Author Joe Konrath turns down $500,000 deal to Self Publish

If established authors can make more money self-publishing, what's to stop well-known authors deserting publishing houses as soon as they collect a fan base? Are publishers going to need to fight to hang on to lucrative authors? Interesting. Hard to say where this is going; it could actually flip-flop. Publishing houses will need to take on new authors, while established authors move on to self-publishing? Anybody got a crystal ball?

 

Yeah, let's please remember that ebooks are a format, not a publishing method. Trade publishers do it, indie publishers do it, self-publishers do it.

And I'd have to wonder about a publisher who would agree to letting an author simultaneously self-publish an ebook version of a story they'd paid good money for - at least until a certain sales point. Seems rather foolish to me...

 

I know for me due to personal preference i will not have my books be sold on Kindles, period. I've noticed the vanishing print sales and i want to support the printed companies. I don't even care if i lose money, that's not what i'm about, if i'm going down i'm going down for the defense of physical literature. A newcomer who takes a stand.

 

I don't think one needs to worry. Not all well-known authors care about self-publishing. And publishing houses actually do take on new authors. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to be a publisher.

 

I was referring to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, not e-books per se.

My friend used CreateSpace for her last book but also has a publisher for her earlier trilogy. The publisher has first rights to the 3rd in the series and they've yet to publish it. But the time frame is about the same as it took for them to publish the second of the series.

I'm not close enough to being finished to have investigated much about publishing yet.

 

Great questions. How ever it goes, authors are the ones who benefit most. I predict not only will established authors move to ebook sale on their own, but more first timers will have a fair chance. Authors who have yet to be published and have a body of work for readers to choose from usually have a better shot.

 

Established authors only need to upload their new title onto Amazon and let the money roll in. The spill over alone will make them profitable. It is no more difficult to upload to Amazon than to format a manuscript for a traditional publisher. They might sell fewer ebooks than the publisher would, but the percentage of the sale might be worth it for them to do it. Besides, once their ebook is a hit they can turn around and sell the printing rights to the publisher if they want to. The author wins.

 

No, they're not.

Whether to use DRM is up to the publisher, and I, for one, try to avoid buying Kindle books with DRM.

Or the publisher has released them DRM-free. I believe Konrath does that for his own books, for example.

 

Haha. Yeah, and if a writer is so popular that they get offered a 500k book deal, or so successful they turn down a 500k book deal, or so famous that they have an article written about their business decisions, then yeah, I think they can probably go it alone.

This article has no reflection on what business decisions an unpublished author should make. If that's your point, I whole-heartedly agree.

 

Respectfully, to me it reflects a changing marketplace. Before, a self published author printed books and sold them best they could. If a publisher picked them up because they had substantial sales, the author would hand over the whole operations to the publisher. The marketplace has flipped upside down.

An author has to start somewhere if they ever want a readership. And if a publisher puts you under contract, you may want to consider the idea that you could actually sell more ebooks in the long run than print copies. Signing away the rights to an ebook, as it generates sales long after your book has been removed from the store shelf, could have been money in your pocket instead of a very small potion left over that goes to you from the publisher.

 

lettuce, no disrespect, but really I think you've been reading too much Konrath and his ilk. That "very small portion" the author receives from the publisher is more often than not much, much more than the majority of self-publishers will ever see. And what makes you think ebooks would sell 'long after' the print book is off the shelf? It's not like you can only buy ebooks online. Books do have a shelf life, but it's not just the physical shelf. If the book remains popular, it will remain popular regardless of format - and when the 'excitement' starts dying down, the format won't make any difference there either.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm referring to what can happen after the initial blast of marketing. Hopefully, books sales climb, and if they keep selling, sure, guaranteed spot on the book shelf. But sales can fall or even become nonexistent. It can come to a point where the publisher really doesn't put much effort in that title because they have more book launches to worry about.

Meanwhile, you keep writing and adding more books to your list. You decide to step out on your own and sell direct to customers on Amazon. If you gain traction doing this it would be, IMO, better to have the ebook rights of that first book. Ebooks are perpetual. A book that does not sell today may have an ebook life later. If your publisher owns the rights and by your own efforts you revive interest in that book, they would be happy to print more. But your profit off the ebook sales if you owned your rights vs. not owning them, would be greater.

