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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

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.
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    I’d add (for fiction the only market I have exposure to): - the editor: if a good traditional editor gets involved in your project they can make a huge difference in the quality of your books. Many people seem to think editors are just marking up your punctuation. In reality they are more akin to product managers in software. They help set the tone of the books and ensure that the vision is adhered to. - which leads me to copy editors. The traditional publishers employ all the best ones. You can hire independent copy editors but their quality is a crapshoot. And you don’t find out until it’s too late. - the sales rep network. If reps like your book they will get it in front of people. Independent of marketing the boots on the ground factor can make a huge difference. Now, you won’t necessarily get any of these benefits going with a publisher but you can’t get any of them self publishing.
    - bachmeier 3y ago
      > if a good traditional editor gets involved in your project they can make a huge difference in the quality of your books I've also heard about mediocre editors that waste a lot of author time, and bad editors that ruin the project.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        My developmental editor for my semi-technical book was “fine” but he didn’t do any of the structural re-factoring I did for my second edition. The company was using a new set of copy editors for the second edition and they were much better than the first. Overall I can’t really complain about the editing but I think the benefits were relatively modest.
    - stubish 3y ago
      The major publishers seem to have gutted their editing staff over the last decade or so, and submitted manuscripts changed little before publishing. The primary editor you get barely has time to read it, and an outsourced copy editor (who are probably the better ones, yes).
  - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
- sturz 3y ago
  It's probably the prestige. Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families.
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    Most new authors are subsidized by their day job. It’s a huge moment in an authors life when they start making money exclusively from writing. A moment most never get to.
    - cableshaft 3y ago
      Same deal with most board game designers. The vast majority are subsidized by their day job, and aren't ever going to make serious money from designing games. I know a guy, for example, that worked two years in his spare time on one game, got picked up by a publisher, ended up in Barnes and Noble and was considered a success by the publisher (they even requested and released an expansion), and the guy got only $9,000 in royalties (with no advance) for all his efforts. Pretty much the only people making enough money for it to be their sole form of income are either hired directly a publisher or are out there hustling constantly and signing like 8+ game designs a year, or have insanely cheap cost of living (one game designer mentioned how he made net income of $12k one year and was able to survive off that because they live super cheaply), or have somehow landed on a massive evergreen hit, like Azul or Carcassonne. [1] https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417 https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    > Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families. You think most new authors have wealthy families? That is a very odd assumption, given how hard it is to write a book... and given how low the returns are... and given how many other ways there are to achieve prestige... and given how little people regard authorship these days as a measurement of it... and given how unlikely it would be for wealth to have an outsized representation in a career generally associated with poverty... and how all old authors were once new authors which would imply that most of them are wealthy too, which, not so.
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  a traditional publisher will distribute your book through all of their sales channels. if you self-publish, it's very hard or near impossible to sell your book at a proper bookstore. the sales reps will also push the books onto independent booksellers, who might love the book and want to handsell it.
- IKantRead 3y ago
