5 ms·

Revenue reality of a book on the New York Times best-seller list

53 points by makimaki 17y ago

gr366 17y ago
This looks like another case of those controlling the means of production and distribution primed for disruption. There's no shortage of "iTunes for Books" ideas out there, but imagine giving authors a means to distribute their work without a middleman taking quite so large a cut. Similar to what's happening in the music industry. It wouldn't have to rely solely on digital distribution either… well-known authors or books that meritoriously rise above the rank and file could then be picked up by the remaining smart book publishers and given real print distribution for those who still like to show off their bookshelves. Sort of like people still buying vinyl even though they have the MP3s.
- petercooper 17y ago
  There are some means, like Lulu.com, for example. Their charges aren't unreasonable, though you won't be making much money if you want to roll out a $7 paperback through them (for bigger, pricier books though, you end up with a good margin). The problem is the vast majority of authors aren't marketers and aren't that interested in marketing and promoting their own books even if they have some ideas. The relationships publishers have with distributors can prove significant in getting those first few thousand copies out the door. (And it's certainly not as if I'm a massive fan of publishers here.. http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ )
jazzychad 17y ago
> After paying taxes, commission to my agent and covering my expenses, my net profit on the book currently stands at $24,517.36 > ...the publisher’s portion of sales on this book has grossed them around $453,839.68. ... If I had to make a guess, I’d say they probably netted around $250K on this one. Wow.
- azrealus 17y ago
  this is sad :(. How can this be improved?
  - awa 17y ago
    Cut the middleman, an author can publish an ebook and sell it through kindle or other online means. Once and if the book is relatively successful he/she can arm-twist a smaller publisher and get higher royalties. Also, a relatively well known author can directly work with a smaller publisher and get higher royalties.
    - ashishbharthi 17y ago
      Or even self publish it.
- smallblacksun 17y ago
  The publisher makes more profit than the author, but they also take more risk. The author is guaranteed $50,000, while the publisher could (theoretically) lose $50,000 plus the cost of printing and distributing if the book doesn't sell well.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - gommm 17y ago
    When publisher's give advance that high it's because they know that the book will sale. So I don't think they are really taking that much of a risk with publishing this book.
Alnoor 17y ago
Clearly, we need to outsource book publishing to China.
- jhancock 17y ago
  I assume your being snarky. To be a bit more serious though, China has a large ebook publishing economy. An author in China would be thrilled to make $25k off a book. Royalty payment in China are horribly low and accounting of books sold or read is highly "inaccurate".
mquander 17y ago
I'm not too sympathetic, on account of the following: - Her figure of $24K is per book, and then she says (paraphrased) "well, if I were to write one book like this a year." Most authors producing mass-market paperbacks write somewhat more than one per year. The author in question appears to write several per year (looking at the Amazon listings) which probably gross a fairly similar amount. So, what's the meaning of this "if I were to write one" business? - She expects to see the rest of her advance and some non-negligible amount of money coming in in the future from royalties and other rights, so it's not really fair to say that her "income" from this book is $25,000. As a professional author, she would be earning that $25,000 this year and also earning money from prior sales this year, and then she would be earning more from this book later. - Finally, here's the Amazon synopsis: Immortal Darkyn Lord Valentin Jaus and landscape artist Liling Harper are two lost souls. Brought together by fate, bound together by passion, Valentin and Liling find solace in each other's arms. But the ties that bind them are deeper—and more dangerous—than either of them can possibly imagine... No offense to struggling vampire romance novel writers, but why is it important that people are able to earn a great living writing books like this? I don't think it's a big loss to society if people aren't getting rich at this particular trade. When authors who are really advancing the art can't make a good living, then let me know.* * No, this isn't totally subjective. People will be reading Pynchon 30 years from now, but they won't be reading Lynn Viehl.
- immad 17y ago
  In my mind, the issue is more to do with other people getting rich off the back of this authors work while the author gets hardly any thing. So the question is not the value of the book to society, but the percentage of the value the author should get versus everyone else in the stack.
  - byrneseyeview 17y ago
    Is that true in the sense that it makes you feel bad, or true in the sense that you think a smart publisher could make more money with lower rates? If you're right about how much it costs to profitably distribute a book, you could potentially dominate the publishing industry.
joshfinnie 17y ago
I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem to be making a better living then $25,000 a year. Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves. Even making only $25000 on one book a year, if you have written 5-10 books the past 5 to 10 years, you have to be making money off those books as well... Especially if her advance is $50,000 a book! I have to agree that I have no real sympathy for this.
- barry-cotter 17y ago
  "I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem to be making a better living then $25,000 a year." Serial writing is practically dead. Short story rates have stayed constant in nominal terms for decades, soinflation has eaten them. "Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves." Those authors combined are less than 0.0001% of the professionally published novel writing population but I would be surprised if they took less than 5% of all US author royalty dollars. Very, very skewed distribution.
