thing?”
Small publishers who use places like Smashwords and Kindle and such also have to license rights to put the content on the site. That doesn’t make Amazon the publisher of Samhain (an ebook publisher).
But if it DOES make that so in the sense of sub-publishers… then who cares? That means I’m a publisher and doing what a publisher does. When an author goes the traditional way they are NOT a publisher.
These are very different paths with very different levels of creative control.
If *you* feel comfortable calling Smashwords my publisher, that doesn’t really change the fact that I am my publisher.
I don’t think it very much matters if I know every piece of insider minutiae about how “publishing” works, outside of small publishing which is what I’m engaged in. It’s all just trivia to me. NY is irrelevant to me.
Just like I don’t know all the inner workings of Carnegie hall, nor all the finer points of competing in the Olympics. Why SHOULD I spend tons of time researching something I don’t want to do just so I can spar with you at trivia?
Thanks for the compliments on my drive and intelligence, even though it’s cloaked in “you’re so irrational and have tons of false beliefs.”
A great many things in life are dependent on perspective, how each individual classes and organizes things in their head, opinion, belief, etc. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of views/beliefs that I or others would find irrational.
But… It’s pretty offensive for you to ask if I even understand copyright. Is condescension a hobby? And is it completely necessary in this discussion because I can argue on that same level.
I think we can both agree that publishing and how content is distributed and licensed is evolving. But I think it’s a bit silly to try to compare Smashwords with a NY publisher. No matter what the justification in doing so. It’s apples and oranges. And I think you know that.
Yeah, it’s all coming back to me now. Read the comments on my blog post for more on the royalty rate of Smashwords-to-iPad.
Nope, don’t know it, Zoe. Smashwords is a publisher by any definition.
And yup, I publish my blogs on this web site, and these comments. Yup, makes me a publisher as well.
And the reason I asked about copyright is that 99.9% of all writers, even early professional writers, don’t understand copyright and what they are licensing. Didn’t mean to be offensive, just thought I would ask, since my record is that no one knows it coming into writing. Most writers (clearly not you, don’t want to be offensive) believe that they sell their stories to publishers. Sorry, been teaching young professional writers for a decade now and have yet to find one who came in who knew copyright law or even understood copyright.
But writers never sell stories to anyone unless you sign really, really bad contracts. You license your work for a use and resale by that publisher. Kindle is a form of publisher. You give them a story, sign a license agreement, and they put it up in their market for sale for a percentage. You control content and covers, sure, but they publish it.
The reason I’m talking about this is to not let your statements stand to the hundreds and hundreds who read these posts. I am not trying to convince you of anything. I just won’t allow myths, stated as fact, to stand in comments on a chapter working to stop myths. And you express yourself so forcefully and direct, some people may take your statements as fact and they are not.
I have no argument at all with your self-publishing program. Zero in fact and I look forward to watching how you do. And I don’t want to try to convince you to go anywhere you don’t want to go. Again, back to every writer being their own person, following their own path.
So, when you say it’s silly to compare Smashwords to a New York publisher, I have to explain that no it’s not. One is just a new form of publisher. Nothing more.
Control of content, you also say, is impossible in New York. That’s flat wrong of course. I had to make sure people understood that.
So no disrespect or intent to convince you. But when you spout myths like they are facts, that’s what these posts are all about, and right here, in these comments, I have two choices. One, not let your comment through. Two, let it through and correct it for everyone else. I chose to make the points and in this instance, with your statements, show others how these myths work and how really nasty they are.
Got it, Moses. Afraid I was right.
“What does it cost to publish on Smashwords? It’s free to publish on Smashwords. There are no hidden fees. We earn our revenue by taking a cut of all net sales on the site. The cut is 15% of the net for sales at Smashwords.com or on Stanza, 15% of the net proceeds from our retail partners, and 18.5% for sales that were originated by affiliate marketers. If your book is purchased via one of the major online retailers we distribute to, you can expect your royalty to be approximately 42 percent (or higher) of the suggested list price you determine.”
Yup, thought it was a percentage of a percentage, and at least they are open about it. 42% is still pretty good. It’s that high because their 15% is pretty low.
I think I will be putting stuff up on their site, as well as Kindle and PubIt and Scribd and the others. I can live with 42%.
Also what’s nice is that it was announced today that the free books available in B&N when you are in store and have their Nook will also be available through their aps on phones and iPad. That’s kind of cool.
Thanks for making me go look this up again, Moses. When I first read that I wasn’t that happy, but now that I look at it again, I’m okay with 42% to get directly to iPad and a few others.
