35 ms·

Writing books remains a tough way to make a living

196 points by gone35 3y ago

jimmyed 3y ago
The largest demographic of readers, who have the ability to make or break a book is middle class white women. If you can convince them to read your book, you have made it.
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  I would say it depends on the book. I don't have such data for my Elisp textbook (which fared pretty well), but I'm not sure it would confirm your claim.
  - taopai 3y ago
    > middle class white women Sachachua enters this category. I am sure she would be glad to read your book. pd: sacha if you read this, no offense, just joking, hahahaha
dannyw 3y ago
Authors apparently earn cents of royalties for every physical book purchased. That seems crazy. I wouldn't mind paying $5 more for a book if >90% of it went to the author.
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  > Authors apparently earn cents of royalties for every physical book purchased. That seems crazy. Agreed, but it is (somewhat) justified by the sheer length of the chain (printing house, distributors, bookstores etc.) FWIW, I wrote and self-published a book on a 99% automated platform (e-book only), and I get 80% royalties. Another (anec)datapoint: I published a book (this time not written by me) in a more "traditional" way (i.e., on paper). The book is pretty niche, had 0 marketing expenses (we basically only relied on word-of-mouth). We kept the costs low, but not too low (we paid a bit for nice typesetting, illustrations, good paper etc.). We did not even try to put it in bookstores and only sold it via Internet (using an ebay-style platform, not even a custom e-commerce solution; we didn't even had a landing page with a our own domain!). This allowed us to break even after a few months, which I think is insane comparing to the "big book" (aka publishing industry).
  - Simon_ORourke 3y ago
    > FWIW, I wrote and self-published a book on a 99% automated platform (e-book only), and I get 80% royalties. Would you mind sharing which platform this is?
    - mbork_pl 3y ago
      Sure. While at that, let me also plug my book: https://leanpub.com/hacking-your-way-emacs https://leanpub.com/hacking-your-way-emacs
      - pomian 3y ago
        Thanks for that link! That's very interesting. I am editing two books for two authors at the present, both of whom already published, in paper, and with Amazon I believe. But this looks like a very interesting publishing model. Especially for more technical books. There are a few in progress that I know about. (Is emacs something different than the apple computer?)
- smugglerFlynn 3y ago
  Any book that is $5 more expensive than current market price will instantly lose to thousands of competative cheaper books where authors write about similar topics while agreeing to earn peanuts. You can try solving this by industry-wide regulations, but that would make average price of books much higher, and will likely steer readers to other medias, shift revenues to already established writers, or both.
  - zer0tonin 3y ago
    Are books purchase really so price sensitive? It's not exactly like you're buying potatoes
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I’m not sure it’s a continuous supply-demand curve but you get out of the “normal” discounted range—say above $15–and people will really think twice.
    - falcolas 3y ago
      IMO, in the age of Kindle Unlimited, yes. I, myself, have a very hard time justifying purchases over $6. The reason is pretty simple, the higher priced books are not guaranteed to be better, just written by a more widely recognized author.
  - EA 3y ago
    OP should just donate $5 to his favorite writers.
  - ziddoap 3y ago
    >Any book that is $5 more expensive than current market price will instantly lose to thousands of competative cheaper books where authors write about similar topics while agreeing to earn peanuts. I could see this being true for non-fiction, but for fiction? I'm generally not looking at price, I'm looking at whether the story seems interesting. Two books can both be about space battles (or whatever your topic of choice is), but one can seem extremely interesting while the other doesn't. Similar topics doesn't really mean much compared to everything else (writing style, characters, etc.)
- jeffwass 3y ago
  A few years ago I met an author who was switching from self-pub to traditional pub for one of his books (usually this is tough to do, traditional publishers typically won't touch a book that started off as self-published). His take went from 70% on Amazon to just 7% w/ the traditional publisher. Of course the traditional publisher handles all marketing and distribution, so hopefully the slimmer percentage of a much bigger pie works out. But I was amazed at how low the final percentage was.
- ryanbigg 3y ago
  Absolutely! When I wrote for Manning, a print book that sold for $45 netted me a huge $4.50 — 90/10 split. Ebooks were 50/50. Guess the print guys all gotta take their cut.
  - stubish 3y ago
    This was Science Fiction/Fantasy with major publishers early to mid 2000s. The 50% ebook royalty dropped to I think 10% not long after.
jimmyed 3y ago
Another reason for this is the sheer amount of rubbish literature that is being printed, specially in the category of "Young Adult". There are endless streams of psychopath male leads and damsel in distress characters, with predictable story lines and pretentious dialogues.
- dageshi 3y ago
  It's pulp. If you made it disappear the people reading it wouldn't magically start reading "the good stuff", they'd move onto something else suitably mindless in another medium.
- QVVRP4nYz 3y ago
  > There are endless streams of psychopath male leads and damsel in distress characters, with predictable story lines and pretentious dialogues. I mean - it sells. Is it readers fault if other authors write unpopular stuff? "Royal Road" is my guilty pleasure. Almost everything there conforms to that quoted scheme but even among mountains of crap there exist various degrees of quality. That said the popularity isn't strongly correlated to that - checking 2 authors I follow one has $300/month on Patreon while other $20k/month.
  - mobiuscog 3y ago
    Personally, I think this is where Patreon (and similar) shine. Allows 'true fans' to support directly with a much smaller cut than traditional distribution/publishing mechanisms, whilst also not requiring long-term subscriptions. If your content is in demand, you do well.
  - dageshi 3y ago
    Honestly Royal Road is a treasure. It's the only site where I actively click on t he ads because the ads are all for new stories and there's a decent chance I'll like one.
- drakonka 3y ago
  For many people, reading is a fun escape into an alternative reality that they would never want to live out in real life. If they want to escape into a world of dark romance tropes featuring psychopathic male leads, more power to them and to the authors they're supporting.
helboi4 3y ago
As someone who was considering creating a graphic novel this year, I'm glad to see I'm in one of the most lucrative categories. Especially since I have no desire to write pulp romance novels.
dageshi 3y ago
I suspect a younger generation of authors coming up now will almost exclusively self publish. In the niches of fantasy I read there are no traditionally published authors any more, they all monetise via patreon, kindle unlimited and audible. From what I've gleaned no traditional publisher can compete with this. I think probably we reach a point where hardbacks become "collectors editions" for successful works only, while paperbacks are print on demand. The vast majority of consumption will be ebook or audible.
- SethMurphy 3y ago
  This would follow the same path as the music industry and the revival of vinyl record albums. Most are collected and not played since streaming is so much easier and portable. I would go further and say that paperbacks will fall almost completely out of favor as they are less durable and could be seen as more of a "waste" environmentally. A bookshelf in a home is still a wall of virtue and interest signals and I don't think that will go away completely.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    There’s still a large “I like the feel of a real book even if it’s a paperback” contingent. But I assume that is much less true of relatively younger people. (I’ve gotten rid of a lot of my books that are in the public domain and would largely clear out most of my paperbacks if I could magically get them in digital format.
    - panzagl 3y ago
      My daughters (gen Z) prefer physical books, though we'll see if that persists past the first time they have to move apartments themselves.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Record stores that still exist aroud me seem to have travelled back in time, I now feel like the first days of the CD sales, where they were at a corner in a shop full of vynil records. Also someone is buying those vynil players with bluetooth and USB connectors.
ghaff 3y ago
For most non-fiction authors, far and away the biggest monetary benefit of writing books is indirect, e.g. reputational benefits associated with being a published author on a topic. (Going with a recognized publisher can make more sense in this case.) I did make a few thousand the one time I went with a publisher. I’ve also self-published and didn’t really try to make direct income at all as I had a free downloadable ebook. The only real cut I got was when third parties bought books for me to do book signings. On the other hand I’m pretty sure I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars at least in indirect professional benefits.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  I'm convinced this is what most tech oriented books are about, not so much about earning money from a book, but putting "Author of xyz" on their CV and website; "you literally wrote the book on xyz, you are an authority on xyz"
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Assuming they’re going in with eyes open, totally. It’s also a good forcing function to dive deeper into a topic than you might otherwise do. And traditional technical publishers are probably a more effective route for this reason even if you’re leaving some direct money on the table.
