Revenue reality of a book on the New York Times best-seller list | Hacker News Reader

Revenue reality of a book on the New York Times best-seller list

genreality.net

53 pointsmakimaki32 comments

I'm not too sympathetic, on account of the following:

- Her figure of $24K is per book, and then she says (paraphrased) "well, if I were to write one book like this a year." Most authors producing mass-market paperbacks write somewhat more than one per year. The author in question appears to write several per year (looking at the Amazon listings) which probably gross a fairly similar amount. So, what's the meaning of this "if I were to write one" business?

- She expects to see the rest of her advance and some non-negligible amount of money coming in in the future from royalties and other rights, so it's not really fair to say that her "income" from this book is $25,000. As a professional author, she would be earning that $25,000 this year and also earning money from prior sales this year, and then she would be earning more from this book later.

- Finally, here's the Amazon synopsis:

Immortal Darkyn Lord Valentin Jaus and landscape artist Liling Harper are two lost souls. Brought together by fate, bound together by passion, Valentin and Liling find solace in each other's arms. But the ties that bind them are deeper—and more dangerous—than either of them can possibly imagine...

No offense to struggling vampire romance novel writers, but why is it important that people are able to earn a great living writing books like this? I don't think it's a big loss to society if people aren't getting rich at this particular trade. When authors who are really advancing the art can't make a good living, then let me know.*

* No, this isn't totally subjective. People will be reading Pynchon 30 years from now, but they won't be reading Lynn Viehl.

In my mind, the issue is more to do with other people getting rich off the back of this authors work while the author gets hardly any thing.

So the question is not the value of the book to society, but the percentage of the value the author should get versus everyone else in the stack.

Is that true in the sense that it makes you feel bad, or true in the sense that you think a smart publisher could make more money with lower rates? If you're right about how much it costs to profitably distribute a book, you could potentially dominate the publishing industry.

well, I hope the ebooks will change this. With the costing of printing going away, you don't need a publisher anymore. The only thing you really still need to do is marketing.

Of course, the flip-side is that anyone will be able to publish a book and most people will know how to steal them. Neither of which make for great prices. Still, interesting times.

Publishers with a good reputation will likely continue to act as a combination of editor and gatekeeper. Anyone can put something out now, but saying that it has been edited, approved, and possibly marketed by a major publisher will likely to carry some weight.

In fact, there is a possibility some publishers or indpendent editors functioning as publishers will begin to take that on as a primary role and become very selective in what they attach their name to.

"No offense to struggling vampire romance novel writers, but why is it important that people are able to earn a great living writing books like this?"

I think the point was how difficult it is to make a living writing. Period. This is a book that debuted on the New York Times best seller list and it provided its author a moderate income of well under $100,000. According to the NY Times, there are over 10,000 works of fiction published by major presses every year, a lot of them astonishingly well written and crafted. A lot of authors take well over a year to write a work of fiction. If a best seller writing for a well established series can barely rake in that amount of money, imagine how little the people who are producing original work are making.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/books/the-last-word-how-ma... (sorry the link is old, I couldn't find more recent numbers)

Well, I agree with that, and I don't doubt that fiction which I would probably say is "better" or more worthwhile might well tend to sell even less.

I think the author is being a bit alarmist about her personal situation. I and other people in many fields do high-quality work for under $100,000 a year, too. But if, as she author suggests, the publishers are making a relative killing on these same books, I'd consider that unfortunate in general. (Although I wouldn't consider it surprising, since most creative industries seem to end up with the same balance of power between distributors and producers.)

Perhaps the Kindle and self-publishing will see it fixed someday.

You're not accounting for the fact that this is a book on the NYT bestseller list. She could write dozen of books over her lifetime and have only one make that list. So I'd quibble with "which probably gross a fairly similar amount."

Criticizing the quality of the book doesn't seem entirely valid, because quality literature may sell far fewer copies. How many copies of his books did Pynchon (for example) sell?

It looks to me like she has written a number of books in this same "Darkyn" series over the past few years, several of which have peaked on the NYT bestseller list. Check her Amazon or B&N page.

Anyway, I agree that quality literature may, in reality, sell far fewer copies (although I'm sure that Pynchon has sold hundreds of thousands or millions) -- the reason I mentioned that was because one reasonable argument is this idea of fairness, where you could say, "it's not fair that someone producing something of this quality should be paid so little, so the system should be different." I would agree with that if Joyce Carol Oates was making $50,000 a year, but I think that in this case the market's valuation of this work matches or exceeds my personal sense of fairness.

I think it's better to take into account a book's longevity. If it is a classic in print 50 years and sells steadily, it could outsell a book in the NYT bestseller list, which might only sell that big for a year or even less.

