kennyc
Inkling
Exactly.
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My conclusion from all of this would be that those who have contracts with reputable publishers, as authors, almost certainly do financially better then those without.
I think that the point that Michael made at the beginning is important: most of the people self publishing should not be published at all. Any discussion of average money made is difficult because, frankly, there's a lot of trash out there that's not worth the e-ink.
Just want to say thanks for this Michael! Nice breakdown and great discussion.
Hi Michael,
I find that hard to accept. Most self pubbed authors sell very few books, (two hundred is the figure often bandied about though I have no stats for it), and if the average trad pubbed author / book sold only 7,500 copies authors, publishers and agents would be going to the wall at huge rates. Where it works for the self pubber in my view is at the bottom end, where they compare whatever sales they make against zero sales they would make by going the trad route because they couldn't get pubbed at all. And at the top end, where authors already have a name, so the trad pubber can't add a lot to their marketing and so the difference in royalties becomes the overriding factor.
As for the other part, yes a lot of the best selling ebooks on kindle are self pubbed, but that's largely because of contractual arguments between the big six publishers and Amazon. The trad pubbed books aren't on the kindle which drastically skews the results.
As for me, the reason I'd consider going trad is largely based on a few factors. First the professionalism,with book covers and editing etc. If I want to raise my work to the top level its the way I have to go. Second, getting some books into print - I personally find the entire createspace thing confusing at best. And third the marketing, which I admit, I simply don't do.
They will, however, put substantial funds towards the cover design & various marketing efforts. The amount of money required to do this effectively is more than most self-published authors can afford.
Hi,
Evidence? Your wish is my command.
Stop the press: half of self-published authors earn less than $500 | Books | guardian.co.uk
As I thought, most self pubbers earn not much at all, but a few high profilers skew the stats. And since I write sci fi and fantasy I'm boned too! I suppose I should just be grateful to have beaten the odds.
Cheers, Greg.
However trad publishers are relatively poorly represented. In part this is I think due to the legal actions on going between the big six and Amazon, unless this has been resolved. And also that the big six are looking at other e publishers, I think Apple is their newest baby from memory.
But the big reason why trad publishers appear poorly represented in the top sales ranks of kindle, is price.
My conclusion from all of this would be that those who have contracts with reputable publishers, as authors, almost certainly do financially better then those without.
Yes, I think this is true in general. You can point to exceptions, but the exceptions don't hold true for the vast majority. I'm doing the self-pub thing, but you have to remain realistic. I don't doubt that an established author with an established fan base can make more self-publishing, but keep in mind that an established author moving from traditional to self-publishing became established through traditional publishing first.
I suspect that is you take out the 'exceptional' cases in both traditional publishing and self-publishing, and then just look at the average financial gain, you'd find that traditional authors are doing better. The sheer number of self-publishers who aren't doing anything in terms of sales will weigh down that side of things. From what I've been able to ascertain, the majority of self-published authors do not sell very many books. Of course, it is still a net gain for them because the majority of those aren't producing writing that is good enough for traditional publishing.
I think that the point that Michael made at the beginning is important: most of the people self publishing should not be published at all. Any discussion of average money made is difficult because, frankly, there's a lot of trash out there that's not worth the e-ink.
Thank you...People seem to be ignoring the cavet that we are discussing a book that has the freedom of being able to do either.
As to marketing -- If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times...both self-publishers and traditionally published authors need to approach marketing the same way. I didn't "market" any differently, or any less, between my self-published and traditional published releases.
Then how to you explain people like myself that started self-publishing, moved to traditional, but made more when self-publishing?
I think that a lot of people who go on forums like to argue. In fact, I raise my hand as being guilty of it.
You are someone who has been there, done that, and are gracious enough to share your experience with those of us who are just starting out. I'm not saying that no one should ever question you, but it seems like some of the comments have been a bit off base - as you said, ignoring your caveat.
Thanks for sharing this information.