7 ms·

"use the publisher to publicise your name" Publishers may publish, but they don't "publicise". They expect you to do that. You're basically on your own when i

"use the publisher to publicise your name" Publishers may publish, but they don't "publicise". They expect you to do that. You're basically on your own when it comes to marketing anymore.

patio11 16y ago
My reading suggests that once they made books. They no longer make books: they pay people who make books. They also pay people who do editing, and pay people who do covers. They've largely abandoned PR for anyone less famous than J.K. Rowling. This leads me to believe that they're essentially just VC for books, which wants to invest $20k at a pre-money valuation of $5k. I am not seeing the attraction, personally. (I've nursed dreams of doing fiction writing for my next quirky hobby.)
- runevault 16y ago
  This seems fairly accurate from my own outside looking in, other than the publicity (sort of). If an author is lucky enough to have several publishers bidding on their book driving up the advance, publishers are more prone to spend the extra cash on top of that for publicity. You still need to be in a rare group to get it, it's just not QUITE JKR small ;) Also I'd be curious to watch you market a novel length ebook with all the different things you've learned from BCC and now Appointment Reminder.
  - patio11 16y ago
    How much would you pay for a novel-length ebook?
    - runevault 16y ago
      I've paid as high as 14.99, 9.99 is highest I usually go for DRM'd ebooks when I've not been waiting for it for some significant length of time, 12.99 would be acceptable for a DRM free ebook. Though as Konrath has shown the lower ends of the 70% price range seems to be where the money is (I'm not 100% sure I buy ALL books by an author being 2.99 makes sense, the first in a series certainly but not so sure about the rest of one...)
      - patio11 16y ago
        We're both businessmen so you know I'm saying this absolutely without rancor: I have no desire to ever do business at those price points. Edit: Oh, you want to see me marketing a fiction ebook. Sorry, I misunderstood: I thought you wanted me to write a novel-length ebook about marketing. Disregard what I just said.
        runevault 16y ago
        Sorry about that, since you mentioned an interest in fiction writing I figured that would be understood. As to the other idea, yeah that would be utterly laughable unless you saw it as a way to expand your contract work, which gets away from the whole 'making money while you sleep' idea in the end. And trust me, honesty is best especially in a community like this. Though your comment makes me think, Amazon not differentiating between fiction and non-fiction for their revenue sharing in ebooks limits how many people will want to direct sell books on topics where the book should sell for a significant chunk of change through their site. Hmmm interesting. Be curious if they change the rules there at some point or if it simply is not worth their time, since right now it's fairly low maintenance unless they decide to remove a book for some reason.
        xenophanes 16y ago
        I don't think Amazon's 30% is hostile to higher priced books directly. A book that costs 20% as much, but sells five times as many, ends up paying the same fee to Amazon. I think the difference is that higher volume, mass market books benefit more from being on Amazon. While a specialized and pricey book won't sell to random people browsing Amazon. So Amazon is offering less value for the same price. I think it'd be hard for Amazon to change the rules. What are they doing to do? Lower the commission on the first 500 copies you sell? That would hurt them with the people selling unpopular books who would sell nothing at all without Amazon's help. And it would annoy popular authors who are like, "Why should my rate go up the better I do?" Lower the commission on books over a certain price? That will cause price distortion (books near the price will increase their price), and it's in opposition to Amazon's general approach to things (sell high volume cheaply). If you change the commission gradually over a range of prices, that has the downside of making the rules more complicated which most customers don't like.
- rst 16y ago
  There's one other thing they do. While they don't market books to readers, for the most part, they do market them to bookstores, who can be awfully picky about what they put on the shelves. If you want to get books available on the shelves in Borders and B&N (which dominate retail in the U.S.), it helps to have a sales guy in your corner with the buyers for those chains in their rolodex. FWIW, here's an author talking about that stuff: http://www.iantregillis.com/index.cfm?blog=164 His books aren't being advertised to readers much at all, that I've noticed, but the publisher is going to considerable effort and expense just to get them on the shelves. Reviews were good, and readers who could find the first book in the trilogy liked it --- but "folks working on the procuring/selling side of the industry don't know what to do with these books", so they weren't doing anything, and so readers couldn't find it, because it literally wasn't on the shelves. The upshot: they're delaying production on the sequels to repackage the first book with new cover art that will hopefully confuse the chain buyers less. For fiction, for the moment, this stuff still matters. For technical books, enough of the order stream may have moved online that it's not worth thinking about. (A harbinger: I was saddened to learn that Powell's closed their physical tech-book annex last spring, due to dwindling sales.) So, consider your market: YMMV.
dholowiski 16y ago
Absolutley- the publishers don't care about you unless you're a big name like stephen king. Plus, more than likely they'll want to keep control of the digital distribution rights. Keep it all and self publish for sure. And, sorry for the downvote... The arrows on the iPhone are _tiny_ and I hit the wrong one :( can somebody please give this comment an extra vote?