    - tnecniv 3y ago
      The famous mathematician Vladimir Arnold said (approximately) “the best way to learn a topic is to write a book on it.” He did that a few times in his career — most notably his excellent book on classical mechanics.
rafaelbeirigo 3y ago
The only easy way to make a living is to sell. Intelectual work like writing, researching, teaching, etc. despite being important, don't have intrinsic appeal such that people naturally and voluntarily put money on it. We are not built like that. This is where institutions like universities, governments, etc. come in.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Of course you need to be good at selling in situations where you can get a good cut. I’m sure there are a lot of car salesmen that are just squeaking by. But, yes, good salesmen for things like enterprise software can do quite well though you more exposed of the vagaries of the market than someone more removed from the front lines.
- j7ake 3y ago
  Even scientists doing basic research need to “sell” their research proposals and papers to get them funded and published. Every piece of professional work has an intended audience, and that means selling to that audience. A work with no intended audience is a hobby.
- prosqlinjector 3y ago
  > This is where institutions like universities, governments, etc. come in. Science was doing pretty well before it became institutionalized in the early 20th century. It's not without tradeoffs, but these aren't essential components.
delboytrotter 3y ago
Being an author is tough, but it's not all bad news. I've made over $2mil over the past 5 years with a self-published book. Certainly not a typical result, but I want to give the authors here some hope.
- ot1138 3y ago
  That's an unusual and excellent outcome! But congratulations for your success! I've published three non-fiction books. The first was self published and got noticed by Entrepreneur press. They published the second two. Despite being a bestseller in the business category, I've made probably only about $30,000 from them. I've been told that mine is also an atypical result as most authors make next to nothing. Despite having plenty of things to write about, I've since decided there are much better uses for my time.
- lock-the-spock 3y ago
  That is indeed unusual and very impressive, congratulations! Are you willing to share any more details? E.g. fiction or non-fiction, genre, distribution channel, how you made your income? Thank you!
  - delboytrotter 3y ago
    Non-fiction in a small business niche. Distribution on Amazon KDP and ACX (Audible). The $2m is from book royalties. It has also generated multiples of this in consulting, coaching and course sales.
- mobiuscog 3y ago
  Really hoping this isn't a book telling you how to make money by self-publishing, or similar. Self-publishing as discussed elsewhere, is certainly the way to go, otherwise those profits would have gone to the publishers.
  - delboytrotter 3y ago
    It's not a book on how to make money. It's in a small business niche.
drakonka 3y ago
I've been self-publishing fiction for a couple of years. Many years ago I looked down on self-published works, expecting them to be of low quality. I thought if someone self-published it was just because they weren't good enough to get a "real" publisher. It is true that self-publishing has a lower barrier to entry so there's a lot of crap that gets put out. But even for _really good authors_ who take the work seriously, trad publishing makes little financial sense most of the time. To succeed in self-pub in the most competitive and lucrative genres your book has to be on-par with any traditionally published book. Expectations have risen. And when you're sitting there looking at a trad deal that will make you a few cents at best from every sale and compare that to the 70-100% royalties you can get self-publishing, the trad deal begins to make much less sense. New writers sometimes think a trad deal will pay off in other ways: they won't have to worry about marketing or other business aspects of putting out a book. But that's not even the case anymore - many traditional publishers expect you to market your own work and build your own following. They won't spend marketing resources on most writers they sign. Making a living as an author is hard, and making a living as a traditionally-published author is near-impossible.
- chii 3y ago
  > But that's not even the case anymore - many traditional publishers expect you to market your own work and build your own following. They won't spend marketing resources on most writers they sign. so is the only reason for using a traditional publisher is the cash advance then?
  - drakonka 3y ago
    For most authors the advances are pretty laughable, too. There is a very small percentage that publishers throw all their weight behind, offer generous advances to, marketing resources, etc. The rest of those they sign are more like "filler". I can't speak for all writers, but here are a few reasons I have seen some authors going with a trad publisher: * Reputation. It can just feel cool to say "Oh yeah I have a book published by Tor" (or whatever). This one is pretty weak for me. Trad publishers don't hold that much special prestige anymore. * Translations. There are some great untapped translation markets out there (like Germany). Some authors self-publish the English version of their books and sell translation rights to a publisher. The publisher then does the work of translating and republishing in the target countries, taking that effort off the author. The royalties are lower, but funding high-quality translations can cost a fortune and for many authors offloading that cost and effort can be worth it. * Audiobooks. Similar to translations. Author may publish the ebook themselves and sell audio rights. Good narrators can cost a fortune, and many authors can't justify that outlay themselves. A trad audiobook publisher can get access to the best narrators and fund the entire production if the author doesn't have the means or desire to do it themselves.
Maro 3y ago
For people in this thread, I strongly recommend Rob Fitzpatrick's book on how to write a book as a business, "Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction": https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonfiction/dp/1919621601 https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonf... Even though I'm not an author I found the advice very useful, it can trivially be applied to building and marketing any product.
- graphe 3y ago
  Most of what they talk about is fiction, romance novels. No wonder it's still popular to be sold, I'm the wrong demographic, to me they're the generic rags with the generic tall strong man and falling woman on the cover. They give them away at the library and nobody wants them still.
ryanbigg 3y ago
Been writing tech books now for over a decade, got about 8-10 under the belt depending on if you count 2nd and 3rd editions as new books. Definitely not writing them for the money — that’s about $300 a month usually. Enough to buy a few knick knacks and some meals. It’s more the notoriety of being a “subject matter expert” that counts. I work full time and then put what I learn from the job into the books to share it with the world. No point hanging onto the knowledge and hoarding it all dragon-like.
sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
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chris-orgmenta 3y ago
Incidentally I have, sitting next to me, a freelance publishing contracts manager who works contract rights for Hachette and other big players. Anyway, the problem in the industry, from my point of view (very opinionated): - The market has-not-priced-in-demographics! Still! Blinkered to the aging readership. - False expectation of revival or sustaining market size. - Often the wrong channel/medium. Much non-fiction & fiction simply doesn't need or benefit from traditional publishing houses. - Industry is still in the process of acknowledging (or is hiding the fact) that brands are so dependant on celebrity names. Celebrity authors are bolstering statistics and making it look more lucrative to the average Joe than it really is. - Clinging on to old worldviews on IP, to the detriment of innovation. - Very much haven't got their head around LLM / prior art changes that are forcing us to be less litigious in the coming years. My associate is more conservative than me, and is also far more knowledgeable than me of course. I also note the consolidation of publishers was at full throttle this past decade.
- mikhael28 3y ago
  Hi! I'm 60,000 words into a non-fiction travelogue/guide to China for Westerners. It's a narrative story of a 60 day journey, and we also walk through Imperial history, modern culture (music/tv), apps apart from WeChat, and more. I'm debating going trad/self-publishing route - can I hire the freelance publishing contracts manager for a consultation? My email is mikhael at hey.com
  - chris-orgmenta 3y ago
    Apologies for not seeing this until now. I have just passed on your details. That's interesting and reminds me of Bill Bryson, e.g. The Lost Continent did a lovely job of intertwining the history, trivia and his childhood memories into his personal travel.
jviotti 3y ago
I'm in the process of releasing my first book, with O'Reilly, this year (https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/unifying-business-data/9781098144999/ https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/unifying-business-...). I didn't do it for the money (but for the recognition), but I'm very interested to know how it will economically fare.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Creating is a tough way to make a living. Writing books, writing short stories, music, apps, videos, and the list goes on and on. And while it's never been easier to create - the tools are plentiful and their prices falling - there's never been more noise to claw through and standout from. Add in shorter and shorter attention spans and more creators produce more quantity because they feel they have no choice. On the other hand, look at an artist like Banksy. Enigmatic and drops are randon. When Banksy drops people take notice. Aside from a eye / mind for quality and creativity, I think there might be a lesson in the somewhere.