Longevity, yes:

'The Very Hungry Caterpillar,' a popular children's book has sold 29 million copies, and according to Newsweek, does $50 million in licensing deals a year. (yes, year)

http://www.newsweek.com/id/189230

FTA:

> Speaking of comparisons, the publisher’s portion of sales on this book has grossed them around $453,839.68. I don’t have any hard figures on the publisher’s net, so I can’t give you the bottom line there. If I had to make a guess, I’d say they probably netted around $250K on this one.

I'm a writer (not a novelist, yet) and from what I've learned from the people I've talked to is simple. #1 is that they write out of a passion (myself included) and that they'll do it regardless of money, so the complaints about the grossly low pay becomes somewhat dubious when many writers still work day jobs for the majority of their career. One of my extended family was a semi-pro golfer, he had notorious low pay from it (even professionals doing the full circuit don't get amazing pay, it's the endorsements that pay well), but he works in banking so his day job pays a lot so he gets to do what he loves (golf) a lot.

#2 is that the genre you choose can seriously affect how much you get paid. Vampire-Romance is 99% of the time YA, which is predominantly read by young-female readers, many of whom may be transients in the market. This might be your ideal literary area, however this isn't a mountain of gold waiting for people with pickaxes to come claim it, this is a stream with a dozen people with sifters already there.

I'm working on a Fantasy series, which if I'm lucky on a NYT best seller list might pull me in above $25,000 due to its target market being well established and adult readers (IE people who'll buy hardback). However, I'm a realist and I quickly realised that Mystery novels have the biggest literary market and pay their authors the most of any. Writing a pulp mystery novel could likely bring in $25,000 for a single book (likely very few royalties, but that's beside the point here), hitting a best seller list for mystery (especially a multi-book deal) would easily bring in the big cash and could work as your day job.

The authors own efforts also contribute, many authors believe that their only job is putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), which is well within their rights. However many authors do vast marketing and meet-and-greets, signings and such to help boost word of mouth of themselves, not their books. A good example here is John Scalzi, who is constantly in contact with his fans and does extensive convention runs. This kind of self-marketing is how many webcomics became profitable and allowed their artists to become full time at it relying solely on advertisements.

Edit: Note on the genre front. Many NYT Best Sellers hit the front page on Hard Cover (where the author makes a greater percentage of royalties, but also the book sells for 2/3 times the paperback price), especially mystery novels. However YA never hits the list in hard cover, many are rarely ever released in hard cover. Not selling hard cover books well will easily 1/2 or 1/3 your pay and typically the older reader spends more on their books and will buy hard cover.

We have it ridiculously fortunate selling software/services relative to folks whose IP requires a physical embodiment. If you think the publisher is a waste of money from the perspective of the author, why not consider what retailers get out of the transaction? Like most retail products, books need to be keystoned to make money, which means 50%+ of the price you pay for the book gets absorbed by the point of sale.

This has truly perverse effects such as an affiliate for Amazon who generates one marginal sale of Bad Vampires And The Librarians Who Love Them getting just about as much as the author does out of the marginal sale. (I mock but I spent $50 this month on "urban fantasy" on my Kindle, so it is good natured mocking.)

My little brother is trying to break into writing. For authors below the tip-top, it requires endless participation in book signings, tours, and whatnot to build a fan base and, essentially, move books at retail scales. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, insane. Authors need to get savvier about marketing their books on the Internet, and disintermediating as many players as metahumanly possible.

(I've got high hopes for the Kindle bringing book readers kicking and screaming into the mainstream. Granted, at the moment it makes you about as dependent on Amazon and your publisher as you've always been. However, if it goes iPod and moves the core book buyers from buying paper to buying bits, then you could have alternate business models like "Thanks for buying Vampire Loves Sarcastic Female Mechanic last week. It is the first book in a planned series of seven. For only $49.99 you can buy a membership in the VLSFM fan club, which in addition to our exclusive newsletter gets you the next 6 books of the series -- each delivered a month before street date directly to your registered device. Be the envy of your friends!")

From the comments:

Thanks for sharing this. As a writer, I still don’t understand why we receive such a small pay check when the publisher reaps big profits. Yes, they take the chance, put up the money, and promote the book, but they would have nothing to sell if we didn’t write the book. Because of that, I’m self publishing my next book. I figure that I only need to sell 10% of what I would through a publisher to make more money than I would receive from them. With the internet and a modest fan base I think this is possible.

This is the correct mindset. Currently publishers take 90%+ of the revenue. They also take all the risk & also fund the unsuccessful publications. Authors are trading risk for stability at (what seem like) a high exchange rate. I don't believe that today & into the near future publishers really have such a monopoly over the distribution & promotion of books that no one else stands a chance of succeeding.

If the commenter is wrong & can't sell 5%-10% the number of books on his own, then the publishers are adding the value that they are getting paid for.

They could try to do what the publishers do. They could promote & sell direct to public online (I imagine >10% of all book sales are online, so if you can keep the number of online sales consistent while writing off brick & mortar entirely, you beat your goal). 1K true fans (or maybe 10k true fans) may be a viable approach. Maybe the author can do the direct to public thing & sell books at a fraction of normal retail price. I'd order a lot of books if they cost $3.

