Measuring success as a writer
The nicely formatted version with pictures is here: http://meganthomason.com/?p=290
As it has been a year since I published daynight and 2013 is coming to a close, I have been thinking a lot about what constitutes “success” in the publishing industry, whether I have achieved it, and if it matters.
“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill
It won’t do any good for me to compare my success to those who have “won the publishing lottery” any more than it will be to feel overly confident about the success I have had. Yet, I all too often compare myself to my peers and those who have found immense success. I’m an over-the-top type A personality and used to working hard and achieving success. So, I stress about daily sales and rankings, and I wonder what to do to keep things on the right trajectory.
I consider these to be some baseline parameters for success:
- Indie authors need to be prepared to invest in their business and fight for every sale. It is as much work post-publishing as it is writing the book.
- Sure, there is an element of luck involved. But, a book’s chances of success are better if it is a) a good idea that is executed well (including having been professionally edited and proofread—a lesson I had to learn the hard way), b) has a good cover and blurb, c) has positive reviews, and d) has enough marketing behind it to get visibility.
All that said, an author can still do “everything by the book” and still consider their efforts a failure because they are comparing themselves against an impossible standard. It is success alone in finishing a full-length novel and publishing it! It is success to get people other than friends and family to buy a book, to get positive reviews, to be ranked, and to amass any number of fans.
So here’s my pep talk to myself about my accomplishments for 2013.
Sales
There is no consistent, industry standard barometer that will tell an author if they have achieved success. I, like many people, suffer from feeling unworthy after comparing myself to others when the only truth is that there will always be people who are more successful, and there will be people who are less successful.
I can usually find anything on the internet. However, the information on book sales is lacking, and what is there is inconsistent.
“Most self-published books will sell less than 100 or 150 copies.”—New York Times
I’ve had a few days where I have been lucky enough to sell that many books in a single day. So, I can safely say my books are above average for an Indie book—yet far from what those in the top 100 on Amazon sell.
“Average e-book earned just $297 last year…at $300 each, you’d have to publish 48 books per year just to make minimum wage — if you could write them in all in your waking hours.”—MikeCooper.com
My husband jokes all the time about my 50 cent an hour job. Even with good sales, once expenses are taken out, there is not a lot left.
“A survey of 1,007 self-published writers – one of the most comprehensive insights into the growing market to date – found that while a small percentage of authors were bringing in sums of $100,000-plus in 2011, average earnings were just $10,000 a year. This amount, however, is significantly skewed by the top earners, with less than 10% of self-publishing authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue and half of writers earning less than $500. Romance authors earned 170% more than their peers, while authors in other genres fared much worse: science-fiction writers earned 38% of the $10,000 average, fantasy writers 32%, and literary fiction authors just 20% of the $10,000 average.”—The Guardian
I think that dystopians perform a little better than science-fiction on average, and that dystopian romances have broader market appeal than a standard dystopia. But they are also not as hot as New Adult or Contemporary romances. Using the standard average, I can say that I’ve done above average here.
“I usually say that the average book sells 10,000 copies with a major publisher.”—SteveLaube.com
This one I can get excited about. My books are no “50 Shades,” but at least I know they are selling in the realm of those from major publishing houses.
Rankings and bestsellers
“There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, depending on which stats you believe.”—Forbes
Yikes. That is a lot of competition when looked at it that way. Amazon has 2,305,692 Kindle books available (1.3 million are non-fiction). Thankfully, there are sub-categories which much more manageable numbers of books in each. For instance, there are currently 7,635 Teen & Young Adult romance books but only 318 dystopian romance books. There are 11,648 YA Science Fiction & Fantasy books but only 2,988 YA Science Fiction books and 742 dystopias within that category. Picking the right category is crucial to success and have a shot at being in the rankings.
daynight has been as high as #1-#10 in many categories—YA Science Fiction, YA Romance, YA dystopian romance, YA dystopia, Children’s Science Fiction, and more.
arbitrate has been high in the rankings for YA dystopian romance and YA dystopia, has been in the “hot new releases” list for its first month (#3, behind mass-market novels such as Allegiant and The Selection), and is in the top-rated books for its categories (currently #8 for YA dystopian romance).
My books have been as high as #1000 paid (top 50 when free) and tend to hover in the #2000s to #5000s (out of 2.3M+ books, that’s not half bad), though without any promotion (price or marketing) they can plummet in the rankings quickly.