- nprateem 3y ago
  The lessons are: 1. Low barriers to entry drive down prices 2. Be first (Banksy)
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    3. And if you can't be first, at least try to stand out in some way. As in - FFS - if the internet got any more beige* it would be invisible. * I use beige as a metaphor (?) for the ultimate bland color. Some (late) nights, I'd even argue it's so bland it doesn't deserve to be recognized as a color.
greenie_beans 3y ago
~99% of the published writers i know have a full-time job to support their book writing.
max_ 3y ago
>Lawmakers, publishers, and the public must recognize authors as professionals deserving fair pay and dignity. We urge collective action to build a system that properly values the essential contributions of writers to society. The Authors Guild will continue this fight until the stark income disparities revealed in our survey are remedied by overdue reforms Do these people really think they can come up with an actual solution to these problems?
- graphe 3y ago
  When I read that I was thinking of changing authors to any other "perceived useless job". Their demand is fit more money because they produce value somehow? What value?
  - max_ 3y ago
    Well, I have learnt alot from some books. The entertainment value is also value.
    - graphe 3y ago
      The books they mostly mention are romance novels and all fiction. I have and mostly continue to avoid them because honestly most of them are rags and it's not worth checking out from the volumes of garbage unless they're recommended by a person I know of esteem.
atlasunshrugged 3y ago
I wonder if this will get better as the book market seems to get increasingly fragmented (Booktok, Bookshop.org, the resurgence of bookstores in the U.S. and UK, etc.) and as there is more competition in other mediums like with Spotify now competing with Audible. But it does seem like writing is an extremely hits based business -- some books/authors that publishers sign are absolute home runs and make 99% of the money out of any given cohort of books and the rest likely don't return the cost of the advance and investment from the publisher's side of things. Maybe technology will also increase the potential for author earnings here, if today you have to hire someone to record an audiobook or do a translation, maybe that gets automated away in a few years and you can more easily publish in every format and language potentially reaching a larger audience.
lastofthemojito 3y ago
One thing that I've found interesting about Iceland is that it is the country with the most authors per capita: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24399599 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24399599 https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/444296-most-published-writers-per-capita https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/444296-mo... But of course most of these authors aren't full-time authors whose income comes chiefly from their books. In fact, the Icelandic Prime Minister recently released a novel: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/28/iceland-pm-releases-novel-reykjavik-katrin-jakobsdottir https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/28/iceland-pm-rel... Having a small and sparse population, Icelanders seem to have a tradition of wearing multiple hats rather than sticking with one specialization. When the men's football team made their first World Cup, the head coach wasn't just a football coach, he also happened to be a dentist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimir_Hallgrímsson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimir_Hallgrímsson It seems like a lot of people lament that more folks can't make it as full-time authors, but I don't really have a problem with that if the demand for their writing isn't there. But if the US were more like Iceland and typical "real" jobs paid a livable wage with reasonable hours, maybe those passionate about writing could still manage to take a shot at it without it being a big deal if their book turned out to be a commercial flop?
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  > But if the US were more like Iceland and typical "real" jobs paid a livable wage with reasonable hours That's the key issue in general, not just for US. When the system is designed to extract maximum efficiency, there is little room for other stuff
  - tw235346nmolk 3y ago
    Maximum efficiency in regards to what metric? (Before you say 'money/the economy', inequality seems to be bad in that respect [1], and that's about the only thing in regards to which US system seems to be highly efficiency ;) [1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf
graphe 3y ago
> By far the largest percentage of respondents, 79%, were white, followed by 8% Black, 4% Hispanic, 2% AAPI, and 2% Native American. Twelve percent identified as LGBTQIA+ and 11% identified as disabled, meeting the ADA’s definition. The survey did find that diversity efforts were beginning to bear fruit—Black, AAPI, and Hispanic authorship has increased the most since 2019, and LGBTQIA+ and nonbinary authors were also above average among new authors. Sixty-one percent of respondents were women, 34% men, and 5% nonbinary. What diversity efforts did they do? >The median book-related income for survey respondents in 2022 was up 9% from 2018, adjusted for inflation, with all the increase coming from full-time authors, whose income was up 20%, compared to a 4% decline for part-time authors. Whatever was to increase income worked. The books they talk about are mostly what I'd consider trash I wouldn't read: generic romance novels and fan fiction with changed names. Low ceiling.
Procrastes 3y ago
I've published traditionally and it was a great experience. The publisher (O'Reilly) was great to work with, and the editors made a tremendous, positive difference in the finished work. That was many years ago. Since, I've moved to fiction and self publishing, and that's been hard, but rewarding. It's hard and expensive to build a following on your own with just books and ads. Now I have moved to web serials and subscriptions. I'm convinced this is the best time to be a writer. The hardest part, finding an audience, is as easy as sticking to a publishing schedule and engaging with readers.
OliveMate 3y ago
Not in response to the article but the general vibes in the comments. Writing a published book and having it out there is a thought that really resonates me. I wonder what I'd write if I had more time to myself, a clear mind, and /if I was a radically different person who wanted to do it/. The thought of having written something, put it out there, and to have someone enjoy it is lovely – I'd be happy writing schlock if it came straight from my heart. But in terms of being the sort of person to sit down every day, concentrate, and slave away at it... That isn't me. Props to people who manage to put anything on a single page, let alone finish a whole book.
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paxys 3y ago
I get that this is the authors guild and activism and lobbying is literally their job, but statements like "survey finds that median book and writing-related income for authors in 2022 was below the poverty level" are meaningless. What makes one an "author" exactly? Publishing a book? I can do that in 5 minutes online with 3 clicks. Does that mean I qualify for the survey? Well, I made $0 from my writing last year, so I guess that means I'm being exploited and the government isn't properly valuing the essential contribution I make to society. I'll expect my weekly check in the mail. It's like saying the average software developer makes below-poverty wages from their work...if you consider everyone in the world with an idea for an app in their head to be a software developer.
- spencerflem 3y ago
  No, it would be like counting everyone who made an app as a software developer
  - paxys 3y ago
    Go through any of the app stores and look up all the trash that is published on a daily basis that gets single digit downloads. Look at all the new websites registered. Millions of people follow "create a React to-do list" tutorials and write their own. These are all software developers who make zero income from their craft. Yet no one is arguing that software developers as a whole are underprivileged. You can apply this same logic to actors, musicians, real estate agents and a hundred other professions. There's just the understanding that if there are zero barriers to entry you have to have some test that sets the professionals/serious practitioners apart. Otherwise your surveys are always going to tend towards 0.
- stubish 3y ago
  Self publishing certainly muddied the waters for statistics on author income, which is why the survey and article break things down info self published and traditionally published. Fundamentally though, it isn't if you qualify for the survey, but if you both know about it and identify as an author, passionately enough to bother filling it out. How do you think an author should be defined? And what list do you use to validate them? If you start raising the bar, you start limiting the scope. Maybe that is the problem; comparing apples with oranges or romance authors with self help gurus. But if you set your bar to something like 'authors making >$20,000 in royalties per year', you will unsurprisingly get a result where authors make >$20,000 in royalties per year.
throwuwu 3y ago
Tangential, but do any authors apply the same techniques promoted by software developers for honing their craft? e.g. instead of trying to write the next great American novel you focus on writing a lot of short stories and then analyze them for market fit and expand on the ones that have legs?
- ghaff 3y ago
  I think writers as a whole are far less inclined to concern themselves with market fit than many developers are. Short stories haven’t historically been very lucrative relative to longer works. Although there were some genres, eg SF, where they were a natural entry point.
  - throwuwu 3y ago