"use the publisher to publicise your name" Publishers may publish, but they don't "publicise". They expect you to do that. You're basically on your own when it comes to marketing anymore.

patio11 16y ago

My reading suggests that once they made books. They no longer make books: they pay people who make books. They also pay people who do editing, and pay people who do covers. They've largely abandoned PR for anyone less famous than J.K. Rowling. This leads me to believe that they're essentially just VC for books, which wants to invest $20k at a pre-money valuation of $5k. I am not seeing the attraction, personally. (I've nursed dreams of doing fiction writing for my next quirky hobby.)

runevault 16y ago
This seems fairly accurate from my own outside looking in, other than the publicity (sort of). If an author is lucky enough to have several publishers bidding on their book driving up the advance, publishers are more prone to spend the extra cash on top of that for publicity. You still need to be in a rare group to get it, it's just not QUITE JKR small ;) Also I'd be curious to watch you market a novel length ebook with all the different things you've learned from BCC and now Appointment Reminder.
- patio11 16y ago
  How much would you pay for a novel-length ebook?
  - runevault 16y ago
    I've paid as high as 14.99, 9.99 is highest I usually go for DRM'd ebooks when I've not been waiting for it for some significant length of time, 12.99 would be acceptable for a DRM free ebook. Though as Konrath has shown the lower ends of the 70% price range seems to be where the money is (I'm not 100% sure I buy ALL books by an author being 2.99 makes sense, the first in a series certainly but not so sure about the rest of one...)
    - patio11 16y ago
      We're both businessmen so you know I'm saying this absolutely without rancor: I have no desire to ever do business at those price points. Edit: Oh, you want to see me marketing a fiction ebook. Sorry, I misunderstood: I thought you wanted me to write a novel-length ebook about marketing. Disregard what I just said.
      - runevault 16y ago
        Sorry about that, since you mentioned an interest in fiction writing I figured that would be understood. As to the other idea, yeah that would be utterly laughable unless you saw it as a way to expand your contract work, which gets away from the whole 'making money while you sleep' idea in the end. And trust me, honesty is best especially in a community like this. Though your comment makes me think, Amazon not differentiating between fiction and non-fiction for their revenue sharing in ebooks limits how many people will want to direct sell books on topics where the book should sell for a significant chunk of change through their site. Hmmm interesting. Be curious if they change the rules there at some point or if it simply is not worth their time, since right now it's fairly low maintenance unless they decide to remove a book for some reason.
        xenophanes 16y ago
        I don't think Amazon's 30% is hostile to higher priced books directly. A book that costs 20% as much, but sells five times as many, ends up paying the same fee to Amazon. I think the difference is that higher volume, mass market books benefit more from being on Amazon. While a specialized and pricey book won't sell to random people browsing Amazon. So Amazon is offering less value for the same price. I think it'd be hard for Amazon to change the rules. What are they doing to do? Lower the commission on the first 500 copies you sell? That would hurt them with the people selling unpopular books who would sell nothing at all without Amazon's help. And it would annoy popular authors who are like, "Why should my rate go up the better I do?" Lower the commission on books over a certain price? That will cause price distortion (books near the price will increase their price), and it's in opposition to Amazon's general approach to things (sell high volume cheaply). If you change the commission gradually over a range of prices, that has the downside of making the rules more complicated which most customers don't like.
rst 16y ago
There's one other thing they do. While they don't market books to readers, for the most part, they do market them to bookstores, who can be awfully picky about what they put on the shelves. If you want to get books available on the shelves in Borders and B&N (which dominate retail in the U.S.), it helps to have a sales guy in your corner with the buyers for those chains in their rolodex. FWIW, here's an author talking about that stuff: http://www.iantregillis.com/index.cfm?blog=164 His books aren't being advertised to readers much at all, that I've noticed, but the publisher is going to considerable effort and expense just to get them on the shelves. Reviews were good, and readers who could find the first book in the trilogy liked it --- but "folks working on the procuring/selling side of the industry don't know what to do with these books", so they weren't doing anything, and so readers couldn't find it, because it literally wasn't on the shelves. The upshot: they're delaying production on the sequels to repackage the first book with new cover art that will hopefully confuse the chain buyers less. For fiction, for the moment, this stuff still matters. For technical books, enough of the order stream may have moved online that it's not worth thinking about. (A harbinger: I was saddened to learn that Powell's closed their physical tech-book annex last spring, due to dwindling sales.) So, consider your market: YMMV.

dholowiski 16y ago

Absolutley- the publishers don't care about you unless you're a big name like stephen king. Plus, more than likely they'll want to keep control of the digital distribution rights. Keep it all and self publish for sure. And, sorry for the downvote... The arrows on the iPhone are _tiny_ and I hit the wrong one :( can somebody please give this comment an extra vote?