in my own interest…

As an indie author, I have to do most things for and by myself. I participated in a young adult novel convention in San Mateo this past weekend; I had to pay for my flight, hotel, and numerous car services to get around the Bay Area. Then, at the end of a great day of talking about books with authors and readers, I took my seat between two other authors and got ready to sign some books. But only one person stopped by my table and she had a copy of…BIRD. A picture book published ten years ago. So I went out to the bookseller’s stand and sure enough, BIRD was the only title of mine they had ordered. The bookseller blamed the convention organizers, and they in turn blamed the bookseller. The night before, I spoke to two groups of teens at a juvenile detention facility and they had the choice of THREE of my YA titles: A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT, THE DEEP, AND SHIP OF SOULS. The librarian told me she had ordered the books through Amazon, which means for the indie title I got the highest royalty. The chart on the right shows what I earn on THE DEEP, which is a $10 book; when someone buys it on Amazon, I get just over 30% but when they buy through the distributor channel, I get 10% (the industry standard). I came home from that convention with a lots of different ideas in my head, but yesterday I went through my CreateSpace dashboard and removed the extended distribution option from all of my full-color picture books. They also retail for $10 but when libraries and bookstores buy through the two big distributors, I only get 20-35 cents per book. So someone just ordered 70 copies of BENNY DOESN’T LIKE TO BE HUGGED through that channel but I only earned $14 in royalties. When anyone orders THE DOOR AT THE CROSSROADS through the expanded distribution channel, I make 26 cents even though the book retails for $15. I wanted to make it easy for bookstores and libraries but the truth is, most of them aren’t interested in supporting indie authors. Which means I need to act in my own interest from now on.

I just turned in final revisions for DRAGONS IN A BAG and my editor is sending me her editorial notes for THE DRAGON THIEF. After doing 10 book talks in three days, I’m relieved not to have any school visits until the middle of February! Time to write…