    Maybe they should be? I suggested short stories as a way to practice and test the waters since they would work well with social media and aggregator sites, people are willing to read a short story they find on reddit or hn but much less likely to read a whole book. Keeping your “demos” short also requires less commitment and takes less time so you can do more of them. The idea isn’t to earn money from short stories but to do analytics on them in order to decide which to turn into a novel.
- diamondap 3y ago
  Actually, one software-developer-turned-writer did something close. Check out Chris Fox's book "Write to Market" on Amazon. He sat down and analyzed sales figures for different book genres on Amazon then chose a genre where he thought he could squeeze onto the top ten bestseller list. He's been cranking out books for years and selling pretty well. If you check his author page, you'll see he has quite a few titles out.
- Planktonne 3y ago
  You can't take every good short story and turn it into a novel, and not every novel could be meaningfully reduced to a short story. Concepts that work in one format won't work in another.
AlbertCory 3y ago
It IS near-impossible. I have two books on Amazon (search "Albert Cory") which are actually about our industry, and I've mentioned them here many times. Fortunately I'm retired and don't need the income. One data point for you: I've been taking various angles on my new book, looking for books with that feature, and then finding the agent who represented them. Sounds smart, right? Hasn't worked so far. One fallout of that is, I've been checking these books out of the library (less $$$ commitment there!) and at least starting them. What dreck people read! If the main character isn't solving a murder, connecting with their long-lost lover, fighting terrorists, or engaged in other TV-worthy plots, the book will never make it onto bookshelves. Since I don't have to care about people's lousy taste, I don't. Lastly, the figure of $10K for an audiobook that someone mentioned is way too high, in my experience.
ffitch 3y ago
Worries me a bit that an established “natural selection” process pivoted towards quick turnaround. Thirty years ago publishing house would decline 99% of the manuscripts, the rest they will heavily edit, print in somewhat large numbers, and extensively promote. Today they accept more stuff, print in small 3,000–5,000 batches, then throw away forever. To me, feels like a young but promising author went from a 1% chance of getting recognized to 10% chance of getting printed and 100% chance of getting forgotten right after.
CM30 3y ago
It's the same with most creative fields really. The vast majority of people earn very little from their work, and a few really skilled/lucky folks at the top of the field earn a fortune. See also music, art, game design/development, content creation on sites like YouTube and Twitch, blogging, etc. Part of this is simply due to competition; there was stacks of it before the internet got big, and there's probably a thousand times more now the internet has become normalised. The barrier to entry to writing a book or becoming a writer is extremely low in the grand scheme of things (well, if you have the determination/patience to finish), so enough people do that you're spoilt for choice there. Add this to how challenging the marketing/sales side of running a business is by default, and how trying to make a sustainable income as an author or creator is basically being a sole trader/entrepreneur, and well, it's not too surprising that most people don't do particularly well from it.
- cruano 3y ago
  On the competition aspect, I think it's also important to look at the consumer side. For me it was wild knowing Mission Impossible struggled at the box office because of Barbie/Oppenheimer, especially because it was such a big budget film and it was actually my favorite of the three. The reality is that most people would maybe go once a month to the cinema, so they have to prioritize what to watch. To make matters worse, you are also competing with all of history. If you want to read 12 books this year, when are you going to get to the small creators with years-worth of classics to go through?
  - PsylentKnight 3y ago
    Agree with your overall point, but the Mission Impossible thing isn't that surprising to me. I think a lot of people are tired of endless reboots/sequels of action-adventure movies. Also I think Tom Cruise can have the opposite of star power these days, a lot of people feel kind of ick about him.
    - leephillips 3y ago
      I don’t watch movies with certain actors in them. He’s one of them.
WalterBright 3y ago
It's a lot like picking a career as an artist, a musician, or an athlete. A very small percentage makes a lucrative living, and the rest wander in the desert. > unconscionable contracts Self-publishing has never been an easier option than today. > book bans As far as I can tell, these are only for R rated books in schools and libraries. Isn't it the same as R movies? Nobody thinks of R movies as being banned. > action to build a system that properly values the essential contributions of writers They're valued by the free market, i.e. people freely paying what they believe the book is worth to them. I'm curious how the Guild expects to change this. Have government regulations that mandate payment per word? Government subsidy?
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Many types of books have ancillary results for the author than can be lucrative. For example, writing a solid academic book can get you a job or more pay in an academic setting, or a top job in a technical position.
paulpauper 3y ago
Substack is better, imho, if you can serialize it . Monthly subs is recurring revenue, compared to one-time book purchases.
sleepydog 3y ago
Anecdotally I have found the amount of books I read has skyrocketed since I got a library card. I used to hesitate at book stores trying to decide if a book was worth $30 and the space on my (already full) book shelf. Now, if I hear about a book that's even remotely interesting, I check it out from the library almost impulsively. If I don't like it, I don't finish it. If I really like it, I buy a copy. The checkout deadlines also provide a nice motivation for me to finish a book. I went from reading less than 5-10 books a year best to reading 40 books in 2023. And the more I read, the more I want to read. I am spoiled, living in NYC, as the NYPL and Brooklyn PL between them have a pretty extensive catalog, and it's rare that they don't have a book I want, even recently published books. There's often a wait list though. It's also easy to get a lot of reading done during my commute on public transit. We still don't get cell service on the MTA between stations, so books are the best form of entertainment. Of course, I suppose if everyone used the library exclusively, writers would make very little money. But I like to think it works out. I bought more books last year than I did before using the library, and attended a few book talks & signings at my local book store.
- Lord-Jobo 3y ago
  Piracy did the same thing for me. If would read more than 50 pages in a book i would buy a copy, if not i would delete and move on. I think i fully read 21 in 2023, and ditched probably about as many before 50 pages. I absolutely bought and read more books than in 2022, not even close.
  - pstorm 3y ago
    Couldn't you do the same with Kindle samples? Seems lower effort.
    - jjice 3y ago
      I may be wrong, but Kindle samples are often much shorter than 50 pages in my experience. Usually too short for me to make a choice as to whether I want to read the book or not.
ramesh31 3y ago
Pulp will be almost completely replaced by AI, no doubt, within the next couple years. I don't see how anyone could possibly consider that a viable career path anymore. The people who consume it couldn't care less or notice, and they'll have it tailored precisely to their own tastes based on advertising data collection. It was never about quality, just sheer quantity of the same thing over and over again (but slightly different), which LLMs are phenomenal at. Same goes for pop music and mainstream cinema on a slightly further timescale.
fredgrott 3y ago
A few weeks back one of the VCs now attached to newline co attempted to sell me on becoming dev author through their program. I of course pointed out that as I market upfront I am getting paid via my substack so essentially I solved the problems his startup is still trying to solve. And of course he ghosted me.
donald_piano 3y ago
https://www.amazon.com/Across-Silicon-Bravely-Stan-Stevens/dp/B092P9NWNB https://www.amazon.com/Across-Silicon-Bravely-Stan-Stevens/d...
Evenjos 3y ago
I have a 6 book contract with Podium, my debut was in the top 100 books of 2023 by Kirkus, and I am nowhere near quitting my day job. I've paid attention to the publishing industry for years. Like all of the arts, it's oversaturated and there's a lot of churn. IMO, writers who earn a full-time living as authors fall into three basic categories. They either a) established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers with the Big Five before Amazon democratized the marketplace, circa 2010 and earlier, b) they established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers as early adopters of the Amazon Kindle marketplace, circa 2011 to 2016, or c) they own an advertising agency, are married to someone who owns an advertising agency, they are slick marketing gurus, or they are major social media influencers. There are exceptions. I see interesting innovations in the web serial space, where I play around. I sell advance chapters on Patreon. Some authors do earn a full-time living that way. But in general, yes, it is very tough to be a professional author or an artist or a musician or an indie game developer these days. Everyone wants to be one. I also see cynical authors and artists using AI to 100x their content production so they can nickel and dime their way into top seller spots. The algorithms boost anyone whose works consistently sell and bury everyone else.
syndacks 3y ago
I’ve written a book, edited the hell out of it, gotten feedback from friends, etc (I think it’s pretty good!) and have tried reaching out to literary agents (this is what the trad route recommends). So far about 0/20. Any tips here? I’m located in NYC fwiw.

