I'm an original minion but I haven't been hanging around the blog much lately. I do miss your humor and wisdom. One of my claims to fame is that some of my work appeared in Novel Deviations I and II.
I've been busy self-publishing e-books and I was wondering what you think of this whole self-publishing movement. I decided to drop out of the agent query lottery and put my stuff out directly to readers, now that the technology is there for that. Not all of my books have been a smash, but my latest one is doing very well. It's been in the Amazon Kindle top 500 for several weeks and has risen as high as #199 over the past weekend.
Now, the price is so low that I only earn 35 cents per sale, but that's okay. It isn't about the money. It's just gratifying to know that a lot of folks are reading and enjoying it. That's much more fun and rewarding than continuing to be rejected by agents and keeping my books in the trunk. The funniest part is that two agents have actually contacted (queried?) me in the past ten days asking if I wanted to work with them. That used to be all I ever wanted, and very badly, but now it doesn't mean as much to me.
I'm pretty sure e-books are here to stay. In fact, Amazon already sells more e-books than paperbacks and the margin is most likely going to widen as time passes.
So what do you think? Thumbs up or thumbs down on what I'm doing? I'm 99% sure that you hate what I have done and what I'm now a part of, but I had to come home and find out for sure. I'm still a minion and I'm really hoping you don't cast me out...
--dave conifer
If you hung around the blog more, you'd know I have nothing against self-publishing. Heck, there are now six self-published Evil Editor books. Unless you count Evil Editor Publications, with its staff of one, as a corporation. Also, you'd know I covered the topic in Q & A 138 and Q & A 171, although in those cases we were discussing self-publishing a paper book; self-publishing for e-books eliminates much of the expense, which can't be a bad thing.
As you may have read, Barry Eisler turned down a half-million-dollar contract to publish his next thriller, and will self-publish it. Story with links.
I don't recommend that you turn down a half-million-dollar contract, as Mr. Eisler has a bigger fan base than yours.
Let's say you have to sell one tenth as many self-published copies to make the same money you would with a publishing house. Let's say you actually do so. Which do you prefer:
A. 500 people read your book, you earn X dollars.
B. 5000 people read your book, you earn X dollars.
Obviously B is better. Can you sell more than one tenth?
A. 1000 people read your book, you earn 2X dollars.
B. 5000 people read your book, you earn X dollars.
If money is the major factor, A is better. But maybe you still prefer B.
But let's keep in mind two other possible scenarios:
You go the self-pub route and . . .
10 people read your self-published book, you earn .02X dollars.
You go the traditional route and . . .
0 people read your book because no publisher buys it.
If there's a chance your novel is the next The da Vinci Code, I'd at least look for a publisher. But if it becomes clear no one is recognizing the brilliance of your work, I don't see a downside to self-publishing.
14 comments:
Great work! I think we are all looking at those trunk novels and considering the ebook option these days. The traditional business model for fiction authors seems to be unrewarding, especially for first novels. Having proved the audience for your work exists, an agent might be helpful now. Or maybe you don't need one. Hope your future enterprises do well!
Thanks, Anon.
This was the first time I wrote and didn't even bother querying any agents. I doubt if I ever will again...
...dave
That was really brave to ask the question, Dave. And it sounds like your latest has done really well (honestly, better than most people I know who have self-pubbed without already having a fan-base established). You made sure your novels were there at the forefront and that's really cool.
(But we need more opening and continuations! So stop slacking and get back to submitting!)
Dave, I don't get it. What's the downside to landing an agent, especially if it's not about the money so presumably you don't mind them earning their cut? The bulk of the selling/promotion is then off your plate and presumably if they make sales to publishing houses even more people read the books (your goal). Won't you even talk to them?
And of course congrats on doing well, etc, I just wanted to ask you about this aspect.
Hey again. I read those threads from 2008 and 2009 about self publishing and I have to say that they are rather dated. Things are different now, with the advent of epublishing. Amazon and B&N could change things overnight, but right now it costs nothing to epublish. It's not vanity publishing anymore.
Aika, there's no downside if one can pull it off. But it's basically a lottery in my opinion. There are tons of capable writers writing a lot of books that readers want to read, but agents are spending 30 seconds on a query letter and rejecting them out of hand. I am absolutely certain that had I submitted queries for this book the results would have been the same that they always are.
As I said, two agents have contacted me recently with generic "queries" (yeah, I did that on purpose). I'll see what they say, but I'll probably stay the course on Wrecker, at least. I've already done the hard part, and I really don't do much promotion anymore after an initial push. After Amazon and B&N see that a book sells, they do a lot to advertise it to readers ("People who bought this also bought" makes a huge difference).
Maybe I'll query agents on the next one. Believe me, I spent about ten years running to the mailbox looking for agent replies, so I know exactly where you're coming from.
Thanks!
...dave
Congrats on the book.
Do you have a blog or website we can follow for new books?
It was never vanity publishing. Vanity publishing is when you pay someone else to publish it. Self publishing is when you publish it yourself.
Yeah, I know, EE. I think I was reading the comments attached to those older threads and forgetting that they weren't about the kind of thing I'm doing.
Sorry, fellow minions, if I sounded bitter or resentful. I'm really not. I'm glad for the opportunity to have my book out there and that's all.
I don't do much on my blog. It's more of a diary, and gets read by the same number of people as a diary, LOL. The best place to look me up is on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/daveconiferfanpage
EE, sorry for spewing at the mouth on your blog. I'd like to hang out here again and start posting some continuations and fake plot descriptions again!
An agent could be helpful for pitching to film companies, 'audio' book producers, and foreign language publishers. Film options can be a great bonus, even if no movie ever gets produced.
Anon 12:39 makes a great point. And my personal belief is that the agent model will need to change in order for agents who aren't top of their game to compete. Just like there's only a certain percentage of writers who are well-established and who make good money writing, there's a glut, to my mind, of agents trying to do the same. But as advances get squeezed and royalties drop for the midlist to no-list authors, trickle-down diminishes and agents are forced to take on more clients.
I think a portion of these agents will wind up working with self-pubbing authors handling the non-print/ebook rights. It'll be less glamorous, but much like the typical business or contract lawyer works with tedious cases that are neither high-profile nor career-expanding, junior agents and newer agents will need to specialize in these types of rights negotiations before they'll be financially successful enough to move up the ladder to take on the more limited clientele that I predict will shake out of the epubbing phenom.
Kudos, Dave!
I have a novel that's too cross-genre for legacy publishing, having been shot down a couple of times in editorial meetings. Agents who've read the full have said they loved it and couldn't put it down, but wouldn't know who to sell it to. It has a blurb from a NYT Bestselling author. I'll be e-pubbing it soon. But I also have a solid mainstream novel I haven't given up finding a legacy home for. And my current WIP I'll shop around, too. If neither of them hit, though, I'm going with the 3-strikes-and-you're-out rule, and will dive into the self-pubbing model and not look back.
Something I would never have considered early last year. Times they are a'changing.
Dave,
Congrats! Those are some very impressive numbers. As someone who's gone both the traditional route as well as the indie route, I can say they are both challenging and rewarding in different ways.
Getting your work widely read is something we all dream about; when it comes true it's a beautiful thing!
:-)
Thanks, Phoenix and No-bull. I'm really glad I did it...
Thanks for the reply, Dave! And all best.
Post a Comment