So, you’ve finished your book and you’re all excited to forge into the exciting world of publishing. Perhaps you’re entertaining dreams of being the next Steven King or Daniel Steele, planning on which actors will play which character, thinking about taking conference calls on your yacht. 
Not so fast, you have several more decisions to make. The first, possibly the most important, is our you going to try to publish your masterpiece as a traditional paperback or are you going to tie the fate of your work of love to the emerging field of e-books.
Hmm…Well, you know which avenue I chose, because I’m here as a e-book author. I can’t answer this question for you, but I can tell you why I made the decision I did.
Let’s start with the most important thing on a new author’s mind, even if they are embarrassed to address this issue, money. How much money you make from a book is directly tied to two factors. The first, obviously, is how many books you actually sell. The second is how much money do you receive from each book sold.
If you look at the generic paperback contract the author earns 6% of the cover price and with a e-book it seems to be between 30-50%. Do the math, you sell a hundred e-books at 40% of the cover price of $5.99 you earned $239.60. You would need to sell over 600 paperbacks to earn that much.
Maybe you are the next J.K. Rowling and hold the future Harry Potter in your hands, so this is irrelevant to you. I sincerely hope that turns out to be true, but the odds are against it.
I’m new to this game, but I have been advised that a new author can optimistically hope to sell between 200-600 copies of their book the first month and then things take a downward turn. Keep in mind there is not hard, fast rule here. Some new authors don’t even sell a 100 books their first month out and others are selling 200 five months after their book is released.
Yeah, I know, put the granite counters on hold and keep your day job, writing isn’t the fast track to the easy life. The next question you’re asking yourself right about now is, how do I make sure my baby sells more and not less.
No guarantees, but there are two things that will help you grow your writing income. First is marketing, second is selling another book. Traditional publishers have a limited marketing budget.
Despite the fact that they’re only giving you 6% of what your book earns, the rest of the 94% is not going to your book alone. They use their profits off your book to market…Steven King’s book.
That’s right, some of what they earn off every book gets put into a pool known as the marketing budget. In this realm, name does matter. Publishers have their A-list crowd who get to gobble down most of the dollars available.
All those fancy cardboard stands at the books store, ads in trade magazines, even TV commercials, by the time the publisher is done spending the money to market John Grisham’s next bestseller, you’ll get your few dollars spent on a cover. There you go, new author, the rest is up to you.
E-publisher’s are slightly different in their approach to marketing. It’s a different type of marketing because there is no need for cardboard stands and our readers can be caught using the free technology of the Internet.
It’s sort of a wash here. If you go traditional publisher as a new author, you’re have to do all the same things you have to do as a new author of an e-book. The difference is as a e-book author nobody is taking money away from you to pay for another author to make his.
So, if an author can make more off each sale of their book and their profits aren’t being diverted into wealth fare for the wealthy, why would a author ever go with a traditional print publisher?
Simple, e-books are on the raise, but they’re far from the normal. If you choose to go with an e-publisher, you are placing a bet on the future of e-books. Their future is tied to readers and with the introduction of Kindle, things have gotten a little rosier. Hopefully in the years to come e-book readers will become as popular as cell phones and iPods, but that day is not today.
You know where I placed my bet. Now it’s up to you to step up to the table, put your book down and ante up. Then remember to smile, you are about to change your title from writer to author.
Jenny
Not so fast, you have several more decisions to make. The first, possibly the most important, is our you going to try to publish your masterpiece as a traditional paperback or are you going to tie the fate of your work of love to the emerging field of e-books.
Hmm…Well, you know which avenue I chose, because I’m here as a e-book author. I can’t answer this question for you, but I can tell you why I made the decision I did.
Let’s start with the most important thing on a new author’s mind, even if they are embarrassed to address this issue, money. How much money you make from a book is directly tied to two factors. The first, obviously, is how many books you actually sell. The second is how much money do you receive from each book sold.
If you look at the generic paperback contract the author earns 6% of the cover price and with a e-book it seems to be between 30-50%. Do the math, you sell a hundred e-books at 40% of the cover price of $5.99 you earned $239.60. You would need to sell over 600 paperbacks to earn that much.
Maybe you are the next J.K. Rowling and hold the future Harry Potter in your hands, so this is irrelevant to you. I sincerely hope that turns out to be true, but the odds are against it.I’m new to this game, but I have been advised that a new author can optimistically hope to sell between 200-600 copies of their book the first month and then things take a downward turn. Keep in mind there is not hard, fast rule here. Some new authors don’t even sell a 100 books their first month out and others are selling 200 five months after their book is released.
Yeah, I know, put the granite counters on hold and keep your day job, writing isn’t the fast track to the easy life. The next question you’re asking yourself right about now is, how do I make sure my baby sells more and not less.
No guarantees, but there are two things that will help you grow your writing income. First is marketing, second is selling another book. Traditional publishers have a limited marketing budget.
Despite the fact that they’re only giving you 6% of what your book earns, the rest of the 94% is not going to your book alone. They use their profits off your book to market…Steven King’s book.
That’s right, some of what they earn off every book gets put into a pool known as the marketing budget. In this realm, name does matter. Publishers have their A-list crowd who get to gobble down most of the dollars available.
All those fancy cardboard stands at the books store, ads in trade magazines, even TV commercials, by the time the publisher is done spending the money to market John Grisham’s next bestseller, you’ll get your few dollars spent on a cover. There you go, new author, the rest is up to you.E-publisher’s are slightly different in their approach to marketing. It’s a different type of marketing because there is no need for cardboard stands and our readers can be caught using the free technology of the Internet.
It’s sort of a wash here. If you go traditional publisher as a new author, you’re have to do all the same things you have to do as a new author of an e-book. The difference is as a e-book author nobody is taking money away from you to pay for another author to make his.
So, if an author can make more off each sale of their book and their profits aren’t being diverted into wealth fare for the wealthy, why would a author ever go with a traditional print publisher?
Simple, e-books are on the raise, but they’re far from the normal. If you choose to go with an e-publisher, you are placing a bet on the future of e-books. Their future is tied to readers and with the introduction of Kindle, things have gotten a little rosier. Hopefully in the years to come e-book readers will become as popular as cell phones and iPods, but that day is not today.
You know where I placed my bet. Now it’s up to you to step up to the table, put your book down and ante up. Then remember to smile, you are about to change your title from writer to author.
Jenny
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