An idea is fine, until it withers into inaction.
For some time I have taken the realisation described in Revolution and researched the logistics of becoming a self publishing author. In my search I came across several barriers as well as several revelations.
I, personally, fall into the camp that is defined by a lack of attachment to the physical novel.
I have many books, I even collect them but what I do not see is a viable business model for a start-up self publisher that involves printing books.
If you do not fall into this camp and must have a printed book then printing on demand is the best option for a self publisher, mostly because it doesn't involve a large financial outlay to create a batch of books, which then need to be stored and sold. For this reason self publishers should rule out the typical model for self (or vanity) publishing.
With all due respect writers tend to be better at writing than hard selling and even if you are able to sell ice to an eskimo chances are you would prefer to be at your desk writing your next novel.
While I'm on that phrase 'vanity' I will address my observation now that this can only have been coined as a way of perturbing writers from publishing their creations themselves and bypassing the established institutions. By making it seem selfishly motivated you inevitably question whether your work is good in its own right or is it just your desire to be published that drives you. Who cares? If your story reaches only one person and gives them a good read that is one person that otherwise would never have heard your tale.
Back to the topic and print on demand is the best option for those that want hard copies of their books to exist but in today's society people are more likely to try out a new author, or one that is not in the limelight as much, if they are encouraged to buy on a price-based front.
What I mean by this is that if your debut novel costs £1.00 they see minimal risk associated with trying you out. As you earn a reputation you may begin to charge more if you wish to. As a side note 100% of £1.00 is 30p more than if you were with a conventional publisher retailing your book at £5.99 with the typical author receiving 12%.
Sadly print on demand drains the percentage of royalties the author gains but, to some, that is a cost far outweighed by having a hard copy of their work to place on their bookshelf alongside their favourite authors. This is up to the writer. I would rather build a fan base and sell to them digitally to generate the revenue in order to support a print batch safe in the knowledge that they will be snapped up, thus minimising the storage fees, but that's just me.
To me the next logical step for a new self publishing author is digital publication. There are several reasons for this beyond the financial benefits listed in Revolution.
One of them, and is the mainstay of self publishing as a whole, is freedom of press. The writer decides where the book is sold, for how much and when. The digital world opens up more than getting your newly printed book in Border, err, or Waterstones, oh dear, or....another high street retailer. Another side note, the demise of the high street book retailer should be an indication, to those looking to enter the market, that this is not where the future lies.
Bearing in mind the main retailers only started taking eBooks seriously in 2009 (New Media Age http://tinyurl.com/6cjmqsb) to have Amazon report digital book sales overtaking hard copies in only a year shows the unquestionable popularity of the format (The Guardian July 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/20/amazon-ebook-digital-sales-hardbacks-us) with 143 eBooks sold for every 100 hardbacks. With the launch of the new iPad and the popularity of smart phones and other tablet devices this number is only likely to increase.
To publish digitally you need to go through an affiliate publisher. Many of these charge a percentage for the privilege, if you sell through Smashwords they take 15% when an eBook is sold through them and the other retailers (Amazon, iBooks etc) generally take 40% of any book sold through them.
To set yourself up as an affiliate with iBooks you need at least 10 titles to your name, the same applies with Kobo. Kobo suggest using several other affiliates to get up and running such as the aforementioned (and apparently very good) Smashwords, FastPencil, eBookit and authorsolutions. Each of these will take a small cut on books sold through their websites and often charge a fee for uploading and converting the files (Kobo only accept ONIX metadata, iBooks take ePub). This is a much cheaper solution than the traditional method.
There may be another solution.
As a community of aspiring or self publishing authors there is no reason why a cooperative couldn't be formed, banding together a minimum of ten titles that would meet the requirements for the likes of Kobo and iBooks. This cooperative would be able to pool its resources, promoting each other through their fan bases on Twitter and Facebook and even scraping together a small amount of funding.
The funding would go towards a Facebook fan page that could retail books, whether they be physical or digital. With no third party taking a cut for selling the books any author selling through the fan page would receive 100% of their royalties. With only those books sold through iBooks, amazon and Kobo having a cut taken from them.
It's just an idea but if there are enough people interested I will investigate on a more detailed level as to setting up this cooperative and either using Facebook (with it's benefits of social engagement, cheap set up and video content able to be added), or a website offering a more enhanced experience.
Feel free to PM me on Twitter (@JensenCarter) with additional ideas or to show your support for this idea.
All the best.
Jensen Carter
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Friday 25 March 2011
Revolution
I'm not a salesman. I'm not a leader. I'm not even very good at being sold to, or being lead.
I like the idea of a fair share. After all, Fair Trade works on the principal that those that do the work should receive a fair amount of pay for that work.
Yet the more I look into the writing world the more I see the last bastion of unfair trading.
In my mind the individual that has the idea, deciphers and translates that into a gripping tale, then does the leg work trying to get agents and publishers interested in it deserves a relatively large proportion of the money gained from it being to the public's liking. So why is this not the case in writing?
I was once reliably informed that an author can expect 12% of the royalties from their work.
Let us put that in real terms.