  > only reason for using a traditional publisher is the cash advance then? A few really important things come to mind: - Editing. I'm not talking about mere copy editing which you can get done reasonably cheaply, but rather having an editor that is reading through everything and giving feedback is hugely important. - Layout and printing of the book There's a lot that happens between writing and having a polished book in your hands. You can contract all this out but it adds a lot of work. - Distribution. While the burden of marketing a book has increasingly fallen upon the author these days, if you want your book to be on the shelf at your local Barnes & Noble, then your much better off going with a traditional publisher. - Prestige. Like it or not, the vast majority of people on Earth still look down upon self publishing. For some types of books this is less important: technical books and fantasy fiction books can go without in many cases (but if you want to use your book for credibility in something like consulting you'll still want a traditional publisher). But if you want to write on a serious topic it helps a lot to have an academic press publish your work, or if you want to really pursue writing literature you at least want some publisher that is recognized in your relevant community. Currently I think the only really good use cases for self publishing are the fantasy fiction and niche technical book markets assuming you already have an audience. And even in those cases there are plenty of reasons to go with traditional publishers over self publishing.
  - jrmg 3y ago
    Not sure why you’re getting so many downvotes. The first two are definitely real issues with a lot of self-published work.
    - drakonka 3y ago
      I did not downvote, but just wanted to mention that the first two do not require a traditional publisher. In fact none of them do, but especially not the first two. It is true that there are real quality issues with a lot of self-published work because you don't _need_ an editor to publish your book. Heck, you don't even need to do a self-edit pass. Write it and hit publish! But it is increasingly an expectation that you have one, because quality expectations are extremely high, especially for competitive money-making genres. I started out self-editing and now pay for three professional edits for each release: developmental, copy, and proofread. Professional editors are not exclusive to traditional publishing houses.
- julianeon 3y ago
  No. I think the actual answer is "real-life SEO." Say you have a Mexican restaurant in NYC. There must be hundreds of them, right? But imagine that someone in NYC googles "Mexican restaurant," and your restaurant is the first search result that comes up. That's worth a lot of money. Self-publishing is like opening your own restaurant, while being published by a major publisher is like being on the first page of Google. When, say, CNN wants someone to be a panel expert, they might call you. You can get invited to conferences on the strength of that credential, and then build up to greater opportunities from there. In essence you've been socially validated. That's worth quite a lot of money, though it's up to you if it's worth the cost. If you didn't have any fame going in, then I think it will be.
taopai 3y ago
I read some reddit's post regarding to this topic. The main takeaway was that living, or higher profits came only if you were being aggressive with ads. Something like reinvesting 50% of the profits in digital ads (google, amazon). If your book reaches near top #1, you've done it. Now I realized that most of the books I read published on XXI century had been very popular, top of the chart books in some genre, during some years and I found them trough reddit/forums recommendations. Books that you would still find regarded as best in Amazon. Internet it's pushing Pareto principle to an extreme. The same goes for music, digital art, cinema, teaching, etc. Small artists are sheltering themselves in services like Patreon because they beat the giants in terms of selling. Also I think people are reading less. My friends don't read. They pay +15/30 USD a month to Netflix and other services. That's money and time "taken away" from reading, books.
- drakonka 3y ago
  I know quite a few authors making a living without paying for any ads, but it's definitely a different type of effort. You have to really hone in on social media, getting large review teams, etc to get visibility for your books without ads. IMO someone starting out is probably best off not spending money on ads. They have too many other things to perfect as they learn, which can only be done by publishing over and over. At least with fiction, you're looking at building a backlist - it's not a "write one breakout book and live off of it forever" kind of thing. After a few books published it can make sense to start setting an ad budget, and using ads successfully is a whole other learning curve to dive into.
  - taopai 3y ago
    It makes sense. Do you have any advice to someone who would start writing fiction books? I write a lot but only for myself. I don't care about money but I would like to persevere to some day be able to produce quality works in my own language.
    - drakonka 3y ago