netcan 17y ago
From the comments: Thanks for sharing this. As a writer, I still don’t understand why we receive such a small pay check when the publisher reaps big profits. Yes, they take the chance, put up the money, and promote the book, but they would have nothing to sell if we didn’t write the book. Because of that, I’m self publishing my next book. I figure that I only need to sell 10% of what I would through a publisher to make more money than I would receive from them. With the internet and a modest fan base I think this is possible. This is the correct mindset. Currently publishers take 90%+ of the revenue. They also take all the risk & also fund the unsuccessful publications. Authors are trading risk for stability at (what seem like) a high exchange rate. I don't believe that today & into the near future publishers really have such a monopoly over the distribution & promotion of books that no one else stands a chance of succeeding. If the commenter is wrong & can't sell 5%-10% the number of books on his own, then the publishers are adding the value that they are getting paid for. They could try to do what the publishers do. They could promote & sell direct to public online (I imagine >10% of all book sales are online, so if you can keep the number of online sales consistent while writing off brick & mortar entirely, you beat your goal). 1K true fans (or maybe 10k true fans) may be a viable approach. Maybe the author can do the direct to public thing & sell books at a fraction of normal retail price. I'd order a lot of books if they cost $3. The problem with all this is obviously that the author then needs to be good at both writing & "publishing." For this to be scalable, there needs to be a wider structure that works for writers that are only good at writing. Then again, maybe that kind of structure exists and costs 90%+ of revenue.
- jgrahamc 17y ago
  Publishers are not just marketing machines, they also have editors. One of the dangers of self-publishing is not getting robust feedback from a good editor.
  - netcan 17y ago
    I disagree. Editors is the type of service that is defined enough in scope to outsource effectively. It is one of the expenses of self-publishing, sure. It shouldn't be skipped. But just like they can pay to have a book printed, you can pay to have it edited. I don't think that there is really an argument that all the stuff that publishers do is unnecessary. Only that authors might be able to do it themselves. The point that seems to be brought up every time (I've never worked in publishing, so I don't know) is that their ability to promote a book is not replaceable. The reason that comment caught my attention is that it offers a solution to that problem: You don't need to match them, just get within an order of magnitude. I suspect that one of the hard to replicate aspects is the filtration that publishers offer. They reject books with low chances of success. If they are better then average at selecting, that should increase average ROI. This is where the decade comes in to play. Printing smaller runs is getting cheaper all the time. Distribution is getting easier. ebooks may make getting a book out the door very cheap. If you don't have high up front costs, you don't need filters.
patio11 17y ago
We have it ridiculously fortunate selling software/services relative to folks whose IP requires a physical embodiment. If you think the publisher is a waste of money from the perspective of the author, why not consider what retailers get out of the transaction? Like most retail products, books need to be keystoned to make money, which means 50%+ of the price you pay for the book gets absorbed by the point of sale. This has truly perverse effects such as an affiliate for Amazon who generates one marginal sale of Bad Vampires And The Librarians Who Love Them getting just about as much as the author does out of the marginal sale. (I mock but I spent $50 this month on "urban fantasy" on my Kindle, so it is good natured mocking.) My little brother is trying to break into writing. For authors below the tip-top, it requires endless participation in book signings, tours, and whatnot to build a fan base and, essentially, move books at retail scales. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, insane. Authors need to get savvier about marketing their books on the Internet, and disintermediating as many players as metahumanly possible. (I've got high hopes for the Kindle bringing book readers kicking and screaming into the mainstream. Granted, at the moment it makes you about as dependent on Amazon and your publisher as you've always been. However, if it goes iPod and moves the core book buyers from buying paper to buying bits, then you could have alternate business models like "Thanks for buying Vampire Loves Sarcastic Female Mechanic last week. It is the first book in a planned series of seven. For only $49.99 you can buy a membership in the VLSFM fan club, which in addition to our exclusive newsletter gets you the next 6 books of the series -- each delivered a month before street date directly to your registered device. Be the envy of your friends!")
z8000 17y ago
Sad but then again just about every book seems to make it onto the New York Times best-seller list. Oh, right, I've been spending too much time in airports.
teamonkey 17y ago
I find this very interesting, but the way she explains it isn't clearly laid out. Annoyingly, she keeps referring to her own income in terms of net profit but anything else is gross. Anyway, a link to her first post: http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller She got an advance of $50000 of which 1/3 was paid only when the book hit the shelves. Expenses (including agent fees) approximate $9000. If she took a year to write the book, her book would have earned her $35k (gross, $26k after expenses) in July 2007, plus $13000 (gross) in July 2008. And that's it - until she covers the advance, that's her income for this book to date. Hardly stellar. You'd need returns from other books to support yourself in order to make a living from this. She took back $40k against her advance in the first 4 months followed by a buffered -$2k loss in the next 6 months. That's one hell of a short tail.