196 points by gone35 3y ago

The largest demographic of readers, who have the ability to make or break a book is middle class white women. If you can convince them to read your book, you have made it.

mbork_pl 3y ago
I would say it depends on the book. I don't have such data for my Elisp textbook (which fared pretty well), but I'm not sure it would confirm your claim.
- taopai 3y ago
  > middle class white women Sachachua enters this category. I am sure she would be glad to read your book. pd: sacha if you read this, no offense, just joking, hahahaha

dannyw 3y ago

Authors apparently earn cents of royalties for every physical book purchased. That seems crazy. I wouldn't mind paying $5 more for a book if >90% of it went to the author.

mbork_pl 3y ago
> Authors apparently earn cents of royalties for every physical book purchased. That seems crazy. Agreed, but it is (somewhat) justified by the sheer length of the chain (printing house, distributors, bookstores etc.) FWIW, I wrote and self-published a book on a 99% automated platform (e-book only), and I get 80% royalties. Another (anec)datapoint: I published a book (this time not written by me) in a more "traditional" way (i.e., on paper). The book is pretty niche, had 0 marketing expenses (we basically only relied on word-of-mouth). We kept the costs low, but not too low (we paid a bit for nice typesetting, illustrations, good paper etc.). We did not even try to put it in bookstores and only sold it via Internet (using an ebay-style platform, not even a custom e-commerce solution; we didn't even had a landing page with a our own domain!). This allowed us to break even after a few months, which I think is insane comparing to the "big book" (aka publishing industry).
- Simon_ORourke 3y ago
  > FWIW, I wrote and self-published a book on a 99% automated platform (e-book only), and I get 80% royalties. Would you mind sharing which platform this is?
  - mbork_pl 3y ago
    Sure. While at that, let me also plug my book: https://leanpub.com/hacking-your-way-emacs https://leanpub.com/hacking-your-way-emacs
    - pomian 3y ago
      Thanks for that link! That's very interesting. I am editing two books for two authors at the present, both of whom already published, in paper, and with Amazon I believe. But this looks like a very interesting publishing model. Especially for more technical books. There are a few in progress that I know about. (Is emacs something different than the apple computer?)
smugglerFlynn 3y ago
Any book that is $5 more expensive than current market price will instantly lose to thousands of competative cheaper books where authors write about similar topics while agreeing to earn peanuts. You can try solving this by industry-wide regulations, but that would make average price of books much higher, and will likely steer readers to other medias, shift revenues to already established writers, or both.
- zer0tonin 3y ago
  Are books purchase really so price sensitive? It's not exactly like you're buying potatoes
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I’m not sure it’s a continuous supply-demand curve but you get out of the “normal” discounted range—say above $15–and people will really think twice.
  - falcolas 3y ago
    IMO, in the age of Kindle Unlimited, yes. I, myself, have a very hard time justifying purchases over $6. The reason is pretty simple, the higher priced books are not guaranteed to be better, just written by a more widely recognized author.
- EA 3y ago
  OP should just donate $5 to his favorite writers.
- ziddoap 3y ago
  >Any book that is $5 more expensive than current market price will instantly lose to thousands of competative cheaper books where authors write about similar topics while agreeing to earn peanuts. I could see this being true for non-fiction, but for fiction? I'm generally not looking at price, I'm looking at whether the story seems interesting. Two books can both be about space battles (or whatever your topic of choice is), but one can seem extremely interesting while the other doesn't. Similar topics doesn't really mean much compared to everything else (writing style, characters, etc.)
jeffwass 3y ago
A few years ago I met an author who was switching from self-pub to traditional pub for one of his books (usually this is tough to do, traditional publishers typically won't touch a book that started off as self-published). His take went from 70% on Amazon to just 7% w/ the traditional publisher. Of course the traditional publisher handles all marketing and distribution, so hopefully the slimmer percentage of a much bigger pie works out. But I was amazed at how low the final percentage was.
ryanbigg 3y ago
Absolutely! When I wrote for Manning, a print book that sold for $45 netted me a huge $4.50 — 90/10 split. Ebooks were 50/50. Guess the print guys all gotta take their cut.
- stubish 3y ago
  This was Science Fiction/Fantasy with major publishers early to mid 2000s. The 50% ebook royalty dropped to I think 10% not long after.

jimmyed 3y ago

Another reason for this is the sheer amount of rubbish literature that is being printed, specially in the category of "Young Adult". There are endless streams of psychopath male leads and damsel in distress characters, with predictable story lines and pretentious dialogues.

dageshi 3y ago
It's pulp. If you made it disappear the people reading it wouldn't magically start reading "the good stuff", they'd move onto something else suitably mindless in another medium.
QVVRP4nYz 3y ago
> There are endless streams of psychopath male leads and damsel in distress characters, with predictable story lines and pretentious dialogues. I mean - it sells. Is it readers fault if other authors write unpopular stuff? "Royal Road" is my guilty pleasure. Almost everything there conforms to that quoted scheme but even among mountains of crap there exist various degrees of quality. That said the popularity isn't strongly correlated to that - checking 2 authors I follow one has $300/month on Patreon while other $20k/month.
- mobiuscog 3y ago
  Personally, I think this is where Patreon (and similar) shine. Allows 'true fans' to support directly with a much smaller cut than traditional distribution/publishing mechanisms, whilst also not requiring long-term subscriptions. If your content is in demand, you do well.
- dageshi 3y ago
  Honestly Royal Road is a treasure. It's the only site where I actively click on t he ads because the ads are all for new stories and there's a decent chance I'll like one.
drakonka 3y ago
For many people, reading is a fun escape into an alternative reality that they would never want to live out in real life. If they want to escape into a world of dark romance tropes featuring psychopathic male leads, more power to them and to the authors they're supporting.

helboi4 3y ago

As someone who was considering creating a graphic novel this year, I'm glad to see I'm in one of the most lucrative categories. Especially since I have no desire to write pulp romance novels.

dageshi 3y ago

I suspect a younger generation of authors coming up now will almost exclusively self publish. In the niches of fantasy I read there are no traditionally published authors any more, they all monetise via patreon, kindle unlimited and audible. From what I've gleaned no traditional publisher can compete with this. I think probably we reach a point where hardbacks become "collectors editions" for successful works only, while paperbacks are print on demand. The vast majority of consumption will be ebook or audible.

SethMurphy 3y ago
This would follow the same path as the music industry and the revival of vinyl record albums. Most are collected and not played since streaming is so much easier and portable. I would go further and say that paperbacks will fall almost completely out of favor as they are less durable and could be seen as more of a "waste" environmentally. A bookshelf in a home is still a wall of virtue and interest signals and I don't think that will go away completely.
- ghaff 3y ago
  There’s still a large “I like the feel of a real book even if it’s a paperback” contingent. But I assume that is much less true of relatively younger people. (I’ve gotten rid of a lot of my books that are in the public domain and would largely clear out most of my paperbacks if I could magically get them in digital format.
  - panzagl 3y ago
    My daughters (gen Z) prefer physical books, though we'll see if that persists past the first time they have to move apartments themselves.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Record stores that still exist aroud me seem to have travelled back in time, I now feel like the first days of the CD sales, where they were at a corner in a shop full of vynil records. Also someone is buying those vynil players with bluetooth and USB connectors.

ghaff 3y ago

For most non-fiction authors, far and away the biggest monetary benefit of writing books is indirect, e.g. reputational benefits associated with being a published author on a topic. (Going with a recognized publisher can make more sense in this case.) I did make a few thousand the one time I went with a publisher. I’ve also self-published and didn’t really try to make direct income at all as I had a free downloadable ebook. The only real cut I got was when third parties bought books for me to do book signings. On the other hand I’m pretty sure I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars at least in indirect professional benefits.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I'm convinced this is what most tech oriented books are about, not so much about earning money from a book, but putting "Author of xyz" on their CV and website; "you literally wrote the book on xyz, you are an authority on xyz"
- ghaff 3y ago
  Assuming they’re going in with eyes open, totally. It’s also a good forcing function to dive deeper into a topic than you might otherwise do. And traditional technical publishers are probably a more effective route for this reason even if you’re leaving some direct money on the table.
  - tnecniv 3y ago
    The famous mathematician Vladimir Arnold said (approximately) “the best way to learn a topic is to write a book on it.” He did that a few times in his career — most notably his excellent book on classical mechanics.

