The Very Rich Indie Writer

http://www.novelr.com/2011/02/27/rich-indie-writer

by shadowsun7 • 15 years ago

89 57 15 years ago

ggordan• 15 years ago

I am curious to see what will happen to the major publishers in the next 5 years. I'm not saying that sales of physical books will plummet to their death (I don't see this ever happening), but perhaps the publishers will be forced to offer the authors a much better deal than the current 30%.

One thing that might happen is that the volume of books being printed will decrease dramatically. Maybe they'll implement a JIT inventory strategy.

[edit: Although such an inventory system would only be plausible online. Print on-demand.]

spinlock2• 15 years ago

Isn't Radiohead doing something innovative with there next album (besides the music)? I've heard that they will release it almost exclusively on iTunes/online and then charge north of $50 for the album but the cover art will include original works. I think the print world will probably go the same way (i.e. the Kindle will capture the low end and print will be left for the high end). Only time will tell.

rst• 15 years ago

That's already common for small press (usually via Ingram's LightningSource[1]). As for brick-and-mortar stores, there are already a few that are printing books on demand in store, with an Espresso Book Machine[2]; there'll probably be more now that they are available through Xerox.

(My local bookshop, the Harvard Book Store, has had an EBM for a few months, proudly placed so you can see it in the windows. They're doing a pretty steady business --- mostly self-published stuff, but there's also a steady run of academics ordering obscure out-of-copyright stuff through Google Books.)

[1] http://waltshiel.com/2011/01/17/your-book-investment-marketi...

[2] http://www.ondemandbooks.com/hardware.htm

runevault5• 15 years ago

Thank you, it was driving me nuts that I couldn't remember the name of the Espresso.

runevault5• 15 years ago

Actually, while I can't remember the name, there are machines that have been built where you could basically tell it "I want book x" and it prints you a copy and you pay for it right there, in a reasonable amount of time, if it's in the machine's system.

reeses6• 15 years ago

I remember reading about ten years ago that authors were unhappy about print-on-demand systems because quite often, their contracts included rights reverting to the author a number of years after the last printing date. With POD, that can just keep dragging on as people snatch up a copy here and there.

murtza• 15 years ago

It's called the Espresso Book Machine.

smoody• 15 years ago

Her Kindle books are $3 per copy, not $9 as the article states. But no matter how you slice it, she's making north of $1M per year.

zdw• 15 years ago

Per this article, in about 9 months she's sold 185k books:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tonya-plank/meet-mega-bestsell...

At $3/each, with 70% going to her, that's $388k. Not bad, but not >1M.

runevault5• 15 years ago

Her books are a mix of .99 (35% royalty rate) and 2.99+ (70% rate).

Also she sold something like 450k books in January alone.

novelr• 15 years ago

Correction appended. Sorry about that.

e40• 15 years ago

Well, at one of them is $0.99: http://www.amazon.com/My-Blood-Approves-Amanda-Hocking/dp/14...

spinlock2• 15 years ago

OK, I read her last blog post and ... she just doesn't read like a serious writer. Maybe I'm bitter but I've read comments in hacker news that have a better literary style.

keefe• 15 years ago

it's worth noting she writes young adult fiction, so she has a different optimization target than what a typical college educated adult would call good.

reeses6• 15 years ago

In addition, the blog just needs to be good enough to keep people buying her books. The best is the enemy of the good.

muhfuhkuh• 15 years ago

She's writing for her audience, not HN's. Plus, she's quite inexperienced in both writing professionally and self-publishing, both of which some have toiled away on for years and have not even a 1/100th of her success to show for it.

Finally, her blogging style isn't for everyone. Some people want to come across as "not phony" and tailor their writing style to that ethic. Maybe you don't have the patience for a non-professional tone.

6ren2• 15 years ago

She's a best-selling author, not a best-writing author.

alan-crowe• 15 years ago

I noticed that too, but I suspect that competition from cinema has bifurcated books into two distinct products, novels and stories. The novel responds to the challenge from cinema with interior monologue and writing with literary merit. The plot unfolds five to ten times slower in the reader's library than would a similar plot projected in a cinema. The story tries to compete with cinema on pace by adopting a simple writing style that a young reader can devour at great speed. It fails, but only by a factor of two, and it is cheaper to buy than a cinema ticket, by a similar factor.

A story is cheaper to write than a movie is to make, perhaps 100 or 1000 times cheaper. That matters to the reader because, each year, there are many more stories to chose from than there are films. The reader can find the particular kind of story that they especially like, which makes up for the fact it is only writing and not a film.

patio115• 15 years ago

As someone who reads her genre but not her books (saw a few paragraphs, decided to pass), I'd say:

1) The quality was noticeably worse than authors in the genre I enjoy but, critically, difficult to distinguish from at least some New York books that I've paid money for.

