13 ms·

Published doesn't mean paid

54 points by Anon84 2y ago

arjunaaqa 2y ago
Modern authors should publish on their own websites, And spend 6-12 months time before launch in marketing and talking on social media. We need more empowered authors.
- cardanome 2y ago
  Yeah but it sucks that these days more and more professions require that you market yourself. It would be great if people could just write and live from that.
  - tornadofart 2y ago
    I genuinely hate that. DoNt oNlY bE a dEvELoPER bUT AlsO a TeChniCAl WriTeR aND bUiLD yOuR pErSoNaL bRAnd ... uh no sorry I have a life
    - daedrdev 2y ago
      There are just so many books published today that there is no guarantee of any amount of readership by just releasing a book.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Miraste 2y ago
  Modern authors may be forced to spend too much time in the sludge pits of social media for any hope of financial success, but we don't need to pretend that's being "empowered." Also, publishing on your own website and nowhere else will not work. Such is the modern age of platforms.
richardatlarge 2y ago
first suggestion: don’t take 2.5 years to write a book second suggestion: don’t go with a traditional publisher if you’re not getting a hefty advance- a small advance means no publicity, and the royalty rates are too dismal to do your own advertising go indie: with 70 percent royalties on ebooks you can make more than this author in a week trad publishing is a club: don’t expect to make money when you join an elite(ist) club
- TimorousBestie 2y ago
  Assuming the seventy percent figure is KDP, there are so many restrictions on that tier an author rarely gets anywhere close to that rate. And charging 2.99 for an eBook is a death knell in some genres, it’ll cut sales by an order of magnitude.
  - richardatlarge 2y ago
    sorry, you don’t know what you’re talking about. as a KDP user, I see every day that it’s 70 percent, so $3.50 for a $5.00 retail price. at a minimum you’re not being clear.
    - TimorousBestie 2y ago
      https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500 https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500 lays out the restrictions and costs associated with the 70% tier. Anyway, KDP is hardly “going indie.” It’s just boring old self-publishing with externalized capital expenditures.
WorkerBee28474 2y ago
The conclusion the author should have reached isn't 'authors need more support' but rather 'this is how the world tells authors it doesn't need so many books'.
- tornadofart 2y ago
  The market isn't that good at detecting and rewarding genius work in the short term. Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe as well as Oscar Wilde died poor.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    In fairness Wilde’s lack of wealth was largely downstream of his (unjust) legal problems. And Poe suffered greatly from a lack of copyright protection. They didn’t suffer from a lack of people wanting to read their works, in the way that most modern authors do.
- MinimalAction 2y ago
  These comments where they somehow suggest more of creativity is not necessary is rather upsetting. Should they then just be doing what the world handsomely rewards, which currently seems to be optimizing ads at a big tech company.
  - fph 2y ago
    Looks like we need to change the priorities set by the market. Targeted taxes and subsidies are the way to do it.
    - daedrdev 2y ago
      People are clearly willing to write and publish a book even with no payoff. If you had taxes and subsidies, even more authors would write to the point that most authors can't live off of writing, since clearly they are willing to write enough to flood the supply of books until most authors can't make it.
christina97 2y ago
I’m not sure what the author expected? I imagine the royalties and advance were agreed upon in advance, surely they could do the calculus then? I think the fundamental issue is thinking that you can make a living writing a book for 2.5 years that only sells 500-2000 copies. At the upper end, if she got the full £10 per book for 2000 copies, that’s still not a livable wage… Is the author just upset about the way the world works?
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago
  > Is the author just upset about the way the world works? Yes. The author has chosen to work on something she loves, without regard to whether anyone will pay her to do it, and is complaining that no one will pay her to do it.
- tornadofart 2y ago
  I did not read it as being upset. Drawing the public's attention to the economics of publishing and showing how to support an author you like is OK, no?
- MinimalAction 2y ago
  It is not that they didn't know the calculus. You seem to suggest that writing altogether is economically unviable, so the author should not have chosen to do that at all. The issue is that certain talents are not recognized at all, and if you like reading, then buy the books outright, pre-order it, ask your library to get it. Basically, an effort to reward those who show up and contribute to a profession as noble as writing.
  - christina97 2y ago
    I’m not suggesting at all that the author should not have chosen to do it. No such judgement. I’m simply interpreting the authors tone: it sounds to me frustrated and as if she feels she’s been wronged by “the system.” Maybe I simply misinterpreted the tone!
    - 2y ago
MinimalAction 2y ago
This post evoked a sense of sadness within me, though I can’t quite pinpoint the reason behind it. In the era where influencers without much depth to their content get to reap the monetary benefits, while those who genuinely showcase their creativity in rather holistic ways are left unrewarded. This trend has been around perhaps for longer than I imagine, but to put it in words made me realize this intensely. I will do my part and ask my library too.
- bombcar 2y ago
  If it makes you feel better the economics of “influencers” is way, way, way worse. This lady at least got some money! The average “influencer” just gets nothing.
  - MinimalAction 2y ago
    That does make me feel better. It is also the barrier of entry into the field that is low in being an influencer, perhaps. But, I am suspicious that an average writer earns better than an average influencer.
Havoc 2y ago
