The Word Cloud

From the beginning, I promised to publish my sales figures every month. I had several reasons for this. Joe Konrath was the first I know of to share all his numbers.

Several followed his lead, and that culture of openness he initiated was a key factor in my realization that self-publishing was now a viable path for any writer.

I think most writers find these numbers helpful, but I know a minority find it a little distasteful. That’s fine.

If you are if that persuasion, I have a guest post today over at the blog of Jonathan Dalar which you can read instead, called “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt” about the tactics that some defenders of the status quo are using to steer writers away from self-publishing.

For the rest of you that don’t mind the monthly peek in my wallet, the full July sales report, along with analysis of my first three months self-publishing, is here: 

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/july-sales-report-big-jump-in-sales-huge-jump-in-revenue/ 

For the click-shy, here's the short version: over 500 e-books sold in the first 3 months, including around 300 short stories, and a massive increase in revenue in July - I made around $425 (up from around $35 in June).

Trying to get writers to agree on something is like herding cats. We are all passionate people. We have a tendency to flare up over minor disputes (especially online). And we can usually pen a tight argument for pretty much any position.

But I also think a lot of disagreements spring from the fact that we are all very different people, with different dreams, goals, and ambitions.

As such, what might be good advice for one writer could be bad advice for another. Especially if you are aiming for different targets.

So, what do you want?

It would be nice to sell a million books. It would be flattering to have every agent and publisher in New York clamoring for your signature. But it would also be nice to win the lottery.

Let’s talk about realistic goals.

I’m going to earn enough this month – my third month self-publishing – to cover most of my rent. Next month, or the month after, I might be able to cover the whole thing. That’s a realistic goal.

Before anyone gets too excited, my rent is quite low. However, that’s one less bill for me to pay. And the thought of book royalties covering it is immensely satisfying.

Maybe I’ll be earning enough in a couple of years to live off. Maybe not. But I think that’s something I can aim for. I don’t think it’s unobtainable. Not if I can keep publishing stuff that people seem to enjoy.

When I was younger, seeing my book in a bookstore would have been my #1 goal. While I would still get a kick out of it today, it has been supplanted by the dream of making a living from writing. In fact, it’s quite far down the pecking order of things I would like to happen.

More recently, getting a publishing deal – any deal – was all I was interested in. That’s no longer important to me either. I’m very happy working on my own. I wouldn’t be foolish enough to turn down a check with lots of zeroes, but it’s not something I’m actively working towards.

Because seeing my work in bookstores and getting a publishing deal are not important to me, self-publishing makes perfect sense. My primary career goals at this moment are financial, and I believe that self-publishing affords me the best opportunity to make a living from writing. There’s no question in my mind about that.

You may well be different. You may dream of being taken on by a super-agent, of hobnobbing with editors, of author signings, of being on a publisher’s table at a conference, of getting a review in Kirkus. I don’t. Those things aren’t important to me. Some of them might be nice, but I’m not working towards them.

Decide what your dreams are. Decide what’s important to you. Then set a series of obtainable goals – that you can work towards – that will bring you closer to your dream.

I would like to earn enough from writing so that I don’t have to worry about money. That really wouldn’t take much. I’m pretty low maintenance. I would like to travel quite a bit – that’s pretty much the only thing I do spend money on, outside of seedy bars – but aside from that, my overheads are pretty low.

But money is only one aspect of what I want to achieve. I also want to write lots and lots of books. There are so many stories I want to tell. I’m sure you know the feeling.

My problem is never finding ideas; it’s finding the time, the discipline, and the right words to execute them well. And there are some ideas that I’m not ready for yet, and they are waiting in my little notebook for me to improve.

I’m under no illusions. I think I can write a good story. But I also think I have a lot to learn about the craft. I can see areas where I can improve. Lots of them.

I would also like to expand the scope of what I write. I want to learn more. I want to grow as a writer. I want to improve with every title I publish. I want to push myself.

I also want every title I publish to be a quality title. I’m not just talking about the writing here. I want good covers, good editing, good formatting – I want to be proud of the work I put my name on. I want the story to be satisfying to readers. I want readers to really want to read more of my stuff after they finish one of my books.

I don’t just want to take their money and run. I would much rather sell 5,000 copies each of 20 books than sell 100,000 copies of one book and a handful of the rest. I’d like to know that I found my audience and kept them.

My goal is to publish lots of different stories and lots of different novels in quite a few different genres. I think that’s achievable. And if I work really hard, maybe some of them could be great. Time will tell.

There is a happy symbiosis here. If I work hard at the craft, if I only publish my best work, if I present it all professionally, and I publish lots of stories and novels, then that gives me the best possible chance of making a living from it.