53 points by makimaki 17y ago

gr366 17y ago

This looks like another case of those controlling the means of production and distribution primed for disruption. There's no shortage of "iTunes for Books" ideas out there, but imagine giving authors a means to distribute their work without a middleman taking quite so large a cut. Similar to what's happening in the music industry. It wouldn't have to rely solely on digital distribution either… well-known authors or books that meritoriously rise above the rank and file could then be picked up by the remaining smart book publishers and given real print distribution for those who still like to show off their bookshelves. Sort of like people still buying vinyl even though they have the MP3s.

petercooper 17y ago
There are some means, like Lulu.com, for example. Their charges aren't unreasonable, though you won't be making much money if you want to roll out a $7 paperback through them (for bigger, pricier books though, you end up with a good margin). The problem is the vast majority of authors aren't marketers and aren't that interested in marketing and promoting their own books even if they have some ideas. The relationships publishers have with distributors can prove significant in getting those first few thousand copies out the door. (And it's certainly not as if I'm a massive fan of publishers here.. http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ )

jazzychad 17y ago

> After paying taxes, commission to my agent and covering my expenses, my net profit on the book currently stands at $24,517.36 > ...the publisher’s portion of sales on this book has grossed them around $453,839.68. ... If I had to make a guess, I’d say they probably netted around $250K on this one. Wow.

azrealus 17y ago
this is sad :(. How can this be improved?
- awa 17y ago
  Cut the middleman, an author can publish an ebook and sell it through kindle or other online means. Once and if the book is relatively successful he/she can arm-twist a smaller publisher and get higher royalties. Also, a relatively well known author can directly work with a smaller publisher and get higher royalties.
  - ashishbharthi 17y ago
    Or even self publish it.
smallblacksun 17y ago
The publisher makes more profit than the author, but they also take more risk. The author is guaranteed $50,000, while the publisher could (theoretically) lose $50,000 plus the cost of printing and distributing if the book doesn't sell well.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- gommm 17y ago
  When publisher's give advance that high it's because they know that the book will sale. So I don't think they are really taking that much of a risk with publishing this book.