The same dynamics play out in everything from YouTube to onlyfans. A very small group make tons of money and are very visible and the other 99% make no money but nobody notices them. And that’s slanted perception pulls in more people driving up supply But yeah books seem particularly brutal. The vast majority of my books were acquired at just over a dollar. Amazon daily sales and lots of patience. Even the big names have discounts that deep. I’m glad to have them but that is pretty brutal economics
- blatantly 2y ago
  If I did a book for money (bad idea yes!) I'd try at least to self publish and make it a premium thing with upsells. Like the Total Typescript course. Selling 100 for $50 (no mean feat but still modest) copies would probably beat any publisher earnings! You could also get away with less perfect grammar etc. BYO editor or just edit yourself. The goal is to teach after all.
- cardanome 2y ago
  This is way some countries like Germany have fixed book prices. They set a minimum price that the book needs to be sold at. This helps authors and also prevents smaller book shops from being out competed by price. It is a pretty great system. Sure German books tend to be significantly more expensive than the English counter part but its not like I don't have already enough books in my pile of shame. And for those tight on money there is always libraries.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    I don’t think that logic works well with digital goods. Because there is zero marginal cost, you always want more purchases even if the price is incredibly low. And digital goods can be infinitely large. Conceivably the combined works of JK Rowling or Tolkien could be sold as a single unit. Therefore able to cut beneath a minimum price.
    - cardanome 2y ago
      The zero marginal cost makes fixed prices even more important. You production cost per unit is basically the cost of creating the book. The more units you sell, the lower the production cost per unit. So bestsellers make bank and are profitable even when sold at extremely low prices. In comparison a book with a limited niche will need to sell at a way higher price to be profitable. People will only buy a fixed amount of books. The idea is to give books of niche audiences a fighting chance. > Conceivably the combined works of JK Rowling or Tolkien could be sold as a single unit. Yes there is always pitfalls and loopholes to watch out for when defining such laws. I don't really see how this adds much to the discussion, as something like that would clearly violate the spirit and intention of the law. If it is legally possible it is because the law is implemented badly. Which could be but is another discussion.
101008 2y ago
We grew up in the 80s or 90s that meant get published means money, being on TV meant being famous, the elite were separated from the public. Internet democratriced all of that. Now we are all mixed. You can be famous on the internet, be someone on Twitter, and at the same time need a regular job.
- CRConrad 2y ago
  > being on TV meant being famous ... and at the same time need a regular job. Also, "being on TV" can mean not only still needing a regular job, but also not really being famous in the slightest. There's bazillions of "reality" show participants pretty much nobody has ever heard of. > the elite were separated from the public. Internet democratriced all of that. Now we are all mixed. Muahahahaahaa, good one! Wait... You don't really believe that, do you?!? Because if you do, they really pulled the wool over your ears.
nyeah 2y ago
If you read the OP and felt angry or offended, can you quote a key sentence that seemed to be a problem?
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I don't think it's any "key sentence". I think it's simply summarized by the first sentence of the current top comment by christina97: > I’m not sure what the author expected? It's less about being angry or offended, and more like, why is this being posted? It's not news. It's how publishing works.
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    I'd guess it was posted precisely because it is news to lots of people.
decimalenough 2y ago
This has always been the case. What's new is that LLMs let people churn out books in seconds, meaning that for e-books in particular, formerly (possibly) lucrative topics like niche erotica are about to get competed down to zero.
daedrdev 2y ago
35% of books published are profitable 96% of books sold less than 1,000 copies in 2020 50% sold less than a dozen copies in 2020 This is the state of the industry, publishers publish many books gambling for the hits the make up the vast majority of their revenue. It is a very cold industry with many authors failing to get readers interested. They best measure of schuss is to have a preexisting readership or be popular elsewhere, and even then that's by no means a guarantee of a books success. And this data is from before AI. The 35% probably undersells it because books like hers probably received no marketing. [1] https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  35% of books published are profitable Profitable to the author or to the publisher?
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    I was going to ask exactly that question! But, given that 96% of books sold less than 1,000 copies in 2020 and assuming, like the author of TFA seems to have reason to believe, that the overwhelming majority of authors don't get more lucrative deals than she did, it... Pretty much can't be for the authors.
xrd 2y ago
I wrote a book for O'Reilly. I got the same advance, $2500. I got paid the same royalty rate, 10%. It wasn't worth it at all financially. I bet I made $6000-$7000 in total. Of course, that's not why I did it. But, in a new consulting role there is a kid who is early twenties. It came up that I wrote a book and I told him the book and the publisher and he said "other than the car parts company I don't know O'Reilly." I was pretty shocked by that. He's a computer science graduate. That generation doesn't read tech books at all apparently. It used to be that this was another item on my resume to stand out. It feels like that is totally devalued. And basically everything else on my resume now that Claude has infinitely more knowledge about everything. It's so depressing.

