An author (me) doing numbers again, and I just don’t get it *sigh*
I don’t get it.
Maybe I’ve been in this business too long, or maybe I still have the mindset of a print author who takes over a year to write a book. A year of my time working 12 hr days, 6 days a week, plus blood plus sweat plus tears plus endless revisions and editing and self doubts before that book sorta kinda almost seems/feels good enough to submit, either to an editor or a critical proofreader, or, now that it’s a do it yourself process, to Amazon or Smashwords or whoever.
Okay, I get the concept of a loss leader. I get the concept of lowering the cover price for a promo or a sale. I even, reluctantly, get the concept of setting the first book in a trilogy or fourple-ology for free to suck readers into buying the rest of the series…hell, I do that myself and the modest boost in sales sorta kinda justify the means.
What I don’t get is this new *trend* of combining four or five full length novels by four or five different authors into one volume and either selling that volume for .99 or giving it away for free. I fully grasp the supposition and hope that some new readers who graze at the free troughs at Amazon etc will perk their ears at the opportunity to try five new-to-them authors for nothing and then maybe, MAYBE they will find one of those five authors appealing enough to buy another one of their books. I do get that. But is it really worth it? Can someone show me actual numbers that support the concept?
I’m sure the readers are happy…thrilled…to find such bargains, and I don’t want to take away any of that happiness. But really, each book that I sell goes to putting food on my table and a roof over my head, just like every day that a reader goes to work, she or he is doing so in order to put food on their table and a roof over their heads. Would they work free for a day in the hopes that someone sees how well they do the job in order to get them more work? Skewed logic, perhaps, but wtf. I write for a living, readers work for a living: we both should expect to get paid for it.
I was asked not to long ago to consider joining into one of these collaborative volumes but after some thought, declined and it’s been niggling at the back of my mind ever since. I really don’t get why five well known authors would (without knowing the numbers here, so forgive me for just tossing some out) take one fifth of 35% of .99 for one of their full length novels…and be excited about it? Didn’t we allllllllllllllllllll as writers, just finish one and two and three year long discussions about how horrid the big bad publishers were for only giving us 13% royalties on ebooks? Didn’t we just finish rallying around the self-pubbing maypole to expound with great enthusiasm on the ability to earn 70% royalties for our ebooks and the fact that we are finally…FINALLY…getting paid decently for what we thought our work was worth?
So again, I don’t get it. And even though I swore I would never think about numbers again, I can see no other recourse but to haul out the finger and toe abacus.
*cracking my knuckles for the hard part*
Say if I sell my book via a publisher, cover price $4.99, the percentage I end up with (25% of net which works out to about 13% of cover price) is roughly .64 cents.
Say if I sell that book via my own finger and toe-power (Amazon) I end up with 70% of the cover price, which is roughly $3.49. Quite the difference.
Say if I hold a sale and go through Amazon, lowering the price to .99, I get 35% of the cover which is roughly .34 cents. This usually boosts sales but you have to sell 10 times as many copies to earn out the same amount, more numbers which don’t usually meet the hopeful expectations. Again, the benefit is a new reader taking the chance on the .99 book and enjoying it enough to search out other titles to buy at full price. That’s the whole loss leader principle and yes, I get that. I’ve even done that with good results, but when the sale ends, so doth the spike in numbers.
Freebies are self-explanatory, but they’re usually only free for a finite period, be it a week or a month or two months, and again that depends on the effect of sales of other books. A new funky term has risen in the past few months: “perma-free” meaning the author has decided to leave the book permanently free in order to stay on those freebie lists and hopefully entice new readers to try them. Just another guise of a loss leader, and in an indie market that has become flooded with thousands of new books and new authors every week…it helps to be on those lists in the hope of being noticed.
So where is the harm in banding five authors and five books together in one volume? If you’re a numbers person it might cause your sphincter to spasm a little. Take a five book volume on sale for .99. The royalty rate is 35%, so that aforementioned .34 gets divided between the five authors, giving each roughly .06 for each sale. Six cents. Regardless of how you print it out, it’s still…six cents.
So. Let’s use 1000 sales as a “sayif”
Say if I sell 1000 books ($4.99) via a publisher, I would get ( .64 X 1000 [gotta love easy math, didn't even need my toes] ) $640.00
Those same 1000 books self pubbed ($4.99) would earn me ($3.49 X 1000) $3490.00
1000 books self pubbed on sale for .99 would earn out $340.00
1000 books for free makes a lot of happy readers but the author would get bupkus.
Now the big one: 1000 books in collaboration earns each author…..$60.00
Hmmmm. It takes just 17 sales at a regular price of $4.99 to earn out the $60.00. Or 22 sales at $3.99, (which seems to be an average price at the moment for self pubbed full length books). So in joining this enterprise, the authors joyously sell 1000 copies of the 5-in-one volume in order to joyously collect a stipend of $60.00.
I don’t get it.
I would happily…or joyously…listen to the logic of those who have done one of these collaborations, cuz maybe I’m missing something? Maybe these volumes go on to sell 100,000 copies, in which case each author would take a $6000.00 cheque to the bank and I could wipe my brow and say “whew, I finally get it.”
