@EMJ: Interesting seeing the old way it was done. I had a summer job at a printing plant when they used photoset type, not the technique shown in that video. Whew, the smell of the solvent in that place! That was the type of summer job that made you appreciate getting a good paying job (as well as working towards early retirement!)
Evolution of Print Media and My ERE Plan
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15980
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
@photoguy - The only reason is that I haven't bothered to send in the right forms. I would sell very little in person as I don't go around doing seminars, etc.
@AlexOliver - That's exactly how it would work. I'd likely even ship it directly from createspace; no reason to route it around me---it would be cheaper and save time. This is actually how it would work regardless of which bookstore one buys from, because createspace is the de facto publisher of the paperback.
@AlexOliver - That's exactly how it would work. I'd likely even ship it directly from createspace; no reason to route it around me---it would be cheaper and save time. This is actually how it would work regardless of which bookstore one buys from, because createspace is the de facto publisher of the paperback.
@photoguy: "In fact, in many specialities the books don't make the authors any money and are there primarily as CV boosters (academia, photography, etc.)."
I agree with this statement in the context of traditional publishing where the author gets 10% cut. But self published speciality books can be quite profitable. I have personal experience from authoring an academic textbook that sells 10+ copies per month. Not much compared to Jacob but still respectable when you factor in the higher price (~$100) for an academic textbook. Quite a few authors do ok (in ERE sense) by selling ~100 page non-fiction books for $20-30 (usually some type of how to manuals). But yes, writing books is insane amount of work compared to the pay and it only makes sense if one really is into writing/publishing.
I agree with this statement in the context of traditional publishing where the author gets 10% cut. But self published speciality books can be quite profitable. I have personal experience from authoring an academic textbook that sells 10+ copies per month. Not much compared to Jacob but still respectable when you factor in the higher price (~$100) for an academic textbook. Quite a few authors do ok (in ERE sense) by selling ~100 page non-fiction books for $20-30 (usually some type of how to manuals). But yes, writing books is insane amount of work compared to the pay and it only makes sense if one really is into writing/publishing.
-
AlexOliver
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:25 pm
"I have personal experience from authoring an academic textbook that sells 10+ copies per month."
In one of my classes this quarter, the professor gathered a bunch of articles related to the topic (Gender & Philosophy), self-published, made the book required, sold it for $80 to 30 students. We can't sell them back, because it's custom and won't be used for another class until next year...when she'll put a new article in and declare it necessary that one has the newest edition.
I don't even want to think how much she makes doing this.
In one of my classes this quarter, the professor gathered a bunch of articles related to the topic (Gender & Philosophy), self-published, made the book required, sold it for $80 to 30 students. We can't sell them back, because it's custom and won't be used for another class until next year...when she'll put a new article in and declare it necessary that one has the newest edition.
I don't even want to think how much she makes doing this.
-
AlexOliver
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:25 pm
@AlexOliver There's a difference in copyright between reading an article and republishing it. While you don't have to get permission from the original author/publishers to read it, if your professor wants to republish the material, they'll have to get permission (read: pay some kind of royalty). Basically how you can watch a DVD, but aren't allowed to use it for a public viewing (even a free one).
Also I had a philosophy prof who did that, but sold it directly to the students because when he went through the campus bookstore they marked the price up significantly.
Also I had a philosophy prof who did that, but sold it directly to the students because when he went through the campus bookstore they marked the price up significantly.
I have three books through Lulu.com. Two are travelogues and one is a reference book. The reference book sells the most. It is on a topic that even if people already have a stack of reference books with the exact same information in it, many will want to add one more because they collect these types of books. So if you want to sell books, I think a reference book is worthwhile.
I have to do all my own marketing. I do very little of it. I'm terrible at marketing. I once bought a whole box of my own books planning to sell them to people at an event and then I was too embarrassed to sell them. Now I either try to sell them for a little bit over my cost or else I give them away to friends and tell them if they like the book the sequel is available for purchase online.
I made $300 last year selling the books, mostly the reference book. I plan to write another reference book one of these days. Maybe two of them. If I was living in my blue plastic yurt on BLM land in the forest (like Bert and Holly Davis) $300 a year might make a significant dent in the amount of money I need to live on.
I have to do all my own marketing. I do very little of it. I'm terrible at marketing. I once bought a whole box of my own books planning to sell them to people at an event and then I was too embarrassed to sell them. Now I either try to sell them for a little bit over my cost or else I give them away to friends and tell them if they like the book the sequel is available for purchase online.
I made $300 last year selling the books, mostly the reference book. I plan to write another reference book one of these days. Maybe two of them. If I was living in my blue plastic yurt on BLM land in the forest (like Bert and Holly Davis) $300 a year might make a significant dent in the amount of money I need to live on.