“And in 2010 more than 2.7 million "non-traditional" titles were also published, including self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books.”—Huffington Post
Bowker counted 391K self-published books with an ISBN published in 2012. This does *not* include Amazon books that use an ASIN instead of an ISBN, so the number is actually much higher. (Source: Self Published Author by Bowker)
Yeah, yeah, yeah…we get it. There are a lot of books published.
Net profits
I have known several people who think it would be “great” to write a book to “augment their income.” Some people think it is an “easy” way to make money.
Writing a book is hard, time consuming, and expensive. And it is apparently the second most competitive profession in America.
To make money, you have to spend money. Indie authors have to pay for all their own expenses—book covers, editing, marketing, advertising, blog tours, and giveaways to name a few. I have spent thousands on editing and proofreading alone (in my opinion, it is critical to have a polished book). Blog tours cost hundreds of dollars. It all adds up fast.
There is nothing more depressing than working hard and losing money. Even with the lag in Amazon royalties, I can happily say that I made more money than I spent in 2013. Since I don’t write for the money, I have tried to use those profits to give back to my readers through giveaways and to the community through donations.
Social media
According to Forbes, to be successful as an Indie author, we all have to be like Guy Kawasaki and create a monster social media platform (http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorga...). Easy for him to say. I do think that it is useful to have a place to interact with fans. For my author colleague, David Estes, that platform is Goodreads. For me, it is Facebook (Facebook.com/daynight.series). For Guy Kawasaki, it is Twitter. Other authors—like Susan Kaye Quinn and Jillian Dodd have blogs with large followings. Here is my advice:
- Have a presence on multiple platforms, but “invest” in one.
- Include links at the back of your books to your social media links and to where readers can sign up to be notified of new releases (only use this list to notify readers of new releases).
- Personally respond to readers when possible. As books become more popular, this doesn’t scale well, but I know that I really enjoy hearing from and interacting with my readers. I have gotten to know some of them well and am the better for it.
As I said above, the social media platform that I use the most is Facebook. I do regular giveaways, post my teasers there, and share news about my books (and other books as I see fit).
Publishing output (how many books are cranked out)
I know several authors who are able to crank out a book every 3-4 weeks. That is not something I am able to do. With five kids, my life is very busy. And, the books in the daynight series are extremely complicated (3 main characters, with things happening in the past and present across two planets + dozens of sub-plots) and take me a long time to write and polish. daynight took more than six solid months of writing and even longer to edit. arbitrate was released just shy of a year after daynight. I did release clean slate complex as both a standalone novella and part of the anthology, Darkest Worlds between.
It is definitely true that the more titles an author has, the greater the chance of success for a “breakthrough hit” and greater opportunity for a steady income. I’m feeling a little behind the curve on this one.
Reviews
When I first published daynight, I had a hard time getting friends and family to read it. I’m sure they assumed it would suck and did a whole lot of eye-rolling. So, I decided to get professional opinions from Kirkus Reviews (an industry leader), BlueInk Review, and ForeWord Reviews. This is like rolling the dice. You hope that you can get enough positive snippets to use in marketing. Professional reviews can be extremely harsh. I lucked out and got overall positive professional reviews across the board.
About a month later (and after contacting dozens of blogs and being turned down), I learned about blog tours and signed up for my first one with Kathy from Book Blasts, Blog Tours. I got a lot of great reviews from this tour—as well as some excellent feedback.
Does everyone love them? No—nor do I expect them to. Everyone’s tastes vary widely. I’ve found that most middle-aged men do not enjoy my teen dystopian romance, nor do lovers of erotica (shocking, I know). There are people who don’t read my books and have personally attacked me. This happens to every writer. I’ve stopped reading reviews for the most part, finding that it isn’t good for an author’s blood pressure or productivity.
Personal reward
This is perhaps the most important thing. Is writing personally rewarding? For me, it is. When I wrote daynight, writing was an excellent escape for me. Now, to be honest, writing feels like a job. I have professional editors and proofreaders and have deadlines to adhere to. However, I find it rewarding to write—particularly when, as with arbitrate, I can look back and be genuinely happy with the results. I receive notes from readers often who love my books and that always makes my day—as much, if not a whole lot more, than great sales or a high ranking.
The income I have made has allowed me to make large contributions to both Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (in honor of my daughter who had a bone marrow transplant) and to the Red Cross Philippines relief efforts. In addition, I organized a Holiday Giving Tree which helped more than 35 families with over $4,500 in gifts distributed (with help from friends, readers, and fellow authors). That is enough reward in and of itself.