2) I did not find myself thinking "Dang, you know what this excerpt needed? A publisher. I mean, look at it, it's so... not published."

3) I wish her every success, and strongly hope that authors I enjoy adopt the model themselves, because continuing the current model adds no value to me and, in fact, subtracts it when I have to deal with territory lockouts or "The book is ready -- you can read it next year."

neutronicus• 15 years ago

Which authors do you enjoy in the genre?

patio115• 15 years ago

Ask me this via email and I'll answer at length when I've got time. I have a release and client engagement tomorrow, so my only HN time today is while Capistrano is running.

lionhearted2• 15 years ago

The value traditional publishing adds is a variety of professional staff (editor, copyeditor, designers, etc), potentially fronting advance money to cover costs for writers to devote full time to writing, and to some extent as a filtering mechanism (you know a published book usually isn't going to have egregious spelling/typesetting errors that make it unreadable).

That's legitimately valuable, but the quotes by Konrath in the article are spot-on: If you don't need the full traditional staff to put out a good product and don't need the advance money, traditional publishing becomes less and less useful to you.

I'm a little more optimistic about the traditional model than most people are - I think with some basic adjustments and modernizations, they've got another pretty good 10-30 years in them doing things similar to how they're done now. But it's definitely more viable than ever to go outside the model, especially for people able to put out a polished product without help.

patio115• 15 years ago

The professional staff is dirt cheap and already almost 100% outsourced by the publishers. That's a barrier like not having Photoshop skills is a barrier to selling on the Internet: pay somebody money, problem solved.

runevault5• 15 years ago

I've read books from major publishers that had enough grammar/spelling issues to bug the hell out of me, and just because it's NY published actually isn't as much of a guarantee as it should be, if your preferred genre gets popular, because if they decide they need x books of y genre/month, but they are only getting z (some number smaller than x) they have been known to lower their standards to fill the supposed market need.

Of course that is part of why bubbles in publishing pop so hard, people get burned out on the crap put out to "fill the need"

wglb2• 15 years ago

But the thing that the traditional publishers won't be able to counter is pointed out in Konrath's recent blog post about time is money: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/02/time-is-money.html.

And until I actually investigated it, I wouldn't claim that editing and such takes a four-figure outlay. I would defer to patio11 there.

reeses6• 15 years ago

In re #2, I really do dislike the lack of editing in every self-published ebook I've read. It's too easy to get distracted by poor grammar, spelling, or sentence structure.

Most of my reviews of ebooks on Amazon are driven by a pedantic hatred of poorly edited written material.

I did read an ebook recently[1] where the author credited a couple online editing services in the acknowledgements. However, they missed a number of places where the author forgot to put a verb in a sentence, or forgot a preposition, or misspelled a proper name. I highlighted (thank you Kindle) passages such as"The table about ten feet away from the fence I planned on coming over,"[2] because it stopped me from "flowing" through the book while I tried to figure out what just happened. Wait, what about the table? Did it do something? Did someone do something to it? I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE TABLE!

[1] Because the author asked me to give me a bad review of his book after reading my review of another book in the same genre. http://www.amazon.com/review/R19V93VWMFZB8W/ref=cm_aya_cmt?i... -- I'm a sucker for the post-apocalyptic wish fulfillment junk. Dissatisfied with my life? Don't get personal.

[2] Some more examples: "The curved angle of the claws in this position would actually help guide the spears into chest," "He said it take much extra effort," and "People can get used anything especially if their lives depend on it."

runevault5• 15 years ago

The editing IS a mixed bag, self-pubbed authors who take the whole thing seriously and aren't broke DO pay for editing services, but obviously not all of them do.

This is why sampling is so important, unless they got someone to edit the first part but not all of it, the grammar/etc issues should be obvious within 5 pages.

bl4k2• 15 years ago

What was the online editing service?

ErrantX• 15 years ago

Same and same.

This wasn't ''bad'' per se, and as an aspiring indie author I've faced the same issues so can empathise.

But an excerpt full of constant "I" and "He" really trips up the flow and is a classic newbie author mistake (the first novella I wrote had an identical problem and was almost unreadable). Plenty of issues with sentence structure too; random example "Mr. Meade suggested, and I groaned." (stuck between two pieces of speech by Meade).

There is a strange and magical skill to making the words of a story flow properly. She doesn't seem to be there yet, but it takes time.

Also; copyeditors you don't know (i.e. not family & friends) are crucial :D

reeses6• 15 years ago

I have a feeling the young adult fiction area (where this author is focused) is where much of the ebook money is coming from in general(but it's going to balloon everywhere). I can see how serial authors who get kids hooked on their series can have a nicely incrementing revenue stream. I'm sure you can think of a couple examples of traditionally published YA fiction that have long lines of fans loyally paying top dollar for hardcover versions of the newest volume.