Alnoor 17y ago

Clearly, we need to outsource book publishing to China.

jhancock 17y ago
I assume your being snarky. To be a bit more serious though, China has a large ebook publishing economy. An author in China would be thrilled to make $25k off a book. Royalty payment in China are horribly low and accounting of books sold or read is highly "inaccurate".

mquander 17y ago

I'm not too sympathetic, on account of the following: - Her figure of $24K is per book, and then she says (paraphrased) "well, if I were to write one book like this a year." Most authors producing mass-market paperbacks write somewhat more than one per year. The author in question appears to write several per year (looking at the Amazon listings) which probably gross a fairly similar amount. So, what's the meaning of this "if I were to write one" business? - She expects to see the rest of her advance and some non-negligible amount of money coming in in the future from royalties and other rights, so it's not really fair to say that her "income" from this book is $25,000. As a professional author, she would be earning that $25,000 this year and also earning money from prior sales this year, and then she would be earning more from this book later. - Finally, here's the Amazon synopsis: Immortal Darkyn Lord Valentin Jaus and landscape artist Liling Harper are two lost souls. Brought together by fate, bound together by passion, Valentin and Liling find solace in each other's arms. But the ties that bind them are deeper—and more dangerous—than either of them can possibly imagine... No offense to struggling vampire romance novel writers, but why is it important that people are able to earn a great living writing books like this? I don't think it's a big loss to society if people aren't getting rich at this particular trade. When authors who are really advancing the art can't make a good living, then let me know.* * No, this isn't totally subjective. People will be reading Pynchon 30 years from now, but they won't be reading Lynn Viehl.

immad 17y ago
In my mind, the issue is more to do with other people getting rich off the back of this authors work while the author gets hardly any thing. So the question is not the value of the book to society, but the percentage of the value the author should get versus everyone else in the stack.
- byrneseyeview 17y ago
  Is that true in the sense that it makes you feel bad, or true in the sense that you think a smart publisher could make more money with lower rates? If you're right about how much it costs to profitably distribute a book, you could potentially dominate the publishing industry.

joshfinnie 17y ago

I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem to be making a better living then $25,000 a year. Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves. Even making only $25000 on one book a year, if you have written 5-10 books the past 5 to 10 years, you have to be making money off those books as well... Especially if her advance is $50,000 a book! I have to agree that I have no real sympathy for this.

barry-cotter 17y ago
"I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem to be making a better living then $25,000 a year." Serial writing is practically dead. Short story rates have stayed constant in nominal terms for decades, soinflation has eaten them. "Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves." Those authors combined are less than 0.0001% of the professionally published novel writing population but I would be surprised if they took less than 5% of all US author royalty dollars. Very, very skewed distribution.

netcan 17y ago

From the comments: Thanks for sharing this. As a writer, I still don’t understand why we receive such a small pay check when the publisher reaps big profits. Yes, they take the chance, put up the money, and promote the book, but they would have nothing to sell if we didn’t write the book. Because of that, I’m self publishing my next book. I figure that I only need to sell 10% of what I would through a publisher to make more money than I would receive from them. With the internet and a modest fan base I think this is possible. This is the correct mindset. Currently publishers take 90%+ of the revenue. They also take all the risk & also fund the unsuccessful publications. Authors are trading risk for stability at (what seem like) a high exchange rate. I don't believe that today & into the near future publishers really have such a monopoly over the distribution & promotion of books that no one else stands a chance of succeeding. If the commenter is wrong & can't sell 5%-10% the number of books on his own, then the publishers are adding the value that they are getting paid for. They could try to do what the publishers do. They could promote & sell direct to public online (I imagine >10% of all book sales are online, so if you can keep the number of online sales consistent while writing off brick & mortar entirely, you beat your goal). 1K true fans (or maybe 10k true fans) may be a viable approach. Maybe the author can do the direct to public thing & sell books at a fraction of normal retail price. I'd order a lot of books if they cost $3. The problem with all this is obviously that the author then needs to be good at both writing & "publishing." For this to be scalable, there needs to be a wider structure that works for writers that are only good at writing. Then again, maybe that kind of structure exists and costs 90%+ of revenue.