Conclusion
If we look for failure, we will find failure. If we look for success, we will find it. We may find success in the rankings and still not be able to put food on the table with our earnings. We may have a book with a killer idea that no one experiences because it is lost in the sea of alternatives. We may get critical acclaim and fall short on our sales goals. The high sales we receive may be offset by huge expenses. There will always be room for improvement.
So, ultimately, I think that an author needs to write because they love to…because they have to…because they are haunted by each story until it is written. Anything on top of that is a nice bonus.
As it has been a year since I published daynight and 2013 is coming to a close, I have been thinking a lot about what constitutes “success” in the publishing industry, whether I have achieved it, and if it matters.
“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill
It won’t do any good for me to compare my success to those who have “won the publishing lottery” any more than it will be to feel overly confident about the success I have had. Yet, I all too often compare myself to my peers and those who have found immense success. I’m an over-the-top type A personality and used to working hard and achieving success. So, I stress about daily sales and rankings, and I wonder what to do to keep things on the right trajectory.
I consider these to be some baseline parameters for success:
- Indie authors need to be prepared to invest in their business and fight for every sale. It is as much work post-publishing as it is writing the book.
- Sure, there is an element of luck involved. But, a book’s chances of success are better if it is a) a good idea that is executed well (including having been professionally edited and proofread—a lesson I had to learn the hard way), b) has a good cover and blurb, c) has positive reviews, and d) has enough marketing behind it to get visibility.
All that said, an author can still do “everything by the book” and still consider their efforts a failure because they are comparing themselves against an impossible standard. It is success alone in finishing a full-length novel and publishing it! It is success to get people other than friends and family to buy a book, to get positive reviews, to be ranked, and to amass any number of fans.
So here’s my pep talk to myself about my accomplishments for 2013.
Sales
There is no consistent, industry standard barometer that will tell an author if they have achieved success. I, like many people, suffer from feeling unworthy after comparing myself to others when the only truth is that there will always be people who are more successful, and there will be people who are less successful.
I can usually find anything on the internet. However, the information on book sales is lacking, and what is there is inconsistent.
“Most self-published books will sell less than 100 or 150 copies.”—New York Times
I’ve had a few days where I have been lucky enough to sell that many books in a single day. So, I can safely say my books are above average for an Indie book—yet far from what those in the top 100 on Amazon sell.
“Average e-book earned just $297 last year…at $300 each, you’d have to publish 48 books per year just to make minimum wage — if you could write them in all in your waking hours.”—MikeCooper.com
My husband jokes all the time about my 50 cent an hour job. Even with good sales, once expenses are taken out, there is not a lot left.
“A survey of 1,007 self-published writers – one of the most comprehensive insights into the growing market to date – found that while a small percentage of authors were bringing in sums of $100,000-plus in 2011, average earnings were just $10,000 a year. This amount, however, is significantly skewed by the top earners, with less than 10% of self-publishing authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue and half of writers earning less than $500. Romance authors earned 170% more than their peers, while authors in other genres fared much worse: science-fiction writers earned 38% of the $10,000 average, fantasy writers 32%, and literary fiction authors just 20% of the $10,000 average.”—The Guardian
I think that dystopians perform a little better than science-fiction on average, and that dystopian romances have broader market appeal than a standard dystopia. But they are also not as hot as New Adult or Contemporary romances. Using the standard average, I can say that I’ve done above average here.
“I usually say that the average book sells 10,000 copies with a major publisher.”—SteveLaube.com
This one I can get excited about. My books are no “50 Shades,” but at least I know they are selling in the realm of those from major publishing houses.
Rankings and bestsellers
“There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, depending on which stats you believe.”—Forbes
Yikes. That is a lot of competition when looked at it that way. Amazon has 2,305,692 Kindle books available (1.3 million are non-fiction). Thankfully, there are sub-categories which much more manageable numbers of books in each. For instance, there are currently 7,635 Teen & Young Adult romance books but only 318 dystopian romance books. There are 11,648 YA Science Fiction & Fantasy books but only 2,988 YA Science Fiction books and 742 dystopias within that category. Picking the right category is crucial to success and have a shot at being in the rankings.
daynight has been as high as #1-#10 in many categories—YA Science Fiction, YA Romance, YA dystopian romance, YA dystopia, Children’s Science Fiction, and more.
arbitrate has been high in the rankings for YA dystopian romance and YA dystopia, has been in the “hot new releases” list for its first month (#3, behind mass-market novels such as Allegiant and The Selection), and is in the top-rated books for its categories (currently #8 for YA dystopian romance).