There was an article earlier this month in the NYT (web version: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05ebooks.html) with some observations on children consuming ebook content.

"At HarperCollins, for example, e-books made up 25 percent of all young-adult sales in January, up from about 6 percent a year before — a boom in sales that quickly got the attention of publishers there."

And that's from the publishing 'house' example.

The NYT article also observes that a lot of kids are getting ebook readers as gifts. When a grandparent/aunt/uncle can't think of a specific book to give a kid for their birthday or whatever, rather than give them a piece of junk toy or unwanted clothes, they can buy an ebook reader, maybe with a small Amazon gift certificate or a DVD full of formatted Gutenberg texts.

I can only imagine it will be a short time before the author's age falls even further for some of these stories of young writers making money. I could see the clever goth girl in junior high pounding out a thin book a month and self-publishing for $.99.[1] Ebooks have disconnected the feeling of "value" and "heft" of a book, which publishers have been inadvertently reinforcing for years with the hard/soft cover versions of books.

As with the Twilight (although, not so much with the Harry Potter) books I mentioned earlier, our idea of "quality" isn't necessarily important to hook kids. If it's escapist literature with a character with whom a kid can identify, you could pull a George Lucas (oh look, another one) and use Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces as a money-printing machine.

[1] What a perfect time, too: take the last few years of your livejournal blog, put it into chapters, and format it for the Kindle.

patio115• 15 years ago

If it's escapist literature with a character with whom a kid can identify, you could pull a George Lucas (oh look, another one) and use Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces as a money-printing machine.

This is quite similar to the formula which prints money in urban fantasy, whose core market is grown women. They're often shlocky, but that is part of the appeal.

Anecdotally, from reading reviews prior to purchasing, a lot of my fellow Plucky Mechanic Dating Brooding Vampire Lord readers love their Kindles to death, despite being neither juvenile nor obviously tech savvy.

reeses6• 15 years ago

Hah, you just described my wife, who is a very well educated attorney and international policy expert. If it has a vampire in it, she'll read just about any book.

Before, by some strange twist of fate, she finds me talking about her online, she did not read or endorse the Twilight books. She did want to watch the movie "with the vampires fighting the werewolves" but was rather put out that the fight was so short, cramming seventeen seconds of action in a twelve-hour movie.

gamble2• 15 years ago

Anyone know where her sales figures are coming from? Are they self-reported?

She's obviously doing pretty well based on her Amazon rank, but I'm a little skeptical of the 100-450k per month number.

rationalbeaver• 15 years ago

There's a bit more info in one of the articles he linked to. Specifically, in the HufPo piece (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tonya-plank/meet-mega-bestsell...) she's quoted as saying:

"AH: As of Tuesday, January 04, 2011 at 9 PM, I've sold over 185,000 books since April 15, 2010."

gamble2• 15 years ago

Thanks! That interview is much more interesting and informative than the OP.

davidw2• 15 years ago

I'm currently working on something regarding Kindle publishing. If you're interested in having an early look, or maybe even interested in contributing, get in touch with me. Hopefully I'll be able to do a 'Show HN' in a week or two.

I'd be especially interested in a quick email chat with people who have written content for it, even though you and other HN readers are most likely not my target market.

jseliger• 15 years ago

A quick heads up: you might want to put your e-mail address in your "about" section. I clicked the link to your name and only see a bunch of websites.

Anyway, I'm interested; if you see this, find me at seligerj [[AT]] gmail ((dot) com.

davidw2• 15 years ago

Those websites will give you my email address with one or two clicks. Email sent.

6ren2• 15 years ago

Disruption has three parts I believe:

1. incumbent, customers, and an offering that is high quality along a dimension valued by the customers. The dimension might be: how entertaining, how educational, how clever, how escapist, etc.

2. entrant, different customers, and an offering that is crap along the above dimension, but better than nothing for their customers. They can't attract the incument's customers, so they instead attract people who currently have nothing (and to whom "crap" is therefore delightful). It serve them, but the incumbent can't, because it is cheaper and/or more convenient/accessible/customizable.

3. over time, the entrant improves. The incumbent's customers don't actually want perfection along that dimension, just good enough (like a small meal, you want it bigger, but eventually it's big enough, you are satiated, and you don't want any more). The entrant doesn't need to beat the incumbent; it only needs to be good enough. But it's also cheaper/more convenient etc, so the incumbent's customers switch: disruption.

notes: Disruption might not happen, e.g. if the customers aren't satiated; if the entrant can't improve enough. In considering the dimension, it's important to consider not just want the company provides, but what the customer is trying to achieve (benefit, not feature).