“I just won’t allow myths, stated as fact, to stand in comments on a chapter working to stop myths. And you express yourself so forcefully and direct, some people may take your statements as fact and they are not.”
Well said, Dean. When misinformation is spouted on your blog, of COURSE you’ve got to correct it for the people reading the blog.
Dean, it appears to be 60%.
“9. How much does distribution to Apple cost you? Nothing. Like all Smashwords services, it’s free. We earn our income when your books sell. We will pay you 60% of the list price for all your sales.”
That’s pulled from this link, which reproduces the email that Smashwords sent out when all of this was announced. This was in the comments on my link that I linked to above, fwiw.
The link that you produced says that they pay 42% or higher. I think in the case of iPad, it’s higher, at 60%.
I did another search to double-check. It is definitely 60%.
“How to Publish Ebooks on the Apple iPad
It’s quick, easy and FREE with Smashwords!
Set your own price + earn 85% of the net proceeds for your book (60% list price for iPad books)”
Here’s a comment in the comments section on the official Smashwords blog:
“Any chance that B&N, Kobo, and Sony will switch to a royalty structure like Apple’s? Love the 60% so much more than the 42%.”
So I guess when you go through Smashwords to get to B&N, Kobo, or Sony it’s 42%, but it’s 60% to iPad.
Hey Dean, this appears to be the updated version of what you had quoted. They must’ve updated that paragraph recently:
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. These rates vary by retailer. Apple is 60% of retail price.
Wow, great by me. 60% is even better than 42% and I wasn’t that upset with that. (grin)
By the way, I just did a front page post on WHAT IS A PUBLISHER that I hope settles some of the confusion.
And I hit the little button that says “publish” and became a publisher by putting it on my blog.
Cheers
Dean
And thus ends the craziest day ever in these comments on these blogs.
Great fun. Thanks, Zoe and Moses and Laura for some great fun. I’ve gotten a number of private e-mails tonight saying how much people learned just from the discussion. Thanks to you for writing me as well.
And I am much more comfortable with Smashwords now, so stories starting that way this next week or so. Yeah! Thanks.
Hey Dean,
If you’re defining publishers in that broad sense, then I agree with what you’re saying. Most people like to talk about “real publishers” vs. fake publishers, and wouldn’t define it as broadly as you do. I’m used to the lack of broader definition when discussing this with people.
Most of the time when people in publishing are talking about having a publisher, they are talking about someone who assigns ISBNs, and controls most of the product packaging and marketing, as well as controls the price and where things will be distributed. That’s what a publisher does in the traditional terms of what we’re talking about.
Most of what Smashwords does is more like what a distributor does.
BUT, yes, if we’re going by the “people who publish a blog are a publisher” as in ANYONE who licenses or releases or posts content in any form or fashion is a publisher, then of course you’re right. (And actually if I wasn’t so used to having discussions where I have to haggle with people over who qualifies as a publisher, I probably would have been more on board to begin with. I think it was the fact that it was being conflated with how somehow it’s weird since I “hate” publishers.)
And I understand your need to correct things you feel to be in error. It just seemed VERY condescending about the copyright issue. I’m a PUBLISHER, Dean. Maybe not a “big NY publisher,” but a publisher all the same (in the sense of how people usually define it). I’ve read the entire government copyright site.
I know you are licensing rather than selling your rights outright to a publisher, unless it’s work for hire. “selling your rights” was a lazy form of shorthand communication that many people use. (And I SHOULDN’T use it, since it causes confusion.) I didn’t know you would be dissecting it later to prove what a ninny I was. But if you sold rights outright, authors wouldn’t have rights revert back to them so they could put their backlist on Kindle. So it’s pretty common sense that when I said “selling rights” I “meant” licensing. But I should have “said” licensing.
I understand your need to not let a noob misunderstand things. I just thought you could have done it in a less condescending manner.
You implied in more than one way that I’m an irrational little twit who was stupid enough to challenge you and that if all these myths and roadblocks weren’t holding me back, I wouldn’t be indie. But I’m pretty sure that whether or not you class me that way, I’m still going to succeed and we can have the discussion about whether or not I was inordinately held back by my “myths” at the end of my 10 year plan. (We’ve recently hit 1.5 for those keeping score at home.)
Thanks for the discussion, and thanks for shifting it back to a more productive tone.
If it was going to continue on in the same vein, I was going to bow out of the discussion because you can afford to snark and piss off readers. I can’t. I need every reader/fan I can get right now. I don’t have the luxury of alienating “any” readers who might otherwise have tried my fiction.
Also, the phrase “to prove what a ninny I was” maybe needed a smiley after it cause otherwise it could be read “angry” and I was smiling when I typed it.