rafaelbeirigo 3y ago

The only easy way to make a living is to sell. Intelectual work like writing, researching, teaching, etc. despite being important, don't have intrinsic appeal such that people naturally and voluntarily put money on it. We are not built like that. This is where institutions like universities, governments, etc. come in.

ghaff 3y ago
Of course you need to be good at selling in situations where you can get a good cut. I’m sure there are a lot of car salesmen that are just squeaking by. But, yes, good salesmen for things like enterprise software can do quite well though you more exposed of the vagaries of the market than someone more removed from the front lines.
j7ake 3y ago
Even scientists doing basic research need to “sell” their research proposals and papers to get them funded and published. Every piece of professional work has an intended audience, and that means selling to that audience. A work with no intended audience is a hobby.
prosqlinjector 3y ago
> This is where institutions like universities, governments, etc. come in. Science was doing pretty well before it became institutionalized in the early 20th century. It's not without tradeoffs, but these aren't essential components.

delboytrotter 3y ago

Being an author is tough, but it's not all bad news. I've made over $2mil over the past 5 years with a self-published book. Certainly not a typical result, but I want to give the authors here some hope.

ot1138 3y ago
That's an unusual and excellent outcome! But congratulations for your success! I've published three non-fiction books. The first was self published and got noticed by Entrepreneur press. They published the second two. Despite being a bestseller in the business category, I've made probably only about $30,000 from them. I've been told that mine is also an atypical result as most authors make next to nothing. Despite having plenty of things to write about, I've since decided there are much better uses for my time.
lock-the-spock 3y ago
That is indeed unusual and very impressive, congratulations! Are you willing to share any more details? E.g. fiction or non-fiction, genre, distribution channel, how you made your income? Thank you!
- delboytrotter 3y ago
  Non-fiction in a small business niche. Distribution on Amazon KDP and ACX (Audible). The $2m is from book royalties. It has also generated multiples of this in consulting, coaching and course sales.
mobiuscog 3y ago
Really hoping this isn't a book telling you how to make money by self-publishing, or similar. Self-publishing as discussed elsewhere, is certainly the way to go, otherwise those profits would have gone to the publishers.
- delboytrotter 3y ago
  It's not a book on how to make money. It's in a small business niche.

drakonka 3y ago

I've been self-publishing fiction for a couple of years. Many years ago I looked down on self-published works, expecting them to be of low quality. I thought if someone self-published it was just because they weren't good enough to get a "real" publisher. It is true that self-publishing has a lower barrier to entry so there's a lot of crap that gets put out. But even for _really good authors_ who take the work seriously, trad publishing makes little financial sense most of the time. To succeed in self-pub in the most competitive and lucrative genres your book has to be on-par with any traditionally published book. Expectations have risen. And when you're sitting there looking at a trad deal that will make you a few cents at best from every sale and compare that to the 70-100% royalties you can get self-publishing, the trad deal begins to make much less sense. New writers sometimes think a trad deal will pay off in other ways: they won't have to worry about marketing or other business aspects of putting out a book. But that's not even the case anymore - many traditional publishers expect you to market your own work and build your own following. They won't spend marketing resources on most writers they sign. Making a living as an author is hard, and making a living as a traditionally-published author is near-impossible.

chii 3y ago
> But that's not even the case anymore - many traditional publishers expect you to market your own work and build your own following. They won't spend marketing resources on most writers they sign. so is the only reason for using a traditional publisher is the cash advance then?
- drakonka 3y ago
  For most authors the advances are pretty laughable, too. There is a very small percentage that publishers throw all their weight behind, offer generous advances to, marketing resources, etc. The rest of those they sign are more like "filler". I can't speak for all writers, but here are a few reasons I have seen some authors going with a trad publisher: * Reputation. It can just feel cool to say "Oh yeah I have a book published by Tor" (or whatever). This one is pretty weak for me. Trad publishers don't hold that much special prestige anymore. * Translations. There are some great untapped translation markets out there (like Germany). Some authors self-publish the English version of their books and sell translation rights to a publisher. The publisher then does the work of translating and republishing in the target countries, taking that effort off the author. The royalties are lower, but funding high-quality translations can cost a fortune and for many authors offloading that cost and effort can be worth it. * Audiobooks. Similar to translations. Author may publish the ebook themselves and sell audio rights. Good narrators can cost a fortune, and many authors can't justify that outlay themselves. A trad audiobook publisher can get access to the best narrators and fund the entire production if the author doesn't have the means or desire to do it themselves.

Maro 3y ago

For people in this thread, I strongly recommend Rob Fitzpatrick's book on how to write a book as a business, "Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction": https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonfiction/dp/1919621601 https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonf... Even though I'm not an author I found the advice very useful, it can trivially be applied to building and marketing any product.

graphe 3y ago
Most of what they talk about is fiction, romance novels. No wonder it's still popular to be sold, I'm the wrong demographic, to me they're the generic rags with the generic tall strong man and falling woman on the cover. They give them away at the library and nobody wants them still.

ryanbigg 3y ago

Been writing tech books now for over a decade, got about 8-10 under the belt depending on if you count 2nd and 3rd editions as new books. Definitely not writing them for the money — that’s about $300 a month usually. Enough to buy a few knick knacks and some meals. It’s more the notoriety of being a “subject matter expert” that counts. I work full time and then put what I learn from the job into the books to share it with the world. No point hanging onto the knowledge and hoarding it all dragon-like.

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago

[flagged]

chris-orgmenta 3y ago

Incidentally I have, sitting next to me, a freelance publishing contracts manager who works contract rights for Hachette and other big players. Anyway, the problem in the industry, from my point of view (very opinionated): - The market has-not-priced-in-demographics! Still! Blinkered to the aging readership. - False expectation of revival or sustaining market size. - Often the wrong channel/medium. Much non-fiction & fiction simply doesn't need or benefit from traditional publishing houses. - Industry is still in the process of acknowledging (or is hiding the fact) that brands are so dependant on celebrity names. Celebrity authors are bolstering statistics and making it look more lucrative to the average Joe than it really is. - Clinging on to old worldviews on IP, to the detriment of innovation. - Very much haven't got their head around LLM / prior art changes that are forcing us to be less litigious in the coming years. My associate is more conservative than me, and is also far more knowledgeable than me of course. I also note the consolidation of publishers was at full throttle this past decade.

mikhael28 3y ago
Hi! I'm 60,000 words into a non-fiction travelogue/guide to China for Westerners. It's a narrative story of a 60 day journey, and we also walk through Imperial history, modern culture (music/tv), apps apart from WeChat, and more. I'm debating going trad/self-publishing route - can I hire the freelance publishing contracts manager for a consultation? My email is mikhael at hey.com
- chris-orgmenta 3y ago
  Apologies for not seeing this until now. I have just passed on your details. That's interesting and reminds me of Bill Bryson, e.g. The Lost Continent did a lovely job of intertwining the history, trivia and his childhood memories into his personal travel.

jviotti 3y ago

I'm in the process of releasing my first book, with O'Reilly, this year (https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/unifying-business-data/9781098144999/ https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/unifying-business-...). I didn't do it for the money (but for the recognition), but I'm very interested to know how it will economically fare.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Creating is a tough way to make a living. Writing books, writing short stories, music, apps, videos, and the list goes on and on. And while it's never been easier to create - the tools are plentiful and their prices falling - there's never been more noise to claw through and standout from. Add in shorter and shorter attention spans and more creators produce more quantity because they feel they have no choice. On the other hand, look at an artist like Banksy. Enigmatic and drops are randon. When Banksy drops people take notice. Aside from a eye / mind for quality and creativity, I think there might be a lesson in the somewhere.