54 points by Anon84 2y ago

Modern authors should publish on their own websites, And spend 6-12 months time before launch in marketing and talking on social media. We need more empowered authors.

cardanome 2y ago
Yeah but it sucks that these days more and more professions require that you market yourself. It would be great if people could just write and live from that.
- tornadofart 2y ago
  I genuinely hate that. DoNt oNlY bE a dEvELoPER bUT AlsO a TeChniCAl WriTeR aND bUiLD yOuR pErSoNaL bRAnd ... uh no sorry I have a life
  - daedrdev 2y ago
    There are just so many books published today that there is no guarantee of any amount of readership by just releasing a book.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Miraste 2y ago
Modern authors may be forced to spend too much time in the sludge pits of social media for any hope of financial success, but we don't need to pretend that's being "empowered." Also, publishing on your own website and nowhere else will not work. Such is the modern age of platforms.

richardatlarge 2y ago

first suggestion: don’t take 2.5 years to write a book second suggestion: don’t go with a traditional publisher if you’re not getting a hefty advance- a small advance means no publicity, and the royalty rates are too dismal to do your own advertising go indie: with 70 percent royalties on ebooks you can make more than this author in a week trad publishing is a club: don’t expect to make money when you join an elite(ist) club

TimorousBestie 2y ago
Assuming the seventy percent figure is KDP, there are so many restrictions on that tier an author rarely gets anywhere close to that rate. And charging 2.99 for an eBook is a death knell in some genres, it’ll cut sales by an order of magnitude.
- richardatlarge 2y ago
  sorry, you don’t know what you’re talking about. as a KDP user, I see every day that it’s 70 percent, so $3.50 for a $5.00 retail price. at a minimum you’re not being clear.
  - TimorousBestie 2y ago
    https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500 https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500 lays out the restrictions and costs associated with the 70% tier. Anyway, KDP is hardly “going indie.” It’s just boring old self-publishing with externalized capital expenditures.

