S.K.S. Perry's Blog, page 26
April 16, 2011
It could always be worse--
And if you think self-published authors are the only ones who don't get any respect, this link via
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380451598i/2033940.gif)
retrobabble
, who oddly enough thought this would cheer me up: http://www.stacydittrich.com/blog/2011/03/guess-what-dorchester-its-on
Stacy Dittrich alleges (I get to use that word, seeing as she's also a lawyer and all) that her publisher is essentially holding her books hostage, not paying out her royalties, and selling her novels as ebooks even though they don't have the rights to electronic publishing.
retrobabble
, who oddly enough thought this would cheer me up: http://www.stacydittrich.com/blog/2011/03/guess-what-dorchester-its-onStacy Dittrich alleges (I get to use that word, seeing as she's also a lawyer and all) that her publisher is essentially holding her books hostage, not paying out her royalties, and selling her novels as ebooks even though they don't have the rights to electronic publishing.
April 15, 2011
A Self-Published Author's Guide to Self-Publishing--Part 4
So you’ve self-published your novel, and it’s all downhill from here, right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, for starters there’s the whole legitimacy thing I mentioned. Self-published authors are rarely seen as real writers. Heck, I can’t even get a mention on Wikipedia. (Someone put my page up once and it was marked for speedy deletion—how embarrassing is that?)
Secondly, even traditionally published books get lost in the shuffle. I mean, there’s a least two or three books published every day. How do you expect someone to find your self-published masterpiece in that...what? Almost 800 a day in the U.S. alone! WTF! And I couldn’t get Darkside published, even after I queried that publisher and submitted my manuscript in her favourite coloured crayon—which I only found out about after hours of stalking research—and *cough* But I digress.
Thirdly, with the ease of self-publishing nowadays, both print and ebook—there may be a tendency for new authors to give up too easily. Maybe if you’d just stuck it out—you know, queried more than two agents—or did a little more work on your opus, it might have been picked up by a legitimate publisher. Then you’d be able to sit at that table at Chapters or Barnes and Noble all day with no one asking for your autograph, just like the real writers do.
There’s also the possibility—and I have no evidence to support or refute this theory either way—that it may be harder to publish your next opus through a legitimate publisher because you’ve become known as one of them low-rent self-published authors. I suppose you could always try to write under a pseudonym, but personally I’m rather attached to my name.
The nice thing about self-publishing is that you get to keep the lion’s share of the profits yourself (mostly). Amazon pays 35% royalties on ebooks under $2.00, and 70% on books over that. Obviously it pays to price your book at over $2.99. At roughly $2.00 a book royalties, that’s more than most first time authors will see from a paperback royalty. Of course if you don’t sell any, you don’t make anything. The nice thing about being traditionally published is that they usually pay you an advance, and if you don’t sell anything you get to keep the money. Good luck getting that next book published in that case, though.
Finally, and speaking from personal experience, there’s the very real possibility that someone will steal your book and publish it themselves. The thief who stole Darkside even published it as an ebook on Amazon under my name. Not only that, but Amazon allowed me to publish my book under my name too, which proves that even if you get there first there’s nothing to stop a thief from publishing your book as well—maybe at a lower price.
So that’s it. Whether you self-publish or not is up to you.
At the time, I thought self-publishing was the right answer for me—but then ebook publishing wasn’t a really a viable option. In my case, Darkside reached an audience it probably never would have. Offering it up on the net meant I had readers from all over the world! I received tons of fan mail—even a few from some teachers who said they were using it as classroom reading because it was one of the few books that held their student’s interest, and as an example of first person narrative.
Still, given the option I think I would have preferred the legitimacy of traditionally publishing. Maybe I’m just a snob—but if so I’m in good company. *cough* Amanda Hocking *cough*
Well, for starters there’s the whole legitimacy thing I mentioned. Self-published authors are rarely seen as real writers. Heck, I can’t even get a mention on Wikipedia. (Someone put my page up once and it was marked for speedy deletion—how embarrassing is that?)
Secondly, even traditionally published books get lost in the shuffle. I mean, there’s a least two or three books published every day. How do you expect someone to find your self-published masterpiece in that...what? Almost 800 a day in the U.S. alone! WTF! And I couldn’t get Darkside published, even after I queried that publisher and submitted my manuscript in her favourite coloured crayon—which I only found out about after hours of stalking research—and *cough* But I digress.
Thirdly, with the ease of self-publishing nowadays, both print and ebook—there may be a tendency for new authors to give up too easily. Maybe if you’d just stuck it out—you know, queried more than two agents—or did a little more work on your opus, it might have been picked up by a legitimate publisher. Then you’d be able to sit at that table at Chapters or Barnes and Noble all day with no one asking for your autograph, just like the real writers do.
There’s also the possibility—and I have no evidence to support or refute this theory either way—that it may be harder to publish your next opus through a legitimate publisher because you’ve become known as one of them low-rent self-published authors. I suppose you could always try to write under a pseudonym, but personally I’m rather attached to my name.
The nice thing about self-publishing is that you get to keep the lion’s share of the profits yourself (mostly). Amazon pays 35% royalties on ebooks under $2.00, and 70% on books over that. Obviously it pays to price your book at over $2.99. At roughly $2.00 a book royalties, that’s more than most first time authors will see from a paperback royalty. Of course if you don’t sell any, you don’t make anything. The nice thing about being traditionally published is that they usually pay you an advance, and if you don’t sell anything you get to keep the money. Good luck getting that next book published in that case, though.