Shadow, sure, I'm sipping the koolaid a little bit here. I'm just exploring ideas. My family's printing business has greatly declined due to electronic publishing. Manufacturers are printing fewer manuals, books etc because they can put it on a disc or make things available for download. Things are changing.

 

Here's some more food-for-thought:

http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2013/04/with-self-publishing-at-25-of-sales-nook-pairs-with-fastpencil-for-revamped-nook-press-service/

 

that's true... advances don't get paid back... that's the publisher's gamble...

and i love that freudian slip [?] 'poultry advance' that implies the publisher was 'too chicken' to advance a larger sum!

 

None of my eBooks have DRM. In fact, I have never seen an eBook with DRM.

 

Sorry for the over-generalization, guys. All the books I get from Amazon have been DRM protected. I typically get textbooks, though. Textbook publishers definitely want DRM protection, because of how easy it would be for one person to share it with 30 fellow students...

 

How can you tell if an e-book has DRM? I've assumed that all of mine do, but since I've never tried to take one out of the application that it was sold to be read in, I don't know.

 

It should be listed in the book details section on the shop page (if the book has it). Though, it is to my understanding that Kindle books don't have DRM by default, but have the option (for publishers). However, I have moved my Kindle books to two different Kindles in the past.

Also, you can get rid of DRM with third-party programs if you desire.

 

I apologize ahead of time for the length of this post!

It's been quite a while since I've posted here. I lurk now and then, but this post has inspired me to post again. Some of you may remember me. If you do, you may also remember how much I was against self-publishing when I used to be a frequent poster. That is no longer my stance.

I've done a tremendous amount of research, on every possible front, and I simply don't believe that trad pub is the best way to go. For me at least. Money is most certainly a factor, since it's a fact that most trad pub authors receive, if they're lucky, an average of 1.60 per paperback, after the publisher and agent have taken their cut. And they only get that amount if they've earned out their advance (which is quite rare for a newbie). On top of that they're still having to handle marketing, if they have any hope of selling. Trad pubs rarely actually advertise for new authors anymore.

Then you have trad pubs like Harlequin, what a nightmare that whole mess is. Some authors making as little a 6 cents (that's what I said, cents) per sold book. And those figures are based on books being sold 7.00 to 14.99. A new author can go in and self-publish an ebook on kindle, charge 3.99, and make 2.69 per book with 70% royalties from amazon and small delivery fees (literally a couple of cents per sale). And they have no advance to earn first. It's all theirs.

And yes, trad pubs most certainly do produce ebooks now, as a general rule, but they then charge 9-13.00 for them (some even more) and they still don't sell well. Especially when they're up against other books selling for .99 - 4.99. And the royalty rate still sucks, especially after you pay your agent.

You also don't have rights to your book, so if it's not selling well or it's taking forever to GET published, or anything similar, you have no recourse. There are clauses that can get you out, but it's still a minimum of three years in most cases before you can get your rights back (if at all). Keep in mind that during those three years you could be selling literally nothing.

Yes, there is junk out there, but there's junk in trad pub too let's not forget. With self-pub ebooks or POD, if reviewers are screaming about something in the book you have the option of fixing it if you're so inclined. Then you can let everyone know that there's a new version and see if that goes better. You can change your cover, you can change the price, you can change anything, because it's yours. That's not going to happen with trad pub. And the views for readers, as pertains to Indie authors, have changed. Sure, there are plenty of writers throwing hissy's about self-pubbed books, but not so many readers.

When you go on amazon, keep in mind that it's estimated only 1% of readers leave reviews. For anyone. So when you look at a book from an author you've never heard of with 36 reviews, and it was just published two months ago, if the book is sold for 3.99 you can estimate that said author has made just over 1000 dollars from their book in two months. And sure, that's only 500 a month, which isn't a whole lot, but if they also have three other titles, say one with 60 reviews, one with 90, and one with 110, all published within the year, well, now things are getting interesting and it's looking much more viable. It's much more common than you probably realized, but it doesn't mean you can publish crap. On Amazon you have the look inside feature, and most books I've seen that are selling nothing or doing very poorly turn me off in the first page. Spelling errors, punctuation errors, formatting horrors, just plain bad writing, etc.