WorkerBee28474 2y ago

The conclusion the author should have reached isn't 'authors need more support' but rather 'this is how the world tells authors it doesn't need so many books'.

tornadofart 2y ago
The market isn't that good at detecting and rewarding genius work in the short term. Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe as well as Oscar Wilde died poor.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  In fairness Wilde’s lack of wealth was largely downstream of his (unjust) legal problems. And Poe suffered greatly from a lack of copyright protection. They didn’t suffer from a lack of people wanting to read their works, in the way that most modern authors do.
MinimalAction 2y ago
These comments where they somehow suggest more of creativity is not necessary is rather upsetting. Should they then just be doing what the world handsomely rewards, which currently seems to be optimizing ads at a big tech company.
- fph 2y ago
  Looks like we need to change the priorities set by the market. Targeted taxes and subsidies are the way to do it.
  - daedrdev 2y ago
    People are clearly willing to write and publish a book even with no payoff. If you had taxes and subsidies, even more authors would write to the point that most authors can't live off of writing, since clearly they are willing to write enough to flood the supply of books until most authors can't make it.

christina97 2y ago

I’m not sure what the author expected? I imagine the royalties and advance were agreed upon in advance, surely they could do the calculus then? I think the fundamental issue is thinking that you can make a living writing a book for 2.5 years that only sells 500-2000 copies. At the upper end, if she got the full £10 per book for 2000 copies, that’s still not a livable wage… Is the author just upset about the way the world works?

WorkerBee28474 2y ago
> Is the author just upset about the way the world works? Yes. The author has chosen to work on something she loves, without regard to whether anyone will pay her to do it, and is complaining that no one will pay her to do it.
tornadofart 2y ago
I did not read it as being upset. Drawing the public's attention to the economics of publishing and showing how to support an author you like is OK, no?
MinimalAction 2y ago
It is not that they didn't know the calculus. You seem to suggest that writing altogether is economically unviable, so the author should not have chosen to do that at all. The issue is that certain talents are not recognized at all, and if you like reading, then buy the books outright, pre-order it, ask your library to get it. Basically, an effort to reward those who show up and contribute to a profession as noble as writing.
- christina97 2y ago
  I’m not suggesting at all that the author should not have chosen to do it. No such judgement. I’m simply interpreting the authors tone: it sounds to me frustrated and as if she feels she’s been wronged by “the system.” Maybe I simply misinterpreted the tone!
  - 2y ago

MinimalAction 2y ago

This post evoked a sense of sadness within me, though I can’t quite pinpoint the reason behind it. In the era where influencers without much depth to their content get to reap the monetary benefits, while those who genuinely showcase their creativity in rather holistic ways are left unrewarded. This trend has been around perhaps for longer than I imagine, but to put it in words made me realize this intensely. I will do my part and ask my library too.

bombcar 2y ago
If it makes you feel better the economics of “influencers” is way, way, way worse. This lady at least got some money! The average “influencer” just gets nothing.
- MinimalAction 2y ago
  That does make me feel better. It is also the barrier of entry into the field that is low in being an influencer, perhaps. But, I am suspicious that an average writer earns better than an average influencer.

Havoc 2y ago

The same dynamics play out in everything from YouTube to onlyfans. A very small group make tons of money and are very visible and the other 99% make no money but nobody notices them. And that’s slanted perception pulls in more people driving up supply But yeah books seem particularly brutal. The vast majority of my books were acquired at just over a dollar. Amazon daily sales and lots of patience. Even the big names have discounts that deep. I’m glad to have them but that is pretty brutal economics