I don’t want to get into an argument about semantics, but I’ll just point out that when even some of us newbies say “sell”, we’re using it as shorthand. If I “sell a story” to Analog, I know that really means I’m licensing first serial rights and some options on other rights. And actually, those first serial rights really are sold because — unlike reprint or various other rights — they are something that gets used up, thanks to that word “first”. (Although sure, if they’re geographically restricted, it only uses them up in the specified region.)
(On the other hand even though I’m a newbie to fiction, I used to be a contributing editor at Byte Magazine, and that was so long ago I don’t remember how naive I might have been before that.)
Agree, Alastair, the word “sold” has sadly replaced the term license in publishing, and thus the confusion to new writers coming in.
But on your example, show me in copyright law where the term “first serial” is located? (trick question, of course it’s not in there.)
All the things we license are just made up ways of slicing the pie. Sometimes they are made up by the magazine or publisher trying to figure out a way to describe what they need to use, often it’s the smart writer making it up to get more sales. No sale really restricts a future sale except in the needs of a specific market. To the writer, nothing has been lost or “sold.” Having a story appear in one market for a short time with a certain license might preclude the story from appearing in a similar magazine wanting similar rights, but nothing out of the story or the copyright is gone. Yeah, semantics, I know, but critically important.
Oh, heavens, all of us need every reader we can get. Nature of the beast.
My decision with these chapters and this blog is to not worry too much about who I am making angry. I just try to tell the plain business truth. After being a writer for over 30 years, an editor on a number of jobs, a publisher at one point as well of a fairly large publishing house, and a person who has been working with new professionals now for a decade, I have a pretty clear sense of what’s happening and I make it my job (because it is) to stay up on everything I can.
Do I have opinions from what I’ve seen over the years? Oh, heavens yes! But I do attempt to keep this level.
All of us spout myths, me included, at times, but I often catch myself quickly these days. And myths are often just misunderstood communication. A writer is thinking one thing that’s clear, they say something that seems clear on the topic, the listener with a different set of basics, hears something just opposite of what the writer meant to tell them. And off they go happy, both sides, having no idea that the communication just didn’t work.
So that’s one of the reasons I come down hard and firm in these comments when I think I hear a myth. I may be hearing it wrong, but in these chapters and comments about myths, I have to snap back hard or some poor person who is reading along, not really catching everything, catches the myth and then goes and says, “On Dean Wesley Smith’s site I read this!” And I have hurt them.
My goal is not to hurt anyone, just help, by clearing out damaging myths. Nothing more, but nothing less.
So, yup, at times, I get snarky. Nature of the beast I’m afraid. (grin) After all, I do write romance novels (under yet another name) and the characters in romance novels are often snarky.
Quite right, Dean. When it comes down to it, “first serial” means whatever it’s defined to mean in the particular contract you signed. Which reinforces another point you keep making: always read (and understand) your contracts.
Dean,
Thank you for clarifying this. I can totally appreciate and respect that. In the future I’ll try to “say what I mean and mean what I say.”
Cause if you snark, I’ll snark back, and then it’ll get stupid, and then I look like a real jerk. (I already have a rep for being pretty combative, no need to make that worse!)
Ha! You write romance too! (me too) And yes, there is NOTHING I love more than snarky banter. It’s one of the reasons I love the romance genre so much.
Wow, did this thread ever explode.
I think indie presses and authors have a better shot now than they’ve had in a long while, given the transformation of media, but at the same time I myself am not ready to go that road because I have no platform. If I had an existing audience — for any reason — I’d be tempted to hang up a “stories for sale” shingle on the web site and go into business. Alas, right now, such a move on my part would be greeted with chirping crickets.
Besides, I see the publishing fortresses of New York as sort of a challenge. How many castle walls can I scale? How many Kings and Queens of the Houses can I dazzle with my lute and minstrel’s song? Enough to carry home a purse of gold? A chest of gold? Many chests of gold? It ought to be fun finding out. Others are still managing to do it, even in this depressed economy. And the tougher the competition, the sweeter the win.
Regarding talent, I like very much what’s been said about talent vs. determination.
I was listening to a story this morning — not sure if it’s apocryphal or not — about baseball player Marty Marion. According to the story, Marion had zero baseball talent while his best friend Johnny had loads of talent. Both of them played for a little Atlanta company team (pre-WWII) and when Johnny got called to the minors, he insisted Marty go with him. Eventually — and over the objections of many who thought Marty couldn’t last — Johnny convinced the St. Louis Cardinals to sign Marty and he both to one of the Cardinals’ minor-league farm teams.