nprateem 3y ago
The lessons are: 1. Low barriers to entry drive down prices 2. Be first (Banksy)
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  3. And if you can't be first, at least try to stand out in some way. As in - FFS - if the internet got any more beige* it would be invisible. * I use beige as a metaphor (?) for the ultimate bland color. Some (late) nights, I'd even argue it's so bland it doesn't deserve to be recognized as a color.

greenie_beans 3y ago

~99% of the published writers i know have a full-time job to support their book writing.

max_ 3y ago

>Lawmakers, publishers, and the public must recognize authors as professionals deserving fair pay and dignity. We urge collective action to build a system that properly values the essential contributions of writers to society. The Authors Guild will continue this fight until the stark income disparities revealed in our survey are remedied by overdue reforms Do these people really think they can come up with an actual solution to these problems?

graphe 3y ago
When I read that I was thinking of changing authors to any other "perceived useless job". Their demand is fit more money because they produce value somehow? What value?
- max_ 3y ago
  Well, I have learnt alot from some books. The entertainment value is also value.
  - graphe 3y ago
    The books they mostly mention are romance novels and all fiction. I have and mostly continue to avoid them because honestly most of them are rags and it's not worth checking out from the volumes of garbage unless they're recommended by a person I know of esteem.

atlasunshrugged 3y ago

I wonder if this will get better as the book market seems to get increasingly fragmented (Booktok, Bookshop.org, the resurgence of bookstores in the U.S. and UK, etc.) and as there is more competition in other mediums like with Spotify now competing with Audible. But it does seem like writing is an extremely hits based business -- some books/authors that publishers sign are absolute home runs and make 99% of the money out of any given cohort of books and the rest likely don't return the cost of the advance and investment from the publisher's side of things. Maybe technology will also increase the potential for author earnings here, if today you have to hire someone to record an audiobook or do a translation, maybe that gets automated away in a few years and you can more easily publish in every format and language potentially reaching a larger audience.

lastofthemojito 3y ago

One thing that I've found interesting about Iceland is that it is the country with the most authors per capita: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24399599 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24399599 https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/444296-most-published-writers-per-capita https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/444296-mo... But of course most of these authors aren't full-time authors whose income comes chiefly from their books. In fact, the Icelandic Prime Minister recently released a novel: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/28/iceland-pm-releases-novel-reykjavik-katrin-jakobsdottir https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/28/iceland-pm-rel... Having a small and sparse population, Icelanders seem to have a tradition of wearing multiple hats rather than sticking with one specialization. When the men's football team made their first World Cup, the head coach wasn't just a football coach, he also happened to be a dentist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimir_Hallgrímsson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimir_Hallgrímsson It seems like a lot of people lament that more folks can't make it as full-time authors, but I don't really have a problem with that if the demand for their writing isn't there. But if the US were more like Iceland and typical "real" jobs paid a livable wage with reasonable hours, maybe those passionate about writing could still manage to take a shot at it without it being a big deal if their book turned out to be a commercial flop?

gloryjulio 3y ago
> But if the US were more like Iceland and typical "real" jobs paid a livable wage with reasonable hours That's the key issue in general, not just for US. When the system is designed to extract maximum efficiency, there is little room for other stuff
- tw235346nmolk 3y ago
  Maximum efficiency in regards to what metric? (Before you say 'money/the economy', inequality seems to be bad in that respect [1], and that's about the only thing in regards to which US system seems to be highly efficiency ;) [1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf

graphe 3y ago

> By far the largest percentage of respondents, 79%, were white, followed by 8% Black, 4% Hispanic, 2% AAPI, and 2% Native American. Twelve percent identified as LGBTQIA+ and 11% identified as disabled, meeting the ADA’s definition. The survey did find that diversity efforts were beginning to bear fruit—Black, AAPI, and Hispanic authorship has increased the most since 2019, and LGBTQIA+ and nonbinary authors were also above average among new authors. Sixty-one percent of respondents were women, 34% men, and 5% nonbinary. What diversity efforts did they do? >The median book-related income for survey respondents in 2022 was up 9% from 2018, adjusted for inflation, with all the increase coming from full-time authors, whose income was up 20%, compared to a 4% decline for part-time authors. Whatever was to increase income worked. The books they talk about are mostly what I'd consider trash I wouldn't read: generic romance novels and fan fiction with changed names. Low ceiling.

Procrastes 3y ago

I've published traditionally and it was a great experience. The publisher (O'Reilly) was great to work with, and the editors made a tremendous, positive difference in the finished work. That was many years ago. Since, I've moved to fiction and self publishing, and that's been hard, but rewarding. It's hard and expensive to build a following on your own with just books and ads. Now I have moved to web serials and subscriptions. I'm convinced this is the best time to be a writer. The hardest part, finding an audience, is as easy as sticking to a publishing schedule and engaging with readers.

OliveMate 3y ago

Not in response to the article but the general vibes in the comments. Writing a published book and having it out there is a thought that really resonates me. I wonder what I'd write if I had more time to myself, a clear mind, and /if I was a radically different person who wanted to do it/. The thought of having written something, put it out there, and to have someone enjoy it is lovely – I'd be happy writing schlock if it came straight from my heart. But in terms of being the sort of person to sit down every day, concentrate, and slave away at it... That isn't me. Props to people who manage to put anything on a single page, let alone finish a whole book.

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paxys 3y ago

I get that this is the authors guild and activism and lobbying is literally their job, but statements like "survey finds that median book and writing-related income for authors in 2022 was below the poverty level" are meaningless. What makes one an "author" exactly? Publishing a book? I can do that in 5 minutes online with 3 clicks. Does that mean I qualify for the survey? Well, I made $0 from my writing last year, so I guess that means I'm being exploited and the government isn't properly valuing the essential contribution I make to society. I'll expect my weekly check in the mail. It's like saying the average software developer makes below-poverty wages from their work...if you consider everyone in the world with an idea for an app in their head to be a software developer.

spencerflem 3y ago
No, it would be like counting everyone who made an app as a software developer
- paxys 3y ago
  Go through any of the app stores and look up all the trash that is published on a daily basis that gets single digit downloads. Look at all the new websites registered. Millions of people follow "create a React to-do list" tutorials and write their own. These are all software developers who make zero income from their craft. Yet no one is arguing that software developers as a whole are underprivileged. You can apply this same logic to actors, musicians, real estate agents and a hundred other professions. There's just the understanding that if there are zero barriers to entry you have to have some test that sets the professionals/serious practitioners apart. Otherwise your surveys are always going to tend towards 0.
stubish 3y ago
Self publishing certainly muddied the waters for statistics on author income, which is why the survey and article break things down info self published and traditionally published. Fundamentally though, it isn't if you qualify for the survey, but if you both know about it and identify as an author, passionately enough to bother filling it out. How do you think an author should be defined? And what list do you use to validate them? If you start raising the bar, you start limiting the scope. Maybe that is the problem; comparing apples with oranges or romance authors with self help gurus. But if you set your bar to something like 'authors making >$20,000 in royalties per year', you will unsurprisingly get a result where authors make >$20,000 in royalties per year.

throwuwu 3y ago

Tangential, but do any authors apply the same techniques promoted by software developers for honing their craft? e.g. instead of trying to write the next great American novel you focus on writing a lot of short stories and then analyze them for market fit and expand on the ones that have legs?

ghaff 3y ago
I think writers as a whole are far less inclined to concern themselves with market fit than many developers are. Short stories haven’t historically been very lucrative relative to longer works. Although there were some genres, eg SF, where they were a natural entry point.
- throwuwu 3y ago
  Maybe they should be? I suggested short stories as a way to practice and test the waters since they would work well with social media and aggregator sites, people are willing to read a short story they find on reddit or hn but much less likely to read a whole book. Keeping your “demos” short also requires less commitment and takes less time so you can do more of them. The idea isn’t to earn money from short stories but to do analytics on them in order to decide which to turn into a novel.
diamondap 3y ago
Actually, one software-developer-turned-writer did something close. Check out Chris Fox's book "Write to Market" on Amazon. He sat down and analyzed sales figures for different book genres on Amazon then chose a genre where he thought he could squeeze onto the top ten bestseller list. He's been cranking out books for years and selling pretty well. If you check his author page, you'll see he has quite a few titles out.
Planktonne 3y ago
You can't take every good short story and turn it into a novel, and not every novel could be meaningfully reduced to a short story. Concepts that work in one format won't work in another.