Here is a link to someone that is prospering as a internet only publisher. Of course this person already published with a blog for some time, so she had a bit of a start going into publishing this way.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amanda-hocking-2011-2
http://www.businessinsider.com/amanda-hocking-2011-2
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15980
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
Do consider that the average number of sold copies for books published on createspace/lulu/xlibris is something like three or five. That's total, ever. Anyone wishing to make a living doing this need to consider marketing. Consider
4 hour body: goodreads=3.64, kindle notes= 3045
Art of noncomformity: goodreads= 3.80, kindle notes= 237
ERE book: goodreads=4.21, kindle notes =19
I consider the goodreads rating the most accurate rating---amazon ratings are often gamed and biased (either 5 or 1). I use kindle notes as a proxy for total sales.
These three books have been out for roughly the same time.
I note that high ratings do not equal sales. A good product does not sell itself. In particular, putting it on amazon does not equal sales. People have to be able to find the book which means links and mentions, etc.
What technology has done is to eliminate the traditional barriers and make it possible to make a living as a semi-popular author. To wit, I think I saw somewhere that CG makes $0.80 per book. I make $6.50 or so, so 8 times as much. In other words, I make almost as much net as he does but on a much smaller volume.
However, technology has not eliminated the need for an author to develop an audience. That is still a lot of work. If anything it has made it harder because of the increased avalanche of junk that barely passes minimum standards can now be published without problem.
What this means is that authors will now have to spend more time on promoting themselves than previously. It also means that the money will primarily flow to those who concentrate their efforts on self-promotion compared to those who just write.
When it comes to social/interlinked communities also consider the HUGE advantage of simply being first. For instance, starting a pf blog in 2004-05 was easy. There were only a few of them around. Starting in 2006-07 was slightly harder; only about a hundred. Starting one is 2010-11; well, now there are 500+ to compete against.
On the other hand, compared to getting a McJob, writing does mean that you're working on building assets rather than simply getting an income. Asset wealth grows exponentially with the effort whereas income only grows linearly. For anyone who's willing and capable of putting in enough effort, it can be worthwhile. For instance, suppose I can keep selling 100 books/month with no effort. That's $650 in income/month. This has a value of $195000 and could thus be considered a mighty fine compensation. It's not guaranteed though. It's also possible to spend a year writing a book that sells 2 copies per month, say $15/month---such an asset is only worth $4500. This is a poor compensation for a year's work.
In reality, it's likely a book portfolio works much like a blog portfolio with 1-2% of the posts drawing the majority of the income. You could get lucky and have that be one of your first posts/books. The only way to compensate for luck would be to be proliferate.
4 hour body: goodreads=3.64, kindle notes= 3045
Art of noncomformity: goodreads= 3.80, kindle notes= 237
ERE book: goodreads=4.21, kindle notes =19
I consider the goodreads rating the most accurate rating---amazon ratings are often gamed and biased (either 5 or 1). I use kindle notes as a proxy for total sales.
These three books have been out for roughly the same time.
I note that high ratings do not equal sales. A good product does not sell itself. In particular, putting it on amazon does not equal sales. People have to be able to find the book which means links and mentions, etc.
What technology has done is to eliminate the traditional barriers and make it possible to make a living as a semi-popular author. To wit, I think I saw somewhere that CG makes $0.80 per book. I make $6.50 or so, so 8 times as much. In other words, I make almost as much net as he does but on a much smaller volume.
However, technology has not eliminated the need for an author to develop an audience. That is still a lot of work. If anything it has made it harder because of the increased avalanche of junk that barely passes minimum standards can now be published without problem.
What this means is that authors will now have to spend more time on promoting themselves than previously. It also means that the money will primarily flow to those who concentrate their efforts on self-promotion compared to those who just write.
When it comes to social/interlinked communities also consider the HUGE advantage of simply being first. For instance, starting a pf blog in 2004-05 was easy. There were only a few of them around. Starting in 2006-07 was slightly harder; only about a hundred. Starting one is 2010-11; well, now there are 500+ to compete against.
On the other hand, compared to getting a McJob, writing does mean that you're working on building assets rather than simply getting an income. Asset wealth grows exponentially with the effort whereas income only grows linearly. For anyone who's willing and capable of putting in enough effort, it can be worthwhile. For instance, suppose I can keep selling 100 books/month with no effort. That's $650 in income/month. This has a value of $195000 and could thus be considered a mighty fine compensation. It's not guaranteed though. It's also possible to spend a year writing a book that sells 2 copies per month, say $15/month---such an asset is only worth $4500. This is a poor compensation for a year's work.
In reality, it's likely a book portfolio works much like a blog portfolio with 1-2% of the posts drawing the majority of the income. You could get lucky and have that be one of your first posts/books. The only way to compensate for luck would be to be proliferate.
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15980
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
@Maus - In 2010 I made about $65 on eHow. They still produce about $5/month. That's a $1500-2000 value(*). They took about 20 hours to write in total, so overall it's still been worth it, so far.
(Most of that revenue comes from three or four articles. Zipf law applies.)
(*) I've used a discount rate of only 4%. For revenue generating websites, typical discount rates are as high as 50%.
