4 ms·
(Disclaimer: I both self-published books and also write a paid newsletter on Substack) The author of this article makes the point that Substack pays ~90% in re
by gregdoesit 4y ago
(Disclaimer: I both self-published books and also write a paid newsletter on Substack)
The author of this article makes the point that Substack pays ~90% in revenue, versus traditional publishers which do ~10%.
While this is true, I do think the author seems to deliberately avoid mentioning the self-publishing platforms like Gumroad, Podia etc which allow authors to keep 95-96.5% of revenue when publishing books, and also have a direct connection with people who bug the books through emails. I say this as someone who published through one of these platforms. (Also, there are other newsletter providers which charge even less of a commission, like Revue charging 5% or Ghost or ConvertKit charging a monthly fee based on the number of subscribers, which could come out to below 5%)
A real (financial) pull of publishing a book via a monthly, paid newsletter is the higher revenue per customer. A customer won’t pay more than, say, $40 for a book. But they’ll more likely pay ~$120 by paying $10/month for a year. See also how Steven Sinofsky is publishing his book series Hardcore Software on Substack with the option to pay up to $300/year to get a final, printable PDF edition of the series once finished. I paid $100 to read this series for a year and one of my friends went for the $300 option.
Holding on to publishing rights is a huge difference when going self-publishing or newsletter-first. When I worked with a traditional publisher, only then did I realize I have no rights to publish my words without publisher consent: this was when I asked if I can share drafts of my writing in public, and the publisher said this is down to approvals on their end. This realisation was a reason I ended up self-publishing instead. As the author of the article notes, by keeping publishing rights, it’s always an option to sign a contract with a publisher for a print book.
What is not written in the article is how self-publishing makes a lot more (financial) sense once:
1. You have enough of a reach to not benefit much from the - sometimes surprisingly little - marketing that a traditional publisher does
2. The association with a publisher brand is no longer a priority.
3. You don’t need a publisher helping you finish a book pushing you with deadlines (they sure help!)
4. You are ok paying for - or doing yourself - editorial things (development editing, copyediting, proofreading)
- NoboruWataya 4y ago> A real (financial) pull of publishing a book via a monthly, paid newsletter is the higher revenue per customer. A customer won’t pay more than, say, $40 for a book. But they’ll more likely pay ~$120 by paying $10/month for a year. See also how Steven Sinofsky is publishing his book series Hardcore Software on Substack with the option to pay up to $300/year to get a final, printable PDF edition of the series once finished. I paid $100 to read this series for a year and one of my friends went for the $300 option. Wow, this sounds awful (for the customer). Is that where publishing is going? $120+ for a book?
- klelatti 4y agoIs anyone else surprised that Sinofsky, who must have made - at a minimum - tens of millions of dollars at MS, feels the need to charge at all - let alone $300 for a pdf - for his memoirs. It’s almost as though he doesn’t want people to read them.
- akudha 4y agofeels the need to charge at all lol. Bill Gates' book on climate change is selling for $14 (Kindle version) https://www.amazon.com/How-Avoid-Climate-Disaster-Breakthroughs-ebook/dp/B07YRY461Y https://www.amazon.com/How-Avoid-Climate-Disaster-Breakthrou... I can understand charging for hard copy, but why does someone worth 100B feel the need to charge for digital version of his book on the most important topic of today, climate change? Even if 100,000 people buy it, that is what, 1.4M? Bill must make more than that in the time it takes for him to drink his morning coffee? That said, it is his book, he can do whatever he wants with it. He was kind enough to make the PDF available for free for college kids, for a while... https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/How-to-Avoid-a-Climate-Disaster-giveaway https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/How-to-Avoid-a-Climate-Dis...
- klelatti 4y agoI suspect for Gates it might have been a condition of getting the publisher to promote the hard copy version. If the pdf is free then hard copy sales would be much smaller. Still he could have paid for the promotion etc. I guess that Sinofsky thinks he has a very niche audience who can well afford $300 so they he might as well get them to pay.
- systemvoltage 4y agoThere is no one on Gumroad that wants to read books. Substack is more than a e-commerce stripe checkout flow. Author can keep 100% of their earnings (except CC processing fees) if they use a static webpage and a Paypal button; this is missing the point entirely.
- baby 4y agoYou’re saying gumroad doesn’t have the “discoverability” or “reachability”? I’m interested because I wanted to publish my next book through that platform.
- Tomte 4y agoI have never browsed on Gumroad (or Leanpub), I have never logged in except to buy or download. Every (e-)book I have bought on Gumroad I found somewhere else (sometimes here on HN), and there it was linked to the Gumroad page. You should plan to have a book web site, at least. And probably submit it on HN.
- systemvoltage 4y agoThat's not what I am saying. Specifically for books. There might be users logged in to look for other things regularly, but Gumroad would not be a place to find readers.
- exolymph 4y agoIf you want discoverability, Amazon is a much better bet. Definitely entails other tradeoffs.