The problem with all this is obviously that the author then needs to be good at both writing & "publishing." For this to be scalable, there needs to be a wider structure that works for writers that are only good at writing. Then again, maybe that kind of structure exists and costs 90%+ of revenue.

Publishers are not just marketing machines, they also have editors. One of the dangers of self-publishing is not getting robust feedback from a good editor.

I disagree. Editors is the type of service that is defined enough in scope to outsource effectively. It is one of the expenses of self-publishing, sure. It shouldn't be skipped. But just like they can pay to have a book printed, you can pay to have it edited.

I don't think that there is really an argument that all the stuff that publishers do is unnecessary. Only that authors might be able to do it themselves. The point that seems to be brought up every time (I've never worked in publishing, so I don't know) is that their ability to promote a book is not replaceable. The reason that comment caught my attention is that it offers a solution to that problem: You don't need to match them, just get within an order of magnitude.

I suspect that one of the hard to replicate aspects is the filtration that publishers offer. They reject books with low chances of success. If they are better then average at selecting, that should increase average ROI. This is where the decade comes in to play. Printing smaller runs is getting cheaper all the time. Distribution is getting easier. ebooks may make getting a book out the door very cheap. If you don't have high up front costs, you don't need filters.

> After paying taxes, commission to my agent and covering my expenses, my net profit on the book currently stands at $24,517.36

> ...the publisher’s portion of sales on this book has grossed them around $453,839.68. ... If I had to make a guess, I’d say they probably netted around $250K on this one.

Wow.

this is sad :(. How can this be improved?

Cut the middleman, an author can publish an ebook and sell it through kindle or other online means. Once and if the book is relatively successful he/she can arm-twist a smaller publisher and get higher royalties.

Also, a relatively well known author can directly work with a smaller publisher and get higher royalties.

Or even self publish it.

The publisher makes more profit than the author, but they also take more risk. The author is guaranteed $50,000, while the publisher could (theoretically) lose $50,000 plus the cost of printing and distributing if the book doesn't sell well.

When publisher's give advance that high it's because they know that the book will sale. So I don't think they are really taking that much of a risk with publishing this book.

This looks like another case of those controlling the means of production and distribution primed for disruption. There's no shortage of "iTunes for Books" ideas out there, but imagine giving authors a means to distribute their work without a middleman taking quite so large a cut. Similar to what's happening in the music industry.

It wouldn't have to rely solely on digital distribution either… well-known authors or books that meritoriously rise above the rank and file could then be picked up by the remaining smart book publishers and given real print distribution for those who still like to show off their bookshelves. Sort of like people still buying vinyl even though they have the MP3s.

There are some means, like Lulu.com, for example. Their charges aren't unreasonable, though you won't be making much money if you want to roll out a $7 paperback through them (for bigger, pricier books though, you end up with a good margin).

The problem is the vast majority of authors aren't marketers and aren't that interested in marketing and promoting their own books even if they have some ideas. The relationships publishers have with distributors can prove significant in getting those first few thousand copies out the door. (And it's certainly not as if I'm a massive fan of publishers here.. http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ )

I find this very interesting, but the way she explains it isn't clearly laid out. Annoyingly, she keeps referring to her own income in terms of net profit but anything else is gross.

Anyway, a link to her first post: http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller

She got an advance of $50000 of which 1/3 was paid only when the book hit the shelves. Expenses (including agent fees) approximate $9000. If she took a year to write the book, her book would have earned her $35k (gross, $26k after expenses) in July 2007, plus $13000 (gross) in July 2008. And that's it - until she covers the advance, that's her income for this book to date. Hardly stellar. You'd need returns from other books to support yourself in order to make a living from this.

She took back $40k against her advance in the first 4 months followed by a buffered -$2k loss in the next 6 months. That's one hell of a short tail.

I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem to be making a better living then $25,000 a year. Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves.

Even making only $25000 on one book a year, if you have written 5-10 books the past 5 to 10 years, you have to be making money off those books as well... Especially if her advance is $50,000 a book!

I have to agree that I have no real sympathy for this.

"I am not sure how this is true. Look at past serial writers and they all seem to be making a better living then $25,000 a year."

Serial writing is practically dead. Short story rates have stayed constant in nominal terms for decades, soinflation has eaten them.

"Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Harry Potter lady, they all have done very well for themselves."

Those authors combined are less than 0.0001% of the professionally published novel writing population but I would be surprised if they took less than 5% of all US author royalty dollars. Very, very skewed distribution.

Sad but then again just about every book seems to make it onto the New York Times best-seller list.

Oh, right, I've been spending too much time in airports.

Clearly, we need to outsource book publishing to China.

I assume your being snarky. To be a bit more serious though, China has a large ebook publishing economy. An author in China would be thrilled to make $25k off a book. Royalty payment in China are horribly low and accounting of books sold or read is highly "inaccurate".

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