According to the story, Marty Marion eventually went to the majors and was a big star for the Cardinals during several World Series runs, while his friend Johnny never got out of the minors. Even though Johnny was, by all accounts, the far superior, far more talented player.
So what happened? Again, according to story, Marty had more determination that Johnny. He was so determined in fact that he willed his way to baseball excellence. Talent wasn’t a factor. He improved his game from poor to passing to good to great, all through sheer determination. Now his legacy is written in baseball history. Johnny? Talented, but didn’t want it the way Marty wanted it. So Johnny didn’t last.
Wanting it — seeing the goal and doing whatever it takes to get there — is a recurrent theme in virtually all competetive enterprise. Could be writing, or sports, or business, or any other kind of thing. Those who want it, find a way. Those who don’t want it, well, they find a way to take one of those off-ramps that Dean talked about. They grow tired of the “road” and they do something else. And talent never seems to be much of a factor, just a stubborn refusal to give up, combined with superior work ethic.
Another for the “not sure if it’s true or not” story collection: I’ve seen it alleged that George Clooney has said in interviews, when asked how he became a star and what was his backup plan if he hadn’t, that he didn’t have a backup plan because a backup plan enabled people to back up.
I always understood that to mean that determination and persistance do indeed win the day.
As to traditional publishing vs. self publishing (NOT vanity publishing) most definitely to each her own. Just for me personally, I want to write, *not* market. I’m terrible at marketing. I send out my stuff, but I do sent it to NY publishers because I want to have their sales force behind my books.
I don’t want to be nitpicky, but I cringe at the semantics of “the need for talent is a myth.” You need talent. The writers who are living off of their writing are all (or close enough to “all” that the word is still appropriate) talented people. In my opinion, what you should be saying is “the need for *innate* talent is a myth.”
Dean, you said that when you started you had no talent. As hard to imagine as that is, I’ll take your word for it. But I know that you have talent now, I’ve read some of your work. That talent may not have been a “gift,” you might have had to scrape and claw for every shred of it, but you ended up with it. That baseball player Brad mentioned may not have started his career with talent, but he certainly ended with it. If he couldn’t field a grounder, he would not have been called up to the majors. Similarly, if you can’t string words together well enough to craft a good story, you aren’t going to make a living as a writer.
I agree that determination, not innate talent, is what an aspiring writer needs out of the starting gate, but that’s because determination can be exchanged for talent over time.
Brad, I think you would enjoy the book Outliers by Malcome Gladwell. In it, he talks about the 10,000 hour rule and what it takes to become an “expert.” I love the book, because its a reminder to me that as long as I stay at it, and keep working hard (and smart), I’ll make it.
Oh, oh, looks like this upcoming talent myth blog is going to get some interesting responses. I haven’t even done it yet and already there’s talk.
Let me make my case for talent, the concept of talent, being a very deadly myth, and then we can argue. (grin)
By the way, the talent chapter should be up on Monday. I’m firing on a novel right now and need a part done this weekend, so can’t work much more on it until Sunday.
I think this Sacred Cow post can be be summarized by one of Dean’s other nuggets:
“Get out of your own way.”
Which is something I still wrestle with from time to time, I’m sorry to say.
Hey Dean, well just recently, it *was* 60%. Apple just increased it to 70%, according to this article, but you have to have a Mac with a relatively new OS to pull that off (grumbles).
Moses, yup, finally got Smashwords all figured out and have five of Kris’s short stories up there, with a new one going up tonight. And a number of mine to follow this weekend. Still good percentages for authors. And when you put something up, they have three bar graphs showing you EXACTLY to the penny how much you will make on any sale through any source. Very clear and nice.
This post is really, really great. I saw a reference to it on Joe Konrath’s blog, and I’m so glad I did.
The fact is, that there are a lot of writers out there that are “making a good living.” Not a lot of blockbusters, I know, but there are a lot of us that make a living wage writing.
It’s bullshit.
Not everyone can write a bestseller, but anyone with even average writing skills can be a working writer, either writing non-fic, magazine and print work, and, yes, even fiction. You just have to keep plugging along. It took me three years. I quit my job and never looked back.
Yes, I agree this post was absolutely excellent and heated but not out of controll.
I think we have all dreamt even for a a minute or two about having the financial success of a Dan Brown or stephen King. But those are dreams not to be obsessed over.
And there are many writers who have financial support from spouses, which allows them to write. And if they can bring in 30-40-50k or more and pay off the mortgage or raise a family then that might be how they define financial success.
@Zoe Wow — you’ve really been in the thick of things of lately. Right in the middle of all the heated debates.