And I'll address what most people assume about self-pubbers, since I'm about to be one. My books have never been rejected by either an agent or trad pub. I'm not doing this as a last resort, I'm doing this as my first choice. It's not because I can't handle rejection, I'm sure I'll get my share of bad reviews and I'm okay with that. It's because I want to be responsible for my work. I want to know that if I'm failing it's because of me, so I can adjust whatever it is that's wrong. I also have the luxury of being able to write full time and am currently producing a finished book in an average of six weeks.

Is this a good option for everyone? Of course not, but then neither are yoga pants. I think it's a matter of knowing the facts and not assuming that everything is anecdotal. Doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions is important.

As far as the DRM questions, when you self-pub (at least on Amazon) you are given an option. You can have it or not. The decision is left completely to the author.

 

If I might point out - the royalty payments kick in after they've earned out their advance - ie, they receive money up front, before one sale is made. So it's not really fair to point to the royalty amount as if that were the only money the author receives.

Also, authors do not have to do any marketing - publishers want the book to succeed because otherwise they lose money. They will do appropriate marketing to maximize their profit, and thus the profit to the author. Expecting newspaper/magazine ads for a book is like expecting open houses when selling real estate - it's not nearly as important or effective for that property as people think.

70% of nothing is still nothing. Even if they sell fairly well, will they really make any money once they pay themselves for the time spent on the publishing side? Time that could've been spent writing the next book?

And again, trade authors get the advance before one sale is made, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say they have to earn the advance first.

I don't really care if the ebook version sells as well as the print version - as long as they sell well in combination. And the royalty rate is still the money you get after the advance.

You license your rights, you don't sell them. And if you license your rights forever, it's because you didn't pay attention to the contract, which is negotiable. You end up with a bad deal, it's because you didn't pay attention before signing.

First, this idea that self-publishers can and should use readers as betas has never set well with me. I'm not going to buy a book by an author who thinks they can 'fix things' after readers pan it. And books through trade publishers typically (not always) do not need fixing because they've had professionals going over it many times before it hits the shelves.



I can't disagree that self-publishing isn't for everyone, nor would I say trade publishing is always the way to go. But as you stated, you need to do the research before making a decision either way, and that includes not ignoring things like advances and time/effort spent publishing. One needs to make the decision with eyes wide open.

 

I have to agree: most self-published E-books only manage a few dozen sales over the span of their first year. (or even less).

 

Yes, and I pointed that out as well. The problem is that the advances are relatively small and authors rarely earn those out, which I already said.

This thinking is, frankly, naive. If you depend on a publisher to do all of the marketing you're likely to be dropped. If you research you'll see that.

And if they're getting nothing, they're doing something wrong, or at the very least could be doing something much better.

Yes, they get the advance up front, but they have to sell enough to cover that expense before they ever see any royalties from the publisher. MOST authors do not ever make enough to pay that advance back.

Okay, well that's not very realistic since print versions are selling less and less. I never said the royalty wasn't money you get after the advance, simply that you're unlikely to ever see any royalties, and if you do they'll be minimal.

I also addressed this so I have to say I'm a little confused. Yes, you license them, in most contracts for a minimum of three years. I already said that.

I never said self-publishers should use (paying) readers as betas. I'm not sure where you got that from. I have beta readers (who are not paying readers), and I would think that any serious self-publisher does. I find errors in trad pubbed books in pretty much every one of them I read. It happens. If you're self-pubbed and you missed something you have the ability to fix it. If you're trad pubbed, you don't. If your trad pubbed and people are leaving reviews about how your cover has nothing to do with book, or they hate it, and it's a consistent complaint, you have no recourse. You didn't get to give input when it was made and you can't fix it now. Self-pubbed authors can change the cover, and whatever else if they find a consistent complaint. I'd rather have the option available if me and/or my betas missed something. Maybe that's just me though.

Pretty much exactly what I said. All of the above (and previous) has been my opinion, based on my research.

 

And actually, some contracts do stipulate that the author may be expected to return a portion of the advance if a particular sales quota was/has not been reached. So it would be wise to put that amount in a 3 month DC just in case you do not met your sales quota.

 

Such a clause would raise a red flag for me. I've never heard of any reputable publishers doing this.