      I suggest starting by deciding what you do care about, since it's not the money. What does "producing quality works" mean to you? How do you measure it? If you write only for yourself you can be your own judge of quality. Or do you intend to measure your success in readership, or reviews? If you decide you care about getting people to actually read your work, the next step would likely be narrowing down your genre and checking out what is doing well in that genre and niche. Look at Amazon top 100 lists for your categories, for example. What's selling? What's getting good or bad reviews? Open the Look Inside previews of the books. What POV are the stories written in, are there any patterns you notice in successful covers or blurbs, etc? If you don't already read in your chosen genre, you probably want to start. At the same time, you can start writing. I'd personally suggest starting with short stories or novellas. Something you can finish and put out there asap to get the feedback loop going. Self-publishing is low barrier to entry, but there are a lot of balls to juggle. Each thing you put out will provide more information for your next book. Before publishing your first book, decide if you want to go into Kindle Unlimited (Amazon exclusivity) or "wide" (publishing to all retailers). There are huge pros and cons of each, and some genres are better suited for one or the other. KU can be easier to get traction and start seeing page reads with, but it has its cons as well. Also, decide if you want to use a pen name. Try not to get too attached to the first stories you publish. They will probably suck. Personally I would not bother spending money on an editor or cover designer when you start out, but it depends on the genre and your own budget/priorities. From there it's basically about iterating on what you have with every new book. There's way too much to cover in one comment and more specific genre-based strategies depending on what you're writing, so this is more like a dump of my general thoughts for someone starting out.
satans_shill 3y ago
OT Do you have examples of self published authors that you feel really stood out.
- drakonka 3y ago
  Check out the romance top 100 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Romance/zgbs/digital-text/158566011 https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Romance/zgbs/digital-tex... I point out romance because that's what I write, but it's just one example. At a quick glance through the first few product pages there, most of those books appear self-published. To get to #1 in these general categories on Amazon (Romance, Contemporary romance, Paranormal romance, etc), you need _a crapton_ of sales or page reads (if you are in Kindle Unlimited). These authors all stand out because they are making bank right now, as indicated by their presence on this list. (Of course this does not reflect expenses like ad spend, but that's a whole other story that is near impossible to measure without info from the author themselves.)
turkeygizzard 3y ago
Really appreciate you sharing your perspective. I recently wrote a book as a passion project and have been sitting anxiously on a contract. I'm not concerned about the money (I don't think my book will be a huge thing). My main motivation for going trad is the credibility as you somewhat alluded to. Do you think this is misguided on my part? Basically just so I can point at it in the future and say "a professional in the industry thought my book was worth printing with their name on it"
- drakonka 3y ago
  First, congratulations on finishing your book and getting a contract! That is a huge achievement. I do not think your reasoning is misguided at all. If you think a traditional publisher affords you more credibility and a sense of satisfaction, that is reason enough to go with trad - _especially_ since as you say you're not concerned about the money, so there is no reason to worry about a traditional publisher's royalty rates compared to other options. I believe your reason for wanting to go with a publisher is perfectly valid.
  - atlasunshrugged 3y ago
    I have a question for you both (drakonka and turkeygizzard): Would you ever sell all or a portion of the rights to future earnings for your already published books to a third party? We've seen in the music industry PE firms basically acquiring known catalogues for the residuals and I'm wondering why that doesn't seem to happen in the publishing industry.
    - drakonka 3y ago
      It happens quite a bit! I mentioned it in another comment here, but one thing that publishers can be very useful for is audiobook rights and translations. These are very costly to produce and it sometimes makes more sense to offload that part to a publisher. That is definitely something I'd consider doing if the opportunity came along.
      - 3y ago
borg16 3y ago
can you link some of your work? I'd like to give it a try :)
- drakonka 3y ago
  Afraid not! I write under a pen name. It's not a huge secret, but not something I advertise either for various reasons (the main one being that I'm still not as good as I'd like to be... but I'll get there).
blockwriter 3y ago
Yeah, I wish not only self-publishing one’s own work, it also creating a small journal for publishing other writers was the first instinct of young writers, especially young writers of fiction, rather than seeking publication through more traditional outlets. I think small collectives of dedicated writer and self-publishers and self-producers is literature’s best hope for a new epoch of great writing.
comboy 3y ago