My books have been as high as #1000 paid (top 50 when free) and tend to hover in the #2000s to #5000s (out of 2.3M+ books, that’s not half bad), though without any promotion (price or marketing) they can plummet in the rankings quickly.
“And in 2010 more than 2.7 million "non-traditional" titles were also published, including self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books.”—Huffington Post
Bowker counted 391K self-published books with an ISBN published in 2012. This does *not* include Amazon books that use an ASIN instead of an ISBN, so the number is actually much higher. (Source: Self Published Author by Bowker)
Yeah, yeah, yeah…we get it. There are a lot of books published.
Net profits
I have known several people who think it would be “great” to write a book to “augment their income.” Some people think it is an “easy” way to make money.
Writing a book is hard, time consuming, and expensive. And it is apparently the second most competitive profession in America.
To make money, you have to spend money. Indie authors have to pay for all their own expenses—book covers, editing, marketing, advertising, blog tours, and giveaways to name a few. I have spent thousands on editing and proofreading alone (in my opinion, it is critical to have a polished book). Blog tours cost hundreds of dollars. It all adds up fast.
There is nothing more depressing than working hard and losing money. Even with the lag in Amazon royalties, I can happily say that I made more money than I spent in 2013. Since I don’t write for the money, I have tried to use those profits to give back to my readers through giveaways and to the community through donations.
Social media
According to Forbes, to be successful as an Indie author, we all have to be like Guy Kawasaki and create a monster social media platform (http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorga...). Easy for him to say. I do think that it is useful to have a place to interact with fans. For my author colleague, David Estes, that platform is Goodreads. For me, it is Facebook (Facebook.com/daynight.series). For Guy Kawasaki, it is Twitter. Other authors—like Susan Kaye Quinn and Jillian Dodd have blogs with large followings. Here is my advice:
- Have a presence on multiple platforms, but “invest” in one.
- Include links at the back of your books to your social media links and to where readers can sign up to be notified of new releases (only use this list to notify readers of new releases).
- Personally respond to readers when possible. As books become more popular, this doesn’t scale well, but I know that I really enjoy hearing from and interacting with my readers. I have gotten to know some of them well and am the better for it.
As I said above, the social media platform that I use the most is Facebook. I do regular giveaways, post my teasers there, and share news about my books (and other books as I see fit).
Publishing output (how many books are cranked out)
I know several authors who are able to crank out a book every 3-4 weeks. That is not something I am able to do. With five kids, my life is very busy. And, the books in the daynight series are extremely complicated (3 main characters, with things happening in the past and present across two planets + dozens of sub-plots) and take me a long time to write and polish. daynight took more than six solid months of writing and even longer to edit. arbitrate was released just shy of a year after daynight. I did release clean slate complex as both a standalone novella and part of the anthology, Darkest Worlds between.
It is definitely true that the more titles an author has, the greater the chance of success for a “breakthrough hit” and greater opportunity for a steady income. I’m feeling a little behind the curve on this one.
Reviews
When I first published daynight, I had a hard time getting friends and family to read it. I’m sure they assumed it would suck and did a whole lot of eye-rolling. So, I decided to get professional opinions from Kirkus Reviews (an industry leader), BlueInk Review, and ForeWord Reviews. This is like rolling the dice. You hope that you can get enough positive snippets to use in marketing. Professional reviews can be extremely harsh. I lucked out and got overall positive professional reviews across the board.
About a month later (and after contacting dozens of blogs and being turned down), I learned about blog tours and signed up for my first one with Kathy from Book Blasts, Blog Tours. I got a lot of great reviews from this tour—as well as some excellent feedback.
Does everyone love them? No—nor do I expect them to. Everyone’s tastes vary widely. I’ve found that most middle-aged men do not enjoy my teen dystopian romance, nor do lovers of erotica (shocking, I know). There are people who don’t read my books and have personally attacked me. This happens to every writer. I’ve stopped reading reviews for the most part, finding that it isn’t good for an author’s blood pressure or productivity.
Personal reward
This is perhaps the most important thing. Is writing personally rewarding? For me, it is. When I wrote daynight, writing was an excellent escape for me. Now, to be honest, writing feels like a job. I have professional editors and proofreaders and have deadlines to adhere to. However, I find it rewarding to write—particularly when, as with arbitrate, I can look back and be genuinely happy with the results. I receive notes from readers often who love my books and that always makes my day—as much, if not a whole lot more, than great sales or a high ranking.