(Most of that revenue comes from three or four articles. Zipf law applies.)
(*) I've used a discount rate of only 4%. For revenue generating websites, typical discount rates are as high as 50%.
"99 Cent Books
I am having trouble convincing myself why digital books will not cost 99 cents within 5 years. All books, on average. Just as the price of music does not in general change on the length or quality.
...
I don't think publishers are ready for how low book prices will go. It seems insane, dangerous, life threatening, but inevitable.
I predict we'll be there in 5 years, (before the marginal price drops to zero, but that is another story.)"
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/
Just to be clear this is a quote from Kevin Kelly of the Technium website, not my own opinion. Kevin Kelly is an established author - What Technology Wants and other books.
I am having trouble convincing myself why digital books will not cost 99 cents within 5 years. All books, on average. Just as the price of music does not in general change on the length or quality.
...
I don't think publishers are ready for how low book prices will go. It seems insane, dangerous, life threatening, but inevitable.
I predict we'll be there in 5 years, (before the marginal price drops to zero, but that is another story.)"
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/
Just to be clear this is a quote from Kevin Kelly of the Technium website, not my own opinion. Kevin Kelly is an established author - What Technology Wants and other books.
@EMJ
Most books are NOT going to be $0.99 because it takes a lot more work for an author to produce an edited work of 40K+ words that might retail 10K copies if successful, compared to the amount of effort a musician has to put forth to create a professionally mixed single track that might be downloaded 50K to 500K times (aka the Gold album).
Most books are NOT going to be $0.99 because it takes a lot more work for an author to produce an edited work of 40K+ words that might retail 10K copies if successful, compared to the amount of effort a musician has to put forth to create a professionally mixed single track that might be downloaded 50K to 500K times (aka the Gold album).
-
jacob
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15980
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
- Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
- Contact:
Another argument would be that it's still 99c per track, not per album.
Books could sell for 99c per chapter as well.
That would be an interesting way to cut it up but in neither case is the content much cheaper than it used to be.
Indie publishing is essentially to traditional publishing what blogging is to journalism. It removes the barrier of entry and gives a larger cut to the content creator. However, there's no free lunch. Show me a blogger who's making $4000/month blogging and I'll show you one who's ecstatic having recently made enough on google adsense to clear his first $100 payout after 8 months of blogging. Alternatively, show me an author who's selling 5000 copies per month and I'll show you one who's pleased exceed 50 copies sold since the launch last year. I can do this all day
Books could sell for 99c per chapter as well.
That would be an interesting way to cut it up but in neither case is the content much cheaper than it used to be.
Indie publishing is essentially to traditional publishing what blogging is to journalism. It removes the barrier of entry and gives a larger cut to the content creator. However, there's no free lunch. Show me a blogger who's making $4000/month blogging and I'll show you one who's ecstatic having recently made enough on google adsense to clear his first $100 payout after 8 months of blogging. Alternatively, show me an author who's selling 5000 copies per month and I'll show you one who's pleased exceed 50 copies sold since the launch last year. I can do this all day
-
AlexOliver
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:25 pm
@AlexOliver, I imagine chapter lengths might become much more standardized if paying per chapter became the norm.
To the OP, I have self-published several instructional manuals. Like Jacob says, marketing is key...very few written products are going to sell themselves. Also, producing a GOOD product does take time and you probably will need an editor/proofreader (I know even for manuals I find editing invaluable, and my day job already involves a lot of similar writing, so it's not as if I'm bad at it).
Currently, I do not make enough money to support myself off of writing revenue completely. I probably could, BUT, it would take several years (at least) of very full-time effort in developing a portfolio. After that, I'd still have to put out occasional new product and work on marketing. In other words, it would very much be a job. All of which is fine if it's something you happen to really enjoy doing, but based on my experience, I would not say self-publishing is an easy or surefire way to ERE or getting rich quick.
Another thing to consider is that you may find yourself having to write things because they will sell better, not because they are topics or forms of writing you find interesting. If part of your motivation for pursuing ERE via self-publishing is that you like writing, you may find this kills some of that enjoyment for you.
To the OP, I have self-published several instructional manuals. Like Jacob says, marketing is key...very few written products are going to sell themselves. Also, producing a GOOD product does take time and you probably will need an editor/proofreader (I know even for manuals I find editing invaluable, and my day job already involves a lot of similar writing, so it's not as if I'm bad at it).
Currently, I do not make enough money to support myself off of writing revenue completely. I probably could, BUT, it would take several years (at least) of very full-time effort in developing a portfolio. After that, I'd still have to put out occasional new product and work on marketing. In other words, it would very much be a job. All of which is fine if it's something you happen to really enjoy doing, but based on my experience, I would not say self-publishing is an easy or surefire way to ERE or getting rich quick.
Another thing to consider is that you may find yourself having to write things because they will sell better, not because they are topics or forms of writing you find interesting. If part of your motivation for pursuing ERE via self-publishing is that you like writing, you may find this kills some of that enjoyment for you.