Amelia Smith rocked it over on the MarketingSFF Podcast

[Deleted]

Absolutely fascinating breakdown of Author Earnings data, and a lot to think about. She was awesome.

www.marketingsff.com/what-does-it-take-to-make-a-living-as-an-author/

[vrabinec]

Yeah, I was looking for it last night, but I don't think it got posted until this morning. I'll check it out tonight.

[lou]

Yes; I just listened to most of it (before the internet clicked off again).

[ameliasmith]

Thank you!

I got briefly stressed out today when someone over on KBoards took offense at me saying that some authors had not-so-great covers (and even occasionally not-so-great writing), but when I listened to it myself I decided that I really didn't sound all that mean.

As for the craziness, most writers are a little nuts, aren't we? If we weren't we'd have picked a nice safe career.

[Daniel]

Aug 19, 2015 17:06:38 GMT -5 ameliasmith said:

I got briefly stressed out today when someone over on KBoards took offense at me saying that some authors had not-so-great covers (and even occasionally not-so-great writing), but when I listened to it myself I decided that I really didn't sound all that mean.

Truth sucks sometimes. I wonder how much of the offense was due to self-identification.

[vrabinec]

I loved it except for that awkward moment at the beginning when it seemed like you couldn't remember "what you write". That was like a slurpee brain freeze. Kicked ass after that.

p.s. I posted Hugh's earnings report on Absolute Write. They had deleted all the previous postings of it, but I posted it with an opinion, and I had a history there, so they allowed it. And FYI, Hugh got banned.

Anyway, 19 books or more, which would get me enough to pay the bills, should take me 152 years at my current pace.

[ameliasmith]

Aug 19, 2015 19:46:40 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

p.s. I posted Hugh's earnings report on Absolute Write. They had deleted all the previous postings of it, but I posted it with an opinion, and I had a history there, so they allowed it. And FYI, Hugh got banned.

Anyway, 19 books or more, which would get me enough to pay the bills, should take me 152 years at my current pace.

Yeah, I hear you on the pace. I decided to get serious about this writing thing (not for the first time) in 2001. I published my first thing, a novella, at the tail end of 2012, so you could say it took me 12 years, but that doesn't really capture the process well at all. Anyhow, almost everyone says that the second book goes faster. Well see what my books-per-year average is after 2016. At this point, I'm at a book every 3.25 years. Not very impressive.

I can't access AW right now, but I remember discovering that Hugh Howey (who I'd heard of at that point) was a member there as I was browsing the member new release section. I went looking for his last post, which was something like: "Well if you guys don't want to hear it I'm just going to go hang out at the Writer's Cafe." So I went looking for that and found kboards. At that point his account was still find-able and his username was searchable, so he hadn't been banned officially. He may have gone back later and gotten banned but it seems unlikely. He was probably made to feel unwelcome, though, as they are big on the line: "You'll probably make more with a Trade publisher."

Glad to hear that you posted the survey over there, and I'm sure at least someone took it!

[vrabinec]

Well, crap. I went looking for my post over there, and they deleted it, as well as all the discussion that went with it. I was gonna tag this onto it, but I guess it's too volatile of a subject.

That's crazy. They have a 45 page thread about "do conservatives ever consider the woman in abortion cases", and THAT's not too volatile to delete, but Howey's author earnings report was. Wow.


Ohh, I remember this, now. I caught shit on the post. The owner of AW popped up on the thread and said something to the effect that she was tired of Hugh's sock puppets coming over and posting his stuff. I sent her a PM (There may have been previous ones, but this is the one I have that I sent her because she quoted it:

You left this on my CP:

Ah, but that's not what your response said. You specifically referred to yourself. Opened your comment with it, in fact.

I have no clue what you're saying. Are you saying I'm Hugh Howey sock puppet? I registered 7 years ago, probably before he did. Are you saying I've been keeping a low profile just to spring this post after 7 years? Take the foil off.

I see this post which has since been modified:

A bunch of threads pointing to this site have popped up, that will be/have been locked, merged, or otherwise dealt with here on AW. HH apparently A small KBoard contingent apparently sent folks over to post the link to his newest venture. (And here's a big thank-you to the Kboard mod, by the way, for trying to discourage the trolling.)

So we'll be monitoring these threads closely, since HH sending Kboard people coming here (completely independently) for the purposes of "stirring things up" is hardly new -- and not particularly welcome.