Right now – for me – self-publishing is the only viable path I can see to achieve those goals. That may not always be the case. This business is changing so rapidly that no-one can say with any confidence what it’s going to be like in five years.

There will be more people reading e-books. Some publishers will probably go out of business. But, there are so many variables that we can’t say for sure if the business conditions for self-publishers will be more or less favorable in the future. My gut says that they will be more favorable, but nobody can be certain.

And maybe my goals will change. But for now, I’m very happy with the path I have chosen, and the opportunities it give me.

In a couple of months, I will release my first full-length work of fiction. It will also be the first time I attempt a higher price point – $4.99.

I think I can justify it. It’s an epic historical, it took a very, very long time to write (in particular, to research), it’s long (around 120k), and I think the genre can handle higher price points.

On top of that, I will have a few other titles at lower price points, so that readers have a cheap “in” to my work. If they like the way I write and the stories I tell, I don’t think they will balk at paying under five bucks for a meaty novel.

If it sells well (at $3.49 royalties per copy), I will move a little closer to the dream of supporting myself.

Now, it may not. It may be priced too high. And there is some evidence to suggest that historical fiction readers haven’t started making the switch to e-books yet. But I won’t know unless I try. And I can always drop the price, because I am in complete control.

It will also be the first book that I do a print version for, which is very exciting (and maybe I’ll try and get it into one bookstore in Dublin, just for kicks).

I know what I want: to earn enough so that I never have to worry about money. Maybe that’s pie-in-the-sky. But I also know what I would be very, very happy with: supporting myself from writing.

Maybe that’s a little more achievable. It may seem far away right now, but I just have to break it down to tangible steps. Like paying the rent by October. Releasing my historical novel before then would help.

It’s written, but it needs work in places (a lot in some). But I think I can get that done in two months. I have a realistic, achievable goal with a clear plan of action. I may succeed, I may not, but it’s in my hands.

What do you want? How are you going to get it?

The deadline to save Borders passed yesterday, meaning that they will now proceed to a bankruptcy-court auction tomorrow.

It’s not quite over for America’s second-largest bookstore chain, and a bidder could still emerge in the next day-and-a-half to save the company – which employs nearly 11,000 people – from being liquidated.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported today that Books-A-Million were in talks late last night about a deal. However, it seems clear that even if this move comes off, which is doubtful, it will only rescue part of the company, and a large amount of (further) store closures and layoffs is unavoidable.

It seems likely now that the bones of Borders will be picked apart, and the remaining investors will only seek to purchase unencumbered assets such as the brand name, the website, and the customer lists, leaving the stores themselves facing oblivion.

There is a certain grim inevitability about this news, which will hit publishers and their authors, as well as the Borders staff and their families, particularly hard.

Even if a last-minute investor is able to prevent liquidation, Borders will never be the book buying force it once was.

Since I started this blog, I have argued that print is doomed, and its collapse will take most bookstores with it, but I take no pleasure in being proved right.

What we are seeing now are the “negative feedback loops” that LibraryThing’s Tim Spalding predicted nine months ago.

Each drop in print sales causes bookstore closures, which means less stores to sell books, which means lower print runs, which means higher printing costs, which means higher prices, which means another drop in print sales.

Each bookstore closure is another town forced to go online to buy books, which leads to an increase in Amazon’s market share, which means more readers exposed to their wall-to-wall urgings to switch to the Kindle and e-books, which means a further drop in print sales, and more bookstore closures.

Each publisher reducing print runs must increase the retail price of their books, which makes the price difference between print and digital versions even more dramatic, which encourages more people to switch to e-books, which reduces print runs and increases costs.

As printing costs become more expensive, more publishers will release more titles as digital-only or digital-first editions which will encourage even more to switch to e-books, causing further bookstore closures.

This is a series of vicious circles, all feeding into each other.

Most of the argument surrounding how much market share e-books will capture seems to center on the advantages and disadvantages of e-books, e-readers, and e-bookstores in their current form. This ignores how the format, devices, and book buying experiences will evolve.

More importantly, it ignores all the readers who will be forced to switch to e-books for one reason or another, whether that’s down to the restricted selection of print titles or the increased cost.

Joe Konrath wrote an excellent post yesterday, focusing on what this Borders news means for midlisters. He argues, persuasively, that burden to shift print books will pass to the boxstores who only stock bestsellers:

This will mean fewer books printed, fewer books sold, and fewer choices for readers until they’re forced to buy an ereading device if they want to read anything other than Stephen King and James Patterson.

The obvious corollary is that if you are not of the same ilk of King and Patterson, that most of your future sales will be digital. And if this is the case, why go with a publisher at all? After all, as Joe points out, a 70% royalty is a lot more than a 17.5% royalty.