So how do I find you guys? Because that's the biggest problem between the two of us. It should be based on my reading history, but goodreads is pretty useless, storygraph is better but still not that great. I've been recently finding most good books by lengthy talks with GPT4 since I can explain in detail what I want, what I enjoyed and what I didn't, but that only works for books which are already popular (and even with old books, there are some great ones which are niche enough to never become really popular).
- drakonka 3y ago
  Unfortunately discovery still usually comes down to some manual sleuthing. It really depends on the genre, but I think you'll find that many ebooks on distributors like Amazon, Kobo, etc are self-published, so we're pretty easy to find! Check out the top 100 category in your favorite niche and you'll _likely_ find a good number of self-published titles there. If you come across an author you really end up liking, most have newsletters and/or a social media presence. You can also sign up for ebook deal sites like BookBub, which send out deals for books in your preferred genre. They often feature self-published works. BB tends to be quite selective with what books they work with, so hopefully you'd find some nice quality work there (but of course it can always be a bit hit and miss).
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  On Substack, someone gave me "Legends & Lattes" which is a recent book I'd never have known about. fyi: it's a "high stakes / low conflict" book. Yes, there are orcs, elves, and so forth, but they're kinda incidental to the plot. Not really sci-fi IMHO.
AlwaysRock 3y ago
I've found myself enjoying more and more self published books. I wish a LITTLE more care was put into cover art and small details though. The cover art and book quality seem to be the two things that stick out like a sore thumb on self published works. Even knowing that a lot of my favorite reads every year are self published, I am sometimes skeptical of a new book because the cover art looks like it was done poorly by someone in 15 minutes in photoshop. I guess I'm quite literally judging a book by its cover here but... In a world where you get a cover and a 2 paragraph blurb about a book... That is a significant factor.
- CodeTheInternet 3y ago
  Use Midjourney for a cover and ChatGPT for a synopsis
- jrmg 3y ago
  I don’t think your impressions are entirely off-base here. If the author is so bad at judging the quality of the cover art (or, for me, the typesetting) I think it’s possible that it suggests a similar lack of judgement of quality for the writing (or, perhaps, editing) itself.
  - jacobsenscott 3y ago
    I would disagree - those skills (cover art, typesetting) are orthogonal skills to writing. These are some of the things (I assume) publishers would do for you.
    - zippergz 3y ago
      Also, there are many things that I can judge to be good or bad, but that doesn't mean I can produce high quality examples myself. And getting high quality work from others isn't cheap, so it might be out of reach for self-published authors. Even if they know that the cover art isn't good, they might still use it, if they can't do better themselves and can't afford to hire someone who would do better.
grecy 3y ago
A few years ago I had beers with a NYT best selling author using trad publishing. Millions of copies sold on multiple continents, translated into many different languages, etc etc. You've heard of him, or at least his one big hit. He said, at best, over his entire lifetime he may make $200k from that book. He basically has to write a book every single year just to make his mortgage payments, and its a grind. When I told him I make $8/book self published he nearly fell out of his chair.
- leephillips 3y ago
  A typical royalty is 10% of the retail price. If the book is $30 (cheap these days), then a million copies sold (an extremely rare feat, even for a best seller, but...) is $3 million dollars. How does this story add up? (Foreign rights are often a lump sum rather than royalties, but still...?)
  - grecy 3y ago
    > A typical royalty is 10% of the retail price. For WHO? What publisher is offering 10%?? The best I've ever heard is a fraction of a cent per book, and you don't get a single cent until AFTER all the expenses have been earned back (advance, editing, promotion of the book, flying you all over the place, hotels, staff).
    - leephillips 3y ago
      The standard rate from reputable publishers is 10 to 15%. It's what I've gotten from three different publishers (Hachette, No Starch, Packt). The rates for paperback, discounted books, ebooks, audio books, are all a bit different, but that's the ballpark. All these publishers also paid me advances. That’s an advance on royalties. You start getting paid more when your earned royalties exceed the advance. There is no deduction for any other expense whatsoever. This thread is full of utter nonsense about the worlds of publishing and writing. [Edit: minus the 15% for your agent, if you're represented by one. But as your agent also made sure you got a good contract, you probably come out ahead.]
jurgenaut23 3y ago
Do you have any tips for self-publishing, or reliable resources that talk about it? Or do you manage PR, did you get access to any form of media coverage? I thought this was the main point of getting a publisher.