So let's DO be rather careful in terms of the tone and content of our posts about this, folks. My level of tolerance for blatant trolling from infrequent visitors is going to be particularly low.

I respond with this:
HH didn't "send" me or anybody else that I know of. I posted it here because I value people's opinion on this site, same as I value the opinion of the people over there. I don't see any problem with discussing it in both places. I don't think either group has a monopoly on wisdom and insight.

You respond with this:
It doesn't take much time on any forum to understand that not every post is aimed at one person personally.

I figure you're taking a pot shot at me because you think the last post was aimed directly at me, and I find it funny that you would say that when MacAllister just took a shot at Howey.

Next thing I know, you're calling me a sock puppet.

Look, I get that you and Howey are having some kind of a feud. But don't take it out on me. Go ahead and go through my posts to see if I have ANY other posts about him. I DON'T. I bring one thing the guy wrote, and all of the sudden I feel like I have the gestapo craling up my ass with a rotorooter. For seven years I posted here, nobody even noticed. I post one thing by Howey, and I've got the owner of the site and senior mods all over me. Stop this. Stop it, man. I knopw Howey's posting nasty stuff about you, but you don't need to stoop to his level. He looks like an ass when he does it, and YOu look like asses when you reciprocate.

I DEFEND AW on KBoards. This is the type of thing I post:

www.kboards.com/index.php/top...tml#msg2476208

You can go to my blog, countless times I've recommended for young authors to go to Aw. It's in my sidebar.

But I'm feeling hostility all of the sudden, because of this one post. WTF? You guys need to drop this, or you'll have a LOT more authors out there every day talking crap about you.

Fred


Her reply was:

Fred,

I didn't call you anything.

What I did was a bad job of trying to get you to clarify.

My apologies for that. MacAllister said that Howey has sent people to AW to cause grief. She didn't say you, or mention you. But you responded with the "he didn't send me anywhere."

I was heavy handed with my "It doesn't take long" post. You responded with a post that implied you might be a him, because you said the posts were about him. Thus my are you saying you're a sockpuppet post.

I should have gone longer and been more specific about the why and "are you saying" thing.

The hostility you're feeling isn't because of the one post. These days almost anything connected to Howey is met with hostility. He's earned it, sad to say.

Add to that the noise over at the Kboards and the folks from there making drive by posts here, it's understandable. But it's still a pain in the ass.

From me, though, my apologies. I should have taken the time to be clearer and more precise.

and thanks.



That was good enough for me, and I went back to the now deleted thread to talk about the thing.

[Daniel]

Aug 20, 2015 11:50:23 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

Well, crap. I went looking for my post over there, and they deleted it, as well as all the discussion that went with it. I was gonna tag this onto it, but I guess it's too volatile of a subject.

I doubt that's it. I suspect that deleting the discussion is their version of putting their fingers in their ears and saying, "La, la, la, la, la."

[vrabinec]

I edit that post and added the PM exchange I had with the owner over there. I suspect you're right, but it has come a long way since those days. Indies are much more welcome over there now. I think their ranks are growing.

[ameliasmith]

Oh, wow, that is quite some exchange. I see there it's not MacAllister herself saying this, but rather some other person in the management team. Mac herself says they're quite open to self-publishing these days, just not, apparently, to Hugh Howey.

I went back over there and couldn't find the post I'd seen before. Probably got deleted.

My main problem with AW, apart from a few hostile personalities, was that it was an even bigger time suck than KBoards.

[whdean]

Sorry I couldn't listen. My soundcard's on the fritz and I'm too effing busy to fix it.

Anyway, I noted your remark about the self-report data. The other problem is that he actively solicited successful writers with his "the authors I want to hear from" post. No doubt some poor performers reported, but openly making your intentions known in the post would've skewed the data. But I've retired from commenting on the AE Report business, so I'll shut up.

[vrabinec]

Aug 20, 2015 13:59:01 GMT -5 whdean said:

But I've retired from commenting on the AE Report business, so I'll shut up.

I think that's the third or sixth time you said that.

Anyway, yeah, there's issues with it. There are no doubt thousands and thousands of authors who took a shot, didn't make anything, and crawled back to their lives, including some people I have known personally. You'll never hear from them, because they've moved on. And the ones who responded may be inflating their earnings out of pride, that sort of thing. Anyway, had he gotten MY stats, I'd bring the whole thing down. Honestly, if I added up all the shit I've bought since I started thinking about writing back circa 1993, between the original word processor, reference books, etc, I'd say I'm about $20k in the hole. Of course, I wouldn't have it any other way, because it has been a blast.