Please do chime in. I really do want to understand it.
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Terri,Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I'm by no means a math whiz...I still add by tapping out dots with the tip of a pen...but the numbers just didn't make sense to me. If I don't value my own work, I'm afraid that no one else will either. I also think its a bad precedence to set for new authors who might feel they *have* to set a lower price or even give their books away for free to get noticed.
I completely agree, but if giving work away for free for 3 days means that a hundred people see your work, and review it, at least that is exposure. I have a friend that just wrote a little book. I beta'd it for her, and she released it 3 weeks ago. I think she's charging 2.99, but so far has only had 4 people review it...and 3 of those were also betas.
It seems to be a hard time to get your book seen, and considering all the hard work that must go into producing a book, that's gotta be tough. If lowering or giving it away for free for a few gets your name and story out there with the potential of creating a little momentum, I think it would be worth it for me.
But yeah, it's sad to think that after all the work they put in, the first pressure a new author feels is to devalue their work. Sad.
As I said in my blog, I see nothing wrong with limited sale reductions or even making a book free....if there are other books in the authors list that would benefit. For brand new authors, yes, they may get some exposure if they can make it onto some lists, but they have to be sure they hit the right category or they just get lost in the crowd. It's a tough profession that shows no mercy. You need thick skin and a world of patience.
There are a handful of authors that when their books are released I don't even look at the price...you are one of them.I read a lot, generally about one book every two to three days. Because of the .99, free books and novella's I probably read even more, always trying to find an author I really like and then consume everything they have published. However, more often than not with these cheap reads, I am disappointed and wish I hadn't even spent the .99!
What I appreciate most is the "look inside" that Amazon offers. I can read the first two or three chapters and know if I want to continue with the story.
I feel like a lot of publishing is now a race to get it out there, at the expense of good writing and editing. There are typos, poor grammar and I have even read a story where the character names changed mid way through...why should anyone pay for that?
As far as the collaborations go, I have tried them when looking for a new author, and I have never found an author I want to read more from after reading a story in a compilation.
Because there are so many options for readers now, I try to always remember to post a review and praise the work I love and speak up about the works I don't and why.
Thank you Molly, and thank you for your comments. I agree about the racing part. There is even a well known author bragging now about being able to write and upload a book in two hours...drunk. And he's not only done it four times, but he's challenging other writers to do it too. I just shake my head. If that isn't an insult to readers and to the craft of writing, I don't know what is.
First, I completely agree that authors should get paid for their work. I, too, have a story to tell. It rattles in my brain, and has for 3 years, and I can't quite get it all down on paper, so to speak. I cannot imagine the discipline it takes, and the talent to do what you do. I am an avid reader, and completely respect what a writer does, and am grateful for those that can, and do, give us avid readers great entertainment.
That said, because I am an avid reader, I have to be careful with my pennies...especially in this great and dreadful day of the casual self-published author. Now, I have found many fantastic self-published authors and some books that are so horrifically written and badly edited that it makes me livid to think of the time and money I wasted. However, because of my addiction (It's August and I have read over 100 books this year - 8 of which took me 6 weeks), I do spend money on books. Lots of it.
Surprisingly, may of my favorite authors, including yourself, I have found through sampling of a free or very discounted offering from that author. Once I am certain that I like their style, I usually buy and read everything they have to offer. In thinking about my favorite authors, this is my experience:
Diana Gabaldon - got the first book as a gift (for free) have purchased and read everything of hers
Marsha Canham - got her Robin Hood series as a e-set discounted - purchased everything else I could find and am working through them.
Kresley Cole - got the firs book in a 'collection' - purchased and have read everything of hers. To be honest, buying this collection was a very unusual impulse buy for me, when my Borders was closing.
Lorelei James - (All Hail!) got the first for free, have purchased and read everything else of hers.
Dorothy Dunnett - Ok, an exception - had to chase these down at great expense and have all of her books in both softback and e-book. I wonder how many people would discover this incredible author, if her publishers would just do a one-time promotional limited time free offering?
JR Ward - first one was a gift, have purchased and read everything else.
Meridith Duran - bought her first book for $.50 when our local Borders was going out of business. Have purchased everything else of hers and am working through them.
....and the list can go on, and on. I have discovered many authors through their free offerings. And as a grateful consumer, I am grateful for those free offerings, and usually reward these offers by multiple purchases, if I find that I like their style. I also re-read, updating each re-read on Goodreads and hopefully giving a little additional exposure.
That said, as a consumer, I rarely EVER purchase a collection. Even when it contains one of my favorite authors. I have just found that it is rarely worth the time or money for me. There is usually one really good story/author, and the rest are really not to my taste. If I were to advise the publishers, my advice would be to do a limited free offering, and bag the collections.
So, I get your math....I really do. In my opinion, I can see how limited time free promotion may be seen to seed the field for future harvest with better success and more respect for the author than multi-work/author collections. Just a thought...