You would be getting 72p for each copy on a book retailing at £5.99. According to the UK National Statistic Online the average salary in the UK is £27,976 which means you would have to sell 38,855 copies of your book to earn the national average wage. Whereas that is not impossible it relies entirely on the time, effort and resources the agency and publisher puts in. When they are trying to do the same for their other writers it can seem quite a daunting task.
What that figure does make you see is that if you could increase your royalties per book you could increase your earnings without having to spend more money on publicity and advertising.
Selling through the likes of Kobo offers the writer the chance to net an 85% return on each sale. Given the same numbers one would only have to sell 5,496 books to achieve the national average wage and, therefore, a living from doing what you love.
I know writing isn't all about the money but I am one of those writers that wants to be a writer for a living and in order to do that I need to cover actually living.
I like the idea of a fair share. After all, Fair Trade works on the principal that those that do the work should receive a fair amount of pay for that work.
Yet the more I look into the writing world the more I see the last bastion of unfair trading.
In my mind the individual that has the idea, deciphers and translates that into a gripping tale, then does the leg work trying to get agents and publishers interested in it deserves a relatively large proportion of the money gained from it being to the public's liking. So why is this not the case in writing?
I was once reliably informed that an author can expect 12% of the royalties from their work.
Let us put that in real terms.
You would be getting 72p for each copy on a book retailing at £5.99. According to the UK National Statistic Online the average salary in the UK is £27,976 which means you would have to sell 38,855 copies of your book to earn the national average wage. Whereas that is not impossible it relies entirely on the time, effort and resources the agency and publisher puts in. When they are trying to do the same for their other writers it can seem quite a daunting task.
What that figure does make you see is that if you could increase your royalties per book you could increase your earnings without having to spend more money on publicity and advertising.
Selling through the likes of Kobo offers the writer the chance to net an 85% return on each sale. Given the same numbers one would only have to sell 5,496 books to achieve the national average wage and, therefore, a living from doing what you love.
I know writing isn't all about the money but I am one of those writers that wants to be a writer for a living and in order to do that I need to cover actually living.
Thursday 24 March 2011
It's a good place to start.
The beginning.
There, I did it. I've already fallen into one of those boxes. I'm one of those people that start with the beginning.
Some writers start with the end, whether it's seconds before the crucial moment that changes everything you've assumed or whether it is truly with the ending it doesn't matter. They are Enders.
I am, clearly, a Starter. Start with the start. Begin with the beginning. Lead from the front.
Yet no one chooses the middle. That grey area where the reader is neither launched into the depths of the characters, the complexity of the plot or cast hurtling toward the tingling climax of the intertwining tales narrowing into one, unthinkable execution.
My debut novel, Children of G.O.D., starts at the end. Well, to be honest, its starts beyond the end. The narrator/protagonist/muse reflects upon events that have not yet occurred. It is all about perspective. Events that have not yet come into our awareness, to us, have not yet occurred yet the individual telling the story knows of them already, so they must have happened.
It is this sense of perspective that is key. Either the writer judges that giving away the ending, to start, is acceptable as, chances are, the reader would have forgotten about them by the time they reach the ending. On the other hand, the writer decides that the ending is far too good, far too important, to be the starting block to launch the story from and trusts in their abilities so much that they will ensnare the reader until the bitter end with nothing but the first chapter, at best.
I am neither, and both.
The beginning to Children of G.O.D. begins beyond the end as the end is far to important to be exposed at the star. Yet the beginning is so abstract, and so far removed from the final point, that it is key to show where the story is heading.
It is a decision that I do not envy any new author making and yet I find a deep satisfaction that I have reached beyond that point. I certainly look forward to hearing the first reader's comments on it's execution, or hearing opinions that call for mine.
Jensen Carter
There, I did it. I've already fallen into one of those boxes. I'm one of those people that start with the beginning.
Some writers start with the end, whether it's seconds before the crucial moment that changes everything you've assumed or whether it is truly with the ending it doesn't matter. They are Enders.
I am, clearly, a Starter. Start with the start. Begin with the beginning. Lead from the front.
Yet no one chooses the middle. That grey area where the reader is neither launched into the depths of the characters, the complexity of the plot or cast hurtling toward the tingling climax of the intertwining tales narrowing into one, unthinkable execution.
My debut novel, Children of G.O.D., starts at the end. Well, to be honest, its starts beyond the end. The narrator/protagonist/muse reflects upon events that have not yet occurred. It is all about perspective. Events that have not yet come into our awareness, to us, have not yet occurred yet the individual telling the story knows of them already, so they must have happened.
It is this sense of perspective that is key. Either the writer judges that giving away the ending, to start, is acceptable as, chances are, the reader would have forgotten about them by the time they reach the ending. On the other hand, the writer decides that the ending is far too good, far too important, to be the starting block to launch the story from and trusts in their abilities so much that they will ensnare the reader until the bitter end with nothing but the first chapter, at best.
I am neither, and both.
The beginning to Children of G.O.D. begins beyond the end as the end is far to important to be exposed at the star. Yet the beginning is so abstract, and so far removed from the final point, that it is key to show where the story is heading.
It is a decision that I do not envy any new author making and yet I find a deep satisfaction that I have reached beyond that point. I certainly look forward to hearing the first reader's comments on it's execution, or hearing opinions that call for mine.
Jensen Carter
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