jgrahamc 17y ago
Publishers are not just marketing machines, they also have editors. One of the dangers of self-publishing is not getting robust feedback from a good editor.
- netcan 17y ago
  I disagree. Editors is the type of service that is defined enough in scope to outsource effectively. It is one of the expenses of self-publishing, sure. It shouldn't be skipped. But just like they can pay to have a book printed, you can pay to have it edited. I don't think that there is really an argument that all the stuff that publishers do is unnecessary. Only that authors might be able to do it themselves. The point that seems to be brought up every time (I've never worked in publishing, so I don't know) is that their ability to promote a book is not replaceable. The reason that comment caught my attention is that it offers a solution to that problem: You don't need to match them, just get within an order of magnitude. I suspect that one of the hard to replicate aspects is the filtration that publishers offer. They reject books with low chances of success. If they are better then average at selecting, that should increase average ROI. This is where the decade comes in to play. Printing smaller runs is getting cheaper all the time. Distribution is getting easier. ebooks may make getting a book out the door very cheap. If you don't have high up front costs, you don't need filters.

patio11 17y ago

We have it ridiculously fortunate selling software/services relative to folks whose IP requires a physical embodiment. If you think the publisher is a waste of money from the perspective of the author, why not consider what retailers get out of the transaction? Like most retail products, books need to be keystoned to make money, which means 50%+ of the price you pay for the book gets absorbed by the point of sale. This has truly perverse effects such as an affiliate for Amazon who generates one marginal sale of Bad Vampires And The Librarians Who Love Them getting just about as much as the author does out of the marginal sale. (I mock but I spent $50 this month on "urban fantasy" on my Kindle, so it is good natured mocking.) My little brother is trying to break into writing. For authors below the tip-top, it requires endless participation in book signings, tours, and whatnot to build a fan base and, essentially, move books at retail scales. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, insane. Authors need to get savvier about marketing their books on the Internet, and disintermediating as many players as metahumanly possible. (I've got high hopes for the Kindle bringing book readers kicking and screaming into the mainstream. Granted, at the moment it makes you about as dependent on Amazon and your publisher as you've always been. However, if it goes iPod and moves the core book buyers from buying paper to buying bits, then you could have alternate business models like "Thanks for buying Vampire Loves Sarcastic Female Mechanic last week. It is the first book in a planned series of seven. For only $49.99 you can buy a membership in the VLSFM fan club, which in addition to our exclusive newsletter gets you the next 6 books of the series -- each delivered a month before street date directly to your registered device. Be the envy of your friends!")

z8000 17y ago

Sad but then again just about every book seems to make it onto the New York Times best-seller list. Oh, right, I've been spending too much time in airports.

teamonkey 17y ago

I find this very interesting, but the way she explains it isn't clearly laid out. Annoyingly, she keeps referring to her own income in terms of net profit but anything else is gross. Anyway, a link to her first post: http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller She got an advance of $50000 of which 1/3 was paid only when the book hit the shelves. Expenses (including agent fees) approximate $9000. If she took a year to write the book, her book would have earned her $35k (gross, $26k after expenses) in July 2007, plus $13000 (gross) in July 2008. And that's it - until she covers the advance, that's her income for this book to date. Hardly stellar. You'd need returns from other books to support yourself in order to make a living from this. She took back $40k against her advance in the first 4 months followed by a buffered -$2k loss in the next 6 months. That's one hell of a short tail.