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.
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  I’d add (for fiction the only market I have exposure to): - the editor: if a good traditional editor gets involved in your project they can make a huge difference in the quality of your books. Many people seem to think editors are just marking up your punctuation. In reality they are more akin to product managers in software. They help set the tone of the books and ensure that the vision is adhered to. - which leads me to copy editors. The traditional publishers employ all the best ones. You can hire independent copy editors but their quality is a crapshoot. And you don’t find out until it’s too late. - the sales rep network. If reps like your book they will get it in front of people. Independent of marketing the boots on the ground factor can make a huge difference. Now, you won’t necessarily get any of these benefits going with a publisher but you can’t get any of them self publishing.
  - bachmeier 3y ago
    > if a good traditional editor gets involved in your project they can make a huge difference in the quality of your books I've also heard about mediocre editors that waste a lot of author time, and bad editors that ruin the project.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      My developmental editor for my semi-technical book was “fine” but he didn’t do any of the structural re-factoring I did for my second edition. The company was using a new set of copy editors for the second edition and they were much better than the first. Overall I can’t really complain about the editing but I think the benefits were relatively modest.
  - stubish 3y ago
    The major publishers seem to have gutted their editing staff over the last decade or so, and submitted manuscripts changed little before publishing. The primary editor you get barely has time to read it, and an outsourced copy editor (who are probably the better ones, yes).
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
sturz 3y ago
It's probably the prestige. Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families.
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  Most new authors are subsidized by their day job. It’s a huge moment in an authors life when they start making money exclusively from writing. A moment most never get to.
  - cableshaft 3y ago
    Same deal with most board game designers. The vast majority are subsidized by their day job, and aren't ever going to make serious money from designing games. I know a guy, for example, that worked two years in his spare time on one game, got picked up by a publisher, ended up in Barnes and Noble and was considered a success by the publisher (they even requested and released an expansion), and the guy got only $9,000 in royalties (with no advance) for all his efforts. Pretty much the only people making enough money for it to be their sole form of income are either hired directly a publisher or are out there hustling constantly and signing like 8+ game designs a year, or have insanely cheap cost of living (one game designer mentioned how he made net income of $12k one year and was able to survive off that because they live super cheaply), or have somehow landed on a massive evergreen hit, like Azul or Carcassonne. [1] https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417 https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417
- ryanklee 3y ago
  > Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families. You think most new authors have wealthy families? That is a very odd assumption, given how hard it is to write a book... and given how low the returns are... and given how many other ways there are to achieve prestige... and given how little people regard authorship these days as a measurement of it... and given how unlikely it would be for wealth to have an outsized representation in a career generally associated with poverty... and how all old authors were once new authors which would imply that most of them are wealthy too, which, not so.
greenie_beans 3y ago
a traditional publisher will distribute your book through all of their sales channels. if you self-publish, it's very hard or near impossible to sell your book at a proper bookstore. the sales reps will also push the books onto independent booksellers, who might love the book and want to handsell it.
IKantRead 3y ago
> only reason for using a traditional publisher is the cash advance then? A few really important things come to mind: - Editing. I'm not talking about mere copy editing which you can get done reasonably cheaply, but rather having an editor that is reading through everything and giving feedback is hugely important. - Layout and printing of the book There's a lot that happens between writing and having a polished book in your hands. You can contract all this out but it adds a lot of work. - Distribution. While the burden of marketing a book has increasingly fallen upon the author these days, if you want your book to be on the shelf at your local Barnes & Noble, then your much better off going with a traditional publisher. - Prestige. Like it or not, the vast majority of people on Earth still look down upon self publishing. For some types of books this is less important: technical books and fantasy fiction books can go without in many cases (but if you want to use your book for credibility in something like consulting you'll still want a traditional publisher). But if you want to write on a serious topic it helps a lot to have an academic press publish your work, or if you want to really pursue writing literature you at least want some publisher that is recognized in your relevant community. Currently I think the only really good use cases for self publishing are the fantasy fiction and niche technical book markets assuming you already have an audience. And even in those cases there are plenty of reasons to go with traditional publishers over self publishing.
- jrmg 3y ago
  Not sure why you’re getting so many downvotes. The first two are definitely real issues with a lot of self-published work.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    I did not downvote, but just wanted to mention that the first two do not require a traditional publisher. In fact none of them do, but especially not the first two. It is true that there are real quality issues with a lot of self-published work because you don't _need_ an editor to publish your book. Heck, you don't even need to do a self-edit pass. Write it and hit publish! But it is increasingly an expectation that you have one, because quality expectations are extremely high, especially for competitive money-making genres. I started out self-editing and now pay for three professional edits for each release: developmental, copy, and proofread. Professional editors are not exclusive to traditional publishing houses.
julianeon 3y ago
No. I think the actual answer is "real-life SEO." Say you have a Mexican restaurant in NYC. There must be hundreds of them, right? But imagine that someone in NYC googles "Mexican restaurant," and your restaurant is the first search result that comes up. That's worth a lot of money. Self-publishing is like opening your own restaurant, while being published by a major publisher is like being on the first page of Google. When, say, CNN wants someone to be a panel expert, they might call you. You can get invited to conferences on the strength of that credential, and then build up to greater opportunities from there. In essence you've been socially validated. That's worth quite a lot of money, though it's up to you if it's worth the cost. If you didn't have any fame going in, then I think it will be.