The income I have made has allowed me to make large contributions to both Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (in honor of my daughter who had a bone marrow transplant) and to the Red Cross Philippines relief efforts. In addition, I organized a Holiday Giving Tree which helped more than 35 families with over $4,500 in gifts distributed (with help from friends, readers, and fellow authors). That is enough reward in and of itself.
Conclusion
If we look for failure, we will find failure. If we look for success, we will find it. We may find success in the rankings and still not be able to put food on the table with our earnings. We may have a book with a killer idea that no one experiences because it is lost in the sea of alternatives. We may get critical acclaim and fall short on our sales goals. The high sales we receive may be offset by huge expenses. There will always be room for improvement.
So, ultimately, I think that an author needs to write because they love to…because they have to…because they are haunted by each story until it is written. Anything on top of that is a nice bonus.
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David
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Dec 10, 2013 05:36PM
Awesome post! And thanks for the shout out :) I think you're doing tremendously awesome, my friend!! I wrote a post a while back with a cheeky title Become an Indie Author and Get Rich Quick, when, of course, the post made the emphatic point that writing is a way of life not a way to become a millionaire :)
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I read that blog post of yours :). I had to give you a shout-out because you got me thinking about this topic after I saw your post about getting an email from Hugh Howey (which is awesome btw). My first thought was (while chuckling), "I had an awesome November and didn't get an email from a world renown author." But then I thought that it is the little things like this that make it worthwhile to be an author--even more so than a great month of sales. Plus, you provide the "gold standard" in terms of "customer service" aka interacting with fans, and I appreciate your excellent example. And your awesome books, of course :).
David wrote: "Awesome post! And thanks for the shout out :) I think you're doing tremendously awesome, my friend!! I wrote a post a while back with a cheeky title Become an Indie Author and Get Rich Quick, when,..."
Aw thanks ;) Well, getting a message from Hugh Howey wouldn't change the fact that you had an awesome November, so that's all that matters! But it was a nice bonus! Honestly, I think you're setting the bar pretty high yourself, my friend!! We're all in this together :)
I love this post too. It's easy to worry about "success" and I'm as guilty as anyone, but it's ultimately pointless for me, beyond doing what I can. I know I need to get more books out there, but it's very difficult as I work full time and have too much distraction in my life! Still, I've come to the conclusion that I have to write because I love to write, want to give life to the people in my head, and hope other people fall in love with them the way I have. And it's the "little things" that make it even more worthwhile: positive reviews from people you've never met (and who have no reason to fake a review); becoming friends with people all over the world either through them liking your book or as fellow authors; holding your book for the first time or seeing it on the shelf at your local library. One of the things that has tickled me most is very silly: Robin McKinley retweeted one of my tweets. She has no idea who I am, but she's one of my favorite authors! :)
Aww that's AMAZING!! And it's not silly at all, these things matter, even if they seem like small things, to us they're EVERYTHING :)
Thanks David and B.B. I completely agree that it is the little things that matter. One of my very best moments as an author this year (even above my best sales day) was when I received this note from a lady that teaches college-level technical writing--she compared arbitrate to Tolstoy's works, and given that I was a complete Russian Lit junkie in college...that made my month :). "Well, I'm working through my second reading. I'm like a kid the first time through a book--I have to read it fast to find out what is going to happen. This time through I'm able to savor the moments more; I must admit that I'm surprised to find it is even better than I thought (considering I thought it was magnificent the first time:).
First, let me say that the sci-fi aspect is stunning. Thera vs. Earth, folks moving back and forth, the "societal levels" (Therans, second chancers, Arbitrators, Genitors, etc.)--your level of detail makes it all seem very real and possible. Well done!
Your style of presentation in Arbitrate is perfect; your combination of "here and now" and well-placed flashbacks is a stroke of genius. Your timing is perfect; every time I found myself wishing for a bit of backstory, you would provide it within a page or two. The complexity reminds me of Tolstoy; however, since you don't have all the crazy naming conventions present in Russian novels (where every character has multiple names), you are much easier to follow and enjoy!!
...Watching Kira mature (and bring all the guys along with her) was one of my favorite parts of the book...Finally, the ending was everything I had hoped for and more. Thanks for not leaving us on a cliff...Best read I've had in a long time!"
AMAZING!!! That would definitely be a huge morale boost, but it sounds like it's completely well deserved :) I also value messages like this WAY above good sales.