Finally, and speaking from personal experience, there’s the very real possibility that someone will steal your book and publish it themselves. The thief who stole Darkside even published it as an ebook on Amazon under my name. Not only that, but Amazon allowed me to publish my book under my name too, which proves that even if you get there first there’s nothing to stop a thief from publishing your book as well—maybe at a lower price.
So that’s it. Whether you self-publish or not is up to you.
At the time, I thought self-publishing was the right answer for me—but then ebook publishing wasn’t a really a viable option. In my case, Darkside reached an audience it probably never would have. Offering it up on the net meant I had readers from all over the world! I received tons of fan mail—even a few from some teachers who said they were using it as classroom reading because it was one of the few books that held their student’s interest, and as an example of first person narrative.
Still, given the option I think I would have preferred the legitimacy of traditionally publishing. Maybe I’m just a snob—but if so I’m in good company. *cough* Amanda Hocking *cough*
April 14, 2011
A Self-Published Author's Guide to Self-Publishing--Part 3
Given lesson 1 (everyone will assume your self-published novel sucks) and lesson 2 (unless you somehow garner a lot of publicity no one will ever know you or your novel even exist) is there any reason why you should go ahead and self-publish anyway?
Well, yes.
First off, let’s assume your book actually is good passable readable—a stretch, I know, but bear with me. It wouldn’t be the first time the publishing industry was wrong about how well they thought a book would do. The publishing industry has paid obscenely large advances on books that tanked, and totally ignored books that went on to be best sellers and award winners. As a matter of fact, they’re wrong so often they should be weather men, or must at least have gone to the same school.
Let’s face it, writing is hard. You have about as much chance making it as a Big Name Author as you do a movie star--although if you’re already a movie star you could probably publish your laundry list and become a BNA. For most of us writing takes oodles of time, causes ulcers, depression, makes you a social leper, and hardly ever gets you laid. So it sucks when you go through all that and no one ever reads your work.
At worst, self-publishing will ensure that someone besides your mom reads it (and even mom may have lied). Before putting Darkside up as a Kindle download, I offered it on the net for free. To date it has over 30,000 hits on my website. It’s on a few different sites where you can download a .pdf version for free, and most of those have over 200 downloads or more. I get at least 5 or 6 requests for it or Darkside: Waking the Dead every week, and even a fan letter or two a day. And even thought it was absolutely free, I made about $1200 in Paypal donations. So at least I know someone has read it. Either that or mom has been really busy.
Secondly, there’s always the possibility that you could become the next Amanda Hocking (Although I’m not really certain even Amanda Hocking is the next Amanda Hocking. I have this conspiracy theory she’s really just a marketing ploy by Amazon to lull authors into uploading all their stuff to kindle. Of course I may be slightly paranoid biased when it comes to Amazon, given my recent past with them.) Amanda reportedly made about 2 million dollars in sales, and now has a 4 book deal with St. Martin’s Press reportedly worth another 2 million. (Unless Wikipedia is lying to me. Who knows, they may be in cahoots with Amazon.)
In our last instalment (tomorrow, if I get off my lazy...what?) I’ll talk about the possible downfalls (besides lesson 1 and 2) of self-publishing. I mean, seriously, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, yes.
First off, let’s assume your book actually is good passable readable—a stretch, I know, but bear with me. It wouldn’t be the first time the publishing industry was wrong about how well they thought a book would do. The publishing industry has paid obscenely large advances on books that tanked, and totally ignored books that went on to be best sellers and award winners. As a matter of fact, they’re wrong so often they should be weather men, or must at least have gone to the same school.
Let’s face it, writing is hard. You have about as much chance making it as a Big Name Author as you do a movie star--although if you’re already a movie star you could probably publish your laundry list and become a BNA. For most of us writing takes oodles of time, causes ulcers, depression, makes you a social leper, and hardly ever gets you laid. So it sucks when you go through all that and no one ever reads your work.
At worst, self-publishing will ensure that someone besides your mom reads it (and even mom may have lied). Before putting Darkside up as a Kindle download, I offered it on the net for free. To date it has over 30,000 hits on my website. It’s on a few different sites where you can download a .pdf version for free, and most of those have over 200 downloads or more. I get at least 5 or 6 requests for it or Darkside: Waking the Dead every week, and even a fan letter or two a day. And even thought it was absolutely free, I made about $1200 in Paypal donations. So at least I know someone has read it. Either that or mom has been really busy.
Secondly, there’s always the possibility that you could become the next Amanda Hocking (Although I’m not really certain even Amanda Hocking is the next Amanda Hocking. I have this conspiracy theory she’s really just a marketing ploy by Amazon to lull authors into uploading all their stuff to kindle. Of course I may be slightly paranoid biased when it comes to Amazon, given my recent past with them.) Amanda reportedly made about 2 million dollars in sales, and now has a 4 book deal with St. Martin’s Press reportedly worth another 2 million. (Unless Wikipedia is lying to me. Who knows, they may be in cahoots with Amazon.)
In our last instalment (tomorrow, if I get off my lazy...what?) I’ll talk about the possible downfalls (besides lesson 1 and 2) of self-publishing. I mean, seriously, what could possibly go wrong?