taopai 3y ago

I read some reddit's post regarding to this topic. The main takeaway was that living, or higher profits came only if you were being aggressive with ads. Something like reinvesting 50% of the profits in digital ads (google, amazon). If your book reaches near top #1, you've done it. Now I realized that most of the books I read published on XXI century had been very popular, top of the chart books in some genre, during some years and I found them trough reddit/forums recommendations. Books that you would still find regarded as best in Amazon. Internet it's pushing Pareto principle to an extreme. The same goes for music, digital art, cinema, teaching, etc. Small artists are sheltering themselves in services like Patreon because they beat the giants in terms of selling. Also I think people are reading less. My friends don't read. They pay +15/30 USD a month to Netflix and other services. That's money and time "taken away" from reading, books.

drakonka 3y ago
I know quite a few authors making a living without paying for any ads, but it's definitely a different type of effort. You have to really hone in on social media, getting large review teams, etc to get visibility for your books without ads. IMO someone starting out is probably best off not spending money on ads. They have too many other things to perfect as they learn, which can only be done by publishing over and over. At least with fiction, you're looking at building a backlist - it's not a "write one breakout book and live off of it forever" kind of thing. After a few books published it can make sense to start setting an ad budget, and using ads successfully is a whole other learning curve to dive into.
- taopai 3y ago
  It makes sense. Do you have any advice to someone who would start writing fiction books? I write a lot but only for myself. I don't care about money but I would like to persevere to some day be able to produce quality works in my own language.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    I suggest starting by deciding what you do care about, since it's not the money. What does "producing quality works" mean to you? How do you measure it? If you write only for yourself you can be your own judge of quality. Or do you intend to measure your success in readership, or reviews? If you decide you care about getting people to actually read your work, the next step would likely be narrowing down your genre and checking out what is doing well in that genre and niche. Look at Amazon top 100 lists for your categories, for example. What's selling? What's getting good or bad reviews? Open the Look Inside previews of the books. What POV are the stories written in, are there any patterns you notice in successful covers or blurbs, etc? If you don't already read in your chosen genre, you probably want to start. At the same time, you can start writing. I'd personally suggest starting with short stories or novellas. Something you can finish and put out there asap to get the feedback loop going. Self-publishing is low barrier to entry, but there are a lot of balls to juggle. Each thing you put out will provide more information for your next book. Before publishing your first book, decide if you want to go into Kindle Unlimited (Amazon exclusivity) or "wide" (publishing to all retailers). There are huge pros and cons of each, and some genres are better suited for one or the other. KU can be easier to get traction and start seeing page reads with, but it has its cons as well. Also, decide if you want to use a pen name. Try not to get too attached to the first stories you publish. They will probably suck. Personally I would not bother spending money on an editor or cover designer when you start out, but it depends on the genre and your own budget/priorities. From there it's basically about iterating on what you have with every new book. There's way too much to cover in one comment and more specific genre-based strategies depending on what you're writing, so this is more like a dump of my general thoughts for someone starting out.