For indy writer's, the product seems to be clearly inferior. But it's cheaper and more convenient (on a kindle - though many books are too). It seems to have already found an audience who doesn't mind that (who is that audience?). Dedicated, intelligent people get better at whatever they work at; so it's reasonable to assume that these indy writers will improve.

Is there any reason to think they won't improve enough to meet the needs of readers of traditional books? One issue is that they have no editor, and an editor can help tremendously. Not just in proof-reading, but also in direction, even plot ideas, character issues - and marketability. It's hard for the one person to be both creator and objective appraiser. But perhaps there could arise a new "indy editor" position? Or writers can persuade their spouse to be their editor (osc does this). Or (who knows) crowd source it (webpage?)/mechanical turk it.

[EDIT But I cannot edit properly myself. It's just not possible. - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tonya-plank/meet-mega-bestsell...]

But note that it doesn't need to be as good as traditional books - it just needs to be good enough for what the market wants. That's enough to disrupt the incumbent publishers. I will note here that many page-turners that sold very well were decried by critics. It seems almost a truism that popular books are "trash" - til the author's dead, anyway. (Though I note that these sometimes are based on savvy market reading - for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardy_Boys) Therefore, it seems quite plausible that indy writers can eventually become good enough to disrupt traditional publishers.

patio115• 15 years ago

who is that audience?

Hiya. Plucky Quilt Maker Wooed By Exotic Half-Dragon pretty much has me at "Hello." If it turns out to be terrible, oh well, $4/$7/$10 isn't much money. I watched Green Hornet, too. It was bad, but it is not so bad that it will scare me away from the cinema forever... and it cost three times as much as genre fiction for a fraction of the enjoyment. (Semi-relevant: like many genre fans, my consumption in 2010 was above that of 20 average US households.)

shadowsun73• 15 years ago

I wrote the article linked-to above, and I'd like to add a couple of things to your (great!) comment:

I agree with your analysis of incumbents and entrants. I think it's a clever, really clear way of looking at it.

RE: your 2nd point: Novelr.com is about writers who are posting their fiction online, in a serialized, once/twice-a-week format, and then turning their work to ebooks for sale on the various ebook stores. That's one trend to watch out for, and I can say with confidence that there is a market, however inconsistent the quality may be. There are customers out there for the entrant, and they are biting.

(Plus there's also fanfiction, and sites like Fictionaut, where writers read, comment, and suggest (mostly grammatical & spelling) edits on each others' work. I've been seeing trends like this for about four years now.) It's pretty cool stuff - dynamic, engaging fiction, some good writing (see: http://webfictionguide.com - for the good ones).

RE: Your 3rd point: we're building Pandamian (http://pandamian.com), a tool that attempts to make this write-online/publish-to-ebookstores thing accessible to all writers. It's mostly a response to the community's needs - with the mantra that 'writers should not need to read a single line of code'. Our hope, at least, is that the app would allow all kinds of writers the ability to write a book online, get a community of readers around their books, and then publish to the Kindle/Kobo/Smashwords store.

We launched on Tuesday, and now have a small group of very vocal users.

Mz2• 15 years ago

Since you are here: Is pandamian intended to be just for fiction? I have a book idea that I actually want to work on and I only want to do e-books. I haven't started in part because I didn't really have a vehicle/format for it.

nicolas_t• 15 years ago

As an aside, I find that thanks to online web fiction and self publishing I found some works I really enjoyed but probably would never have been published by any publisher... I think that whenever you have gatekeepers like this, they can get a bit too conservative and tend to only accept work that is similar to successful works.

For example, An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom http://www.meilinmiranda.com/intimate-history An erotic (but not the main focus) coming of age story in a victorian world. It's really good and original, but it mixes so many genres and is so different from what I'm used to that I wouldn't expect any mainstream publisher to publish it...

The other big example of this is some works of fanfiction like Eliezer's Yudkowski Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality which is popular here... It would never be published because it's fanfiction but it's original and is quite different from what I'm normally used to by mainstream publishers...

csomar• 15 years ago

In my opinion this applies to the "find a niche" strategy. She found a niche, a particular audience that want a particular service. They are not looking for professional writing, at least most of them (look at the forum, someone mentioned it but the others don't seem to be too much bothered).

Amazon helped her, the Internet too. She blogs, people get attracted with her stories. After that, She releases a book, cheap like $3, people buy. Her blog, Amazon, word of mouth... all of that bring her sales. She makes money.

Find a niche, figure out what your customers want, make the product and profit.

maxharris• 15 years ago

Here's an excerpt from an interview with the author:

"TP: Do you have any "training" as a writer? Did you take any workshops or college classes?

AH: I've taken every writing class I've had available. I took classes in high school, and I took English and writing classes in community college, but I dropped out of college. I also attended a local writing workshop two years ago."

The Very Rich Indie Writer

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