blatantly 2y ago
If I did a book for money (bad idea yes!) I'd try at least to self publish and make it a premium thing with upsells. Like the Total Typescript course. Selling 100 for $50 (no mean feat but still modest) copies would probably beat any publisher earnings! You could also get away with less perfect grammar etc. BYO editor or just edit yourself. The goal is to teach after all.
cardanome 2y ago
This is way some countries like Germany have fixed book prices. They set a minimum price that the book needs to be sold at. This helps authors and also prevents smaller book shops from being out competed by price. It is a pretty great system. Sure German books tend to be significantly more expensive than the English counter part but its not like I don't have already enough books in my pile of shame. And for those tight on money there is always libraries.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  I don’t think that logic works well with digital goods. Because there is zero marginal cost, you always want more purchases even if the price is incredibly low. And digital goods can be infinitely large. Conceivably the combined works of JK Rowling or Tolkien could be sold as a single unit. Therefore able to cut beneath a minimum price.
  - cardanome 2y ago
    The zero marginal cost makes fixed prices even more important. You production cost per unit is basically the cost of creating the book. The more units you sell, the lower the production cost per unit. So bestsellers make bank and are profitable even when sold at extremely low prices. In comparison a book with a limited niche will need to sell at a way higher price to be profitable. People will only buy a fixed amount of books. The idea is to give books of niche audiences a fighting chance. > Conceivably the combined works of JK Rowling or Tolkien could be sold as a single unit. Yes there is always pitfalls and loopholes to watch out for when defining such laws. I don't really see how this adds much to the discussion, as something like that would clearly violate the spirit and intention of the law. If it is legally possible it is because the law is implemented badly. Which could be but is another discussion.

101008 2y ago

We grew up in the 80s or 90s that meant get published means money, being on TV meant being famous, the elite were separated from the public. Internet democratriced all of that. Now we are all mixed. You can be famous on the internet, be someone on Twitter, and at the same time need a regular job.

CRConrad 2y ago
> being on TV meant being famous ... and at the same time need a regular job. Also, "being on TV" can mean not only still needing a regular job, but also not really being famous in the slightest. There's bazillions of "reality" show participants pretty much nobody has ever heard of. > the elite were separated from the public. Internet democratriced all of that. Now we are all mixed. Muahahahaahaa, good one! Wait... You don't really believe that, do you?!? Because if you do, they really pulled the wool over your ears.

nyeah 2y ago

If you read the OP and felt angry or offended, can you quote a key sentence that seemed to be a problem?

crazygringo 2y ago
I don't think it's any "key sentence". I think it's simply summarized by the first sentence of the current top comment by christina97: > I’m not sure what the author expected? It's less about being angry or offended, and more like, why is this being posted? It's not news. It's how publishing works.
- CRConrad 2y ago
  I'd guess it was posted precisely because it is news to lots of people.

decimalenough 2y ago

This has always been the case. What's new is that LLMs let people churn out books in seconds, meaning that for e-books in particular, formerly (possibly) lucrative topics like niche erotica are about to get competed down to zero.

daedrdev 2y ago

35% of books published are profitable 96% of books sold less than 1,000 copies in 2020 50% sold less than a dozen copies in 2020 This is the state of the industry, publishers publish many books gambling for the hits the make up the vast majority of their revenue. It is a very cold industry with many authors failing to get readers interested. They best measure of schuss is to have a preexisting readership or be popular elsewhere, and even then that's by no means a guarantee of a books success. And this data is from before AI. The 35% probably undersells it because books like hers probably received no marketing. [1] https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

rahimnathwani 2y ago
35% of books published are profitable Profitable to the author or to the publisher?
- CRConrad 2y ago
  I was going to ask exactly that question! But, given that 96% of books sold less than 1,000 copies in 2020 and assuming, like the author of TFA seems to have reason to believe, that the overwhelming majority of authors don't get more lucrative deals than she did, it... Pretty much can't be for the authors.

xrd 2y ago

I wrote a book for O'Reilly. I got the same advance, $2500. I got paid the same royalty rate, 10%. It wasn't worth it at all financially. I bet I made $6000-$7000 in total. Of course, that's not why I did it. But, in a new consulting role there is a kid who is early twenties. It came up that I wrote a book and I told him the book and the publisher and he said "other than the car parts company I don't know O'Reilly." I was pretty shocked by that. He's a computer science graduate. That generation doesn't read tech books at all apparently. It used to be that this was another item on my resume to stand out. It feels like that is totally devalued. And basically everything else on my resume now that Claude has infinitely more knowledge about everything. It's so depressing.