satans_shill 3y ago

OT Do you have examples of self published authors that you feel really stood out.

drakonka 3y ago
Check out the romance top 100 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Romance/zgbs/digital-text/158566011 https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Romance/zgbs/digital-tex... I point out romance because that's what I write, but it's just one example. At a quick glance through the first few product pages there, most of those books appear self-published. To get to #1 in these general categories on Amazon (Romance, Contemporary romance, Paranormal romance, etc), you need _a crapton_ of sales or page reads (if you are in Kindle Unlimited). These authors all stand out because they are making bank right now, as indicated by their presence on this list. (Of course this does not reflect expenses like ad spend, but that's a whole other story that is near impossible to measure without info from the author themselves.)

turkeygizzard 3y ago

Really appreciate you sharing your perspective. I recently wrote a book as a passion project and have been sitting anxiously on a contract. I'm not concerned about the money (I don't think my book will be a huge thing). My main motivation for going trad is the credibility as you somewhat alluded to. Do you think this is misguided on my part? Basically just so I can point at it in the future and say "a professional in the industry thought my book was worth printing with their name on it"

drakonka 3y ago
First, congratulations on finishing your book and getting a contract! That is a huge achievement. I do not think your reasoning is misguided at all. If you think a traditional publisher affords you more credibility and a sense of satisfaction, that is reason enough to go with trad - _especially_ since as you say you're not concerned about the money, so there is no reason to worry about a traditional publisher's royalty rates compared to other options. I believe your reason for wanting to go with a publisher is perfectly valid.
- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
  I have a question for you both (drakonka and turkeygizzard): Would you ever sell all or a portion of the rights to future earnings for your already published books to a third party? We've seen in the music industry PE firms basically acquiring known catalogues for the residuals and I'm wondering why that doesn't seem to happen in the publishing industry.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    It happens quite a bit! I mentioned it in another comment here, but one thing that publishers can be very useful for is audiobook rights and translations. These are very costly to produce and it sometimes makes more sense to offload that part to a publisher. That is definitely something I'd consider doing if the opportunity came along.
    - 3y ago

borg16 3y ago

can you link some of your work? I'd like to give it a try :)

drakonka 3y ago
Afraid not! I write under a pen name. It's not a huge secret, but not something I advertise either for various reasons (the main one being that I'm still not as good as I'd like to be... but I'll get there).

blockwriter 3y ago

Yeah, I wish not only self-publishing one’s own work, it also creating a small journal for publishing other writers was the first instinct of young writers, especially young writers of fiction, rather than seeking publication through more traditional outlets. I think small collectives of dedicated writer and self-publishers and self-producers is literature’s best hope for a new epoch of great writing.

comboy 3y ago

So how do I find you guys? Because that's the biggest problem between the two of us. It should be based on my reading history, but goodreads is pretty useless, storygraph is better but still not that great. I've been recently finding most good books by lengthy talks with GPT4 since I can explain in detail what I want, what I enjoyed and what I didn't, but that only works for books which are already popular (and even with old books, there are some great ones which are niche enough to never become really popular).