As for AW, that's the ONLY time I ever had an issue over there. I've been in plenty of dust ups, but I love that sort of stuff. This was in the "weird" territory, and I didn't go back much until recently, in part because of this. (But mostly because I liked other boards better)

[Miss Terri Novelle]

*sigh

For some reason, iTunes, Windows 7, and Norton Security cannot get on the same page when it comes to syncing my iPod Shuffle which is how I listen to podcasts. So, for the past few months, I've had to open iTunes, download the podcasts, disconnect from the Internet and shut off my virus protection to get access to podcasts.

Since this is a total PITA, I only do it every couple weeks. So It will be awhile before I get to listen but I can't wait.

This is the main reason I've decided to upgrade to Win 10. I can use my husband's laptop with Win 8 and my Shuffle syncs perfectly.

[whdean]

Aug 20, 2015 14:17:58 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

Aug 20, 2015 13:59:01 GMT -5 whdean said:

But I've retired from commenting on the AE Report business, so I'll shut up.

I think that's the third or sixth time you said that.

Anyway, yeah, there's issues with it. There are no doubt thousands and thousands of authors who took a shot, didn't make anything, and crawled back to their lives, including some people I have known personally. You'll never hear from them, because they've moved on. And the ones who responded may be inflating their earnings out of pride, that sort of thing. Anyway, had he gotten MY stats, I'd bring the whole thing down. Honestly, if I added up all the shit I've bought since I started thinking about writing back circa 1993, between the original word processor, reference books, etc, I'd say I'm about $20k in the hole. Of course, I wouldn't have it any other way, because it has been a blast.

As for AW, that's the ONLY time I ever had an issue over there. I've been in plenty of dust ups, but I love that sort of stuff. This was in the "weird" territory, and I didn't go back much until recently, in part because of this. (But mostly because I liked other boards better)

Didn't I say "semi-retired"? No? Must've misspoke.

The stuff you've mentioned is exactly the reason the motives behind the AE Report are misguided. People who want to write a book, want to write a book, regardless of whether they'll make money. Being able to self-publish is a good thing for people who can't get published and for people who could make more money that way (e.g., Konrath). But the AE people are just encouraging gold fever by making these exaggerated claims about how much people make, when they could be doing something useful like collecting and disseminating actual data. (Like I said, semi-retired.)

[ameliasmith]

Aug 20, 2015 14:17:58 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

I think that's the third or sixth time you said that.

Anyway, yeah, there's issues with it. There are no doubt thousands and thousands of authors who took a shot, didn't make anything, and crawled back to their lives, including some people I have known personally. You'll never hear from them, because they've moved on. And the ones who responded may be inflating their earnings out of pride, that sort of thing. Anyway, had he gotten MY stats, I'd bring the whole thing down. Honestly, if I added up all the shit I've bought since I started thinking about writing back circa 1993, between the original word processor, reference books, etc, I'd say I'm about $20k in the hole.

Yeah, see, that's why I said he should allow negative numbers. I spent way more than I earned last year. I know lots and lots of people who've given up, too, and even among the survivors it's not spectacular.

Aug 20, 2015 21:43:51 GMT -5 whdean said:

Didn't I say "semi-retired"? No? Must've misspoke.

The stuff you've mentioned is exactly the reason the motives behind the AE Report are misguided. People who want to write a book, want to write a book, regardless of whether they'll make money. Being able to self-publish is a good thing for people who can't get published and for people who could make more money that way (e.g., Konrath). But the AE people are just encouraging gold fever by making these exaggerated claims about how much people make, when they could be doing something useful like collecting and disseminating actual data. (Like I said, semi-retired.)

I suspect that this is why Hugh & co. hadn't analyzed the data themselves -- it didn't show what they want to say, namely that self-publishing is the path to riches. As paths to riches go, it's better than trad pub for some -- but not all -- authors, and most aren't ever going to make much. I don't think he wants to hear that.

[Daniel]

Aug 21, 2015 5:40:05 GMT -5 ameliasmith said:

I suspect that this is why Hugh & co. hadn't analyzed the data themselves -- it didn't show what they want to say, namely that self-publishing is the path to riches. As paths to riches go, it's better than trad pub for some -- but not all -- authors, and most aren't ever going to make much. I