AlbertCory 3y ago

It IS near-impossible. I have two books on Amazon (search "Albert Cory") which are actually about our industry, and I've mentioned them here many times. Fortunately I'm retired and don't need the income. One data point for you: I've been taking various angles on my new book, looking for books with that feature, and then finding the agent who represented them. Sounds smart, right? Hasn't worked so far. One fallout of that is, I've been checking these books out of the library (less $$$ commitment there!) and at least starting them. What dreck people read! If the main character isn't solving a murder, connecting with their long-lost lover, fighting terrorists, or engaged in other TV-worthy plots, the book will never make it onto bookshelves. Since I don't have to care about people's lousy taste, I don't. Lastly, the figure of $10K for an audiobook that someone mentioned is way too high, in my experience.

ffitch 3y ago

Worries me a bit that an established “natural selection” process pivoted towards quick turnaround. Thirty years ago publishing house would decline 99% of the manuscripts, the rest they will heavily edit, print in somewhat large numbers, and extensively promote. Today they accept more stuff, print in small 3,000–5,000 batches, then throw away forever. To me, feels like a young but promising author went from a 1% chance of getting recognized to 10% chance of getting printed and 100% chance of getting forgotten right after.

CM30 3y ago

It's the same with most creative fields really. The vast majority of people earn very little from their work, and a few really skilled/lucky folks at the top of the field earn a fortune. See also music, art, game design/development, content creation on sites like YouTube and Twitch, blogging, etc. Part of this is simply due to competition; there was stacks of it before the internet got big, and there's probably a thousand times more now the internet has become normalised. The barrier to entry to writing a book or becoming a writer is extremely low in the grand scheme of things (well, if you have the determination/patience to finish), so enough people do that you're spoilt for choice there. Add this to how challenging the marketing/sales side of running a business is by default, and how trying to make a sustainable income as an author or creator is basically being a sole trader/entrepreneur, and well, it's not too surprising that most people don't do particularly well from it.

cruano 3y ago
On the competition aspect, I think it's also important to look at the consumer side. For me it was wild knowing Mission Impossible struggled at the box office because of Barbie/Oppenheimer, especially because it was such a big budget film and it was actually my favorite of the three. The reality is that most people would maybe go once a month to the cinema, so they have to prioritize what to watch. To make matters worse, you are also competing with all of history. If you want to read 12 books this year, when are you going to get to the small creators with years-worth of classics to go through?
- PsylentKnight 3y ago
  Agree with your overall point, but the Mission Impossible thing isn't that surprising to me. I think a lot of people are tired of endless reboots/sequels of action-adventure movies. Also I think Tom Cruise can have the opposite of star power these days, a lot of people feel kind of ick about him.
  - leephillips 3y ago
    I don’t watch movies with certain actors in them. He’s one of them.

WalterBright 3y ago

It's a lot like picking a career as an artist, a musician, or an athlete. A very small percentage makes a lucrative living, and the rest wander in the desert. > unconscionable contracts Self-publishing has never been an easier option than today. > book bans As far as I can tell, these are only for R rated books in schools and libraries. Isn't it the same as R movies? Nobody thinks of R movies as being banned. > action to build a system that properly values the essential contributions of writers They're valued by the free market, i.e. people freely paying what they believe the book is worth to them. I'm curious how the Guild expects to change this. Have government regulations that mandate payment per word? Government subsidy?

WalterBright 3y ago
Many types of books have ancillary results for the author than can be lucrative. For example, writing a solid academic book can get you a job or more pay in an academic setting, or a top job in a technical position.

paulpauper 3y ago

Substack is better, imho, if you can serialize it . Monthly subs is recurring revenue, compared to one-time book purchases.

sleepydog 3y ago

Anecdotally I have found the amount of books I read has skyrocketed since I got a library card. I used to hesitate at book stores trying to decide if a book was worth $30 and the space on my (already full) book shelf. Now, if I hear about a book that's even remotely interesting, I check it out from the library almost impulsively. If I don't like it, I don't finish it. If I really like it, I buy a copy. The checkout deadlines also provide a nice motivation for me to finish a book. I went from reading less than 5-10 books a year best to reading 40 books in 2023. And the more I read, the more I want to read. I am spoiled, living in NYC, as the NYPL and Brooklyn PL between them have a pretty extensive catalog, and it's rare that they don't have a book I want, even recently published books. There's often a wait list though. It's also easy to get a lot of reading done during my commute on public transit. We still don't get cell service on the MTA between stations, so books are the best form of entertainment. Of course, I suppose if everyone used the library exclusively, writers would make very little money. But I like to think it works out. I bought more books last year than I did before using the library, and attended a few book talks & signings at my local book store.

Lord-Jobo 3y ago
Piracy did the same thing for me. If would read more than 50 pages in a book i would buy a copy, if not i would delete and move on. I think i fully read 21 in 2023, and ditched probably about as many before 50 pages. I absolutely bought and read more books than in 2022, not even close.
- pstorm 3y ago
  Couldn't you do the same with Kindle samples? Seems lower effort.
  - jjice 3y ago
    I may be wrong, but Kindle samples are often much shorter than 50 pages in my experience. Usually too short for me to make a choice as to whether I want to read the book or not.

ramesh31 3y ago

Pulp will be almost completely replaced by AI, no doubt, within the next couple years. I don't see how anyone could possibly consider that a viable career path anymore. The people who consume it couldn't care less or notice, and they'll have it tailored precisely to their own tastes based on advertising data collection. It was never about quality, just sheer quantity of the same thing over and over again (but slightly different), which LLMs are phenomenal at. Same goes for pop music and mainstream cinema on a slightly further timescale.

fredgrott 3y ago

A few weeks back one of the VCs now attached to newline co attempted to sell me on becoming dev author through their program. I of course pointed out that as I market upfront I am getting paid via my substack so essentially I solved the problems his startup is still trying to solve. And of course he ghosted me.

donald_piano 3y ago

https://www.amazon.com/Across-Silicon-Bravely-Stan-Stevens/dp/B092P9NWNB https://www.amazon.com/Across-Silicon-Bravely-Stan-Stevens/d...

Evenjos 3y ago

I have a 6 book contract with Podium, my debut was in the top 100 books of 2023 by Kirkus, and I am nowhere near quitting my day job. I've paid attention to the publishing industry for years. Like all of the arts, it's oversaturated and there's a lot of churn. IMO, writers who earn a full-time living as authors fall into three basic categories. They either a) established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers with the Big Five before Amazon democratized the marketplace, circa 2010 and earlier, b) they established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers as early adopters of the Amazon Kindle marketplace, circa 2011 to 2016, or c) they own an advertising agency, are married to someone who owns an advertising agency, they are slick marketing gurus, or they are major social media influencers. There are exceptions. I see interesting innovations in the web serial space, where I play around. I sell advance chapters on Patreon. Some authors do earn a full-time living that way. But in general, yes, it is very tough to be a professional author or an artist or a musician or an indie game developer these days. Everyone wants to be one. I also see cynical authors and artists using AI to 100x their content production so they can nickel and dime their way into top seller spots. The algorithms boost anyone whose works consistently sell and bury everyone else.

syndacks 3y ago

I’ve written a book, edited the hell out of it, gotten feedback from friends, etc (I think it’s pretty good!) and have tried reaching out to literary agents (this is what the trad route recommends). So far about 0/20. Any tips here? I’m located in NYC fwiw.