drakonka 3y ago
Unfortunately discovery still usually comes down to some manual sleuthing. It really depends on the genre, but I think you'll find that many ebooks on distributors like Amazon, Kobo, etc are self-published, so we're pretty easy to find! Check out the top 100 category in your favorite niche and you'll _likely_ find a good number of self-published titles there. If you come across an author you really end up liking, most have newsletters and/or a social media presence. You can also sign up for ebook deal sites like BookBub, which send out deals for books in your preferred genre. They often feature self-published works. BB tends to be quite selective with what books they work with, so hopefully you'd find some nice quality work there (but of course it can always be a bit hit and miss).
AlbertCory 3y ago
On Substack, someone gave me "Legends & Lattes" which is a recent book I'd never have known about. fyi: it's a "high stakes / low conflict" book. Yes, there are orcs, elves, and so forth, but they're kinda incidental to the plot. Not really sci-fi IMHO.

AlwaysRock 3y ago

I've found myself enjoying more and more self published books. I wish a LITTLE more care was put into cover art and small details though. The cover art and book quality seem to be the two things that stick out like a sore thumb on self published works. Even knowing that a lot of my favorite reads every year are self published, I am sometimes skeptical of a new book because the cover art looks like it was done poorly by someone in 15 minutes in photoshop. I guess I'm quite literally judging a book by its cover here but... In a world where you get a cover and a 2 paragraph blurb about a book... That is a significant factor.

CodeTheInternet 3y ago
Use Midjourney for a cover and ChatGPT for a synopsis
jrmg 3y ago
I don’t think your impressions are entirely off-base here. If the author is so bad at judging the quality of the cover art (or, for me, the typesetting) I think it’s possible that it suggests a similar lack of judgement of quality for the writing (or, perhaps, editing) itself.
- jacobsenscott 3y ago
  I would disagree - those skills (cover art, typesetting) are orthogonal skills to writing. These are some of the things (I assume) publishers would do for you.
  - zippergz 3y ago
    Also, there are many things that I can judge to be good or bad, but that doesn't mean I can produce high quality examples myself. And getting high quality work from others isn't cheap, so it might be out of reach for self-published authors. Even if they know that the cover art isn't good, they might still use it, if they can't do better themselves and can't afford to hire someone who would do better.

grecy 3y ago

A few years ago I had beers with a NYT best selling author using trad publishing. Millions of copies sold on multiple continents, translated into many different languages, etc etc. You've heard of him, or at least his one big hit. He said, at best, over his entire lifetime he may make $200k from that book. He basically has to write a book every single year just to make his mortgage payments, and its a grind. When I told him I make $8/book self published he nearly fell out of his chair.

leephillips 3y ago
A typical royalty is 10% of the retail price. If the book is $30 (cheap these days), then a million copies sold (an extremely rare feat, even for a best seller, but...) is $3 million dollars. How does this story add up? (Foreign rights are often a lump sum rather than royalties, but still...?)
- grecy 3y ago
  > A typical royalty is 10% of the retail price. For WHO? What publisher is offering 10%?? The best I've ever heard is a fraction of a cent per book, and you don't get a single cent until AFTER all the expenses have been earned back (advance, editing, promotion of the book, flying you all over the place, hotels, staff).
  - leephillips 3y ago
    The standard rate from reputable publishers is 10 to 15%. It's what I've gotten from three different publishers (Hachette, No Starch, Packt). The rates for paperback, discounted books, ebooks, audio books, are all a bit different, but that's the ballpark. All these publishers also paid me advances. That’s an advance on royalties. You start getting paid more when your earned royalties exceed the advance. There is no deduction for any other expense whatsoever. This thread is full of utter nonsense about the worlds of publishing and writing. [Edit: minus the 15% for your agent, if you're represented by one. But as your agent also made sure you got a good contract, you probably come out ahead.]

jurgenaut23 3y ago

Do you have any tips for self-publishing, or reliable resources that talk about it? Or do you manage PR, did you get access to any form of media coverage? I thought this was the main point of getting a publisher.