A new writer, deciding whether to self-publish or to submit to agents, needs to consider not just what the market is like now. They need to look at where its going to be in two years.

That’s the absolute quickest any new writer could get through the query system, snag an agent, go on submission, receive an offer, go through the lengthy publication process, and finally hit the bookstore shelves.

For most, of course, it will take significantly longer than that (if they are one of the tiny percentage that is successful at all). So a new writer, being a little more realistic, needs to look at where the market is going to be in three years, or even five years.

Will there even be agents accepting queries from unpublished writers in five years? Will there even be agents in five years? I don’t think anyone can answer in the affirmative with any confidence.

This might seem like heresy to defenders of the status quo, but as Joe points out:

This message needs to be repeated, over and over and over, because there are still thousands of authors who spend their hard-earned $$$ on conventions that supposedly teach them how to write killer query letters.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is money that could be spent on hiring a professional editor, a professional cover designer, and publishing yourself.

And all that time spent researching agents, learning how to write query letters, personalizing each submission, sending off each partial, and waiting for responses that will never come could be spent building an audience or, you know, writing.

Writing stuff you can publish yourself.

Writers have more choices than ever before. And I firmly believe that this is a great time to be a writer. But only if writers seize the opportunity that is staring them in the face.

The choice is yours.

I've just stumbled across this. If poor spelling on a website has a detrimental effect on that site's sales, then I wonder if the same is true of sites selling e-books. It certainly would be for me, if I bought them. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854 

I have two today as I forgot to post yesterday...

#1 Amazon Surcharge 

On Monday, I wrote about the $2 Surcharge that Amazon is adding on to the price of your books to readers in most international countries (not DE or UK). This charge is nothing to do with taxes, and it's all kept by Amazon.

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/amazon-hold-back-the-growth-of-e-books-around-the-world/

#2 Adult Print Fiction Down 25% in 2011

Print continues its astonishing freefall, with adult fiction leading the way - down over 25% in 2011 so far. But there was another piece of news that may give indie booksellers some hope, if they take advantage of it.

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/adult-fiction-print-sales-collapse-down-25-7-in-first-half-of-2011/

There is an old adage that half the money you spend on advertising is wasted but the problem is you never know which half. I think with social media the percentage which is effective is more like 10%.

I see it like a farmer scattering a mystery bag of seeds in a wide open field. You don’t know which ones will take, and which will get eaten by birds. And you never know when they will blossom.

Like many self-publishers, June has been a tough month for me. Amazon’s Sunshine Deals (where they discounted 600 Big 6 bestsellers to between $0.99 and $2.99) just killed my sales. By the time it kicked in fully a few days into the month, my sales had more than halved.

However, this weekend,  a four-pronged promo assault pulled my sales out of the fire. What happened? How did I achieve this?

Read today's blog post to find out:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/you-never-know-when-your-promo-seeds-will-blossom/ 

This is the final part of INDIE PUBLISHING FOR INTERNATIONAL WRITERS, a step-by-step guide to getting your stories into (digital) print. 

I will be compiling all these steps into a free e-book for my blog-readers when I am done. It’s called Let’s Get Digital and is penciled in for release at the end of June.

STEP TEN: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SALES JUST STOP?

All self-publishers experience a dip in sales. Every single one of them. Most will also experience a run where they sell nothing at all. It happened to me three days after my second release. My sales just died. Three days after a new release!

I sold nothing in the UK for a week – of either title – and I sold nothing in the US for four days. Then it picked up again. This happens. Sometimes it’s a reporting delay by Amazon, but sometimes nobody is buying your books, and sometimes it continues.

What do you do then?

Today's blog will show you how to look at your entire presentation in a dispassionate way, and reveals the greatest promotional tool available to any writer:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/indie-publishing-for-international-writers-step-ten-what-happens-when-the-sales-just-stop/ 

Read the rest at: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/making-money-from-writing-part-3-sales-channels/

This week, I've sent out 42 (there must be a reason for the number) letters with storytelling brochures to local schools and organizations.  I've also received several bookings, and some enquiries about future bookings.  None of these came via the brochures.  In each case, they were either via a personal contact or a personal contact with a satisfied customer.  

In reality, most of the people who received brochures would have to approach budget holders before they replied, so it's too early to tell if they will produce bookings.  But it did make me think - the actual customers had to face, and climb over, that same budget hurdle - and they did so in hours.

This storyteller is going on the politician's handshake trail from now on.  I am going to become so nice to know that people can't resist making a booking.  And the reason that I have posted this?  Because I think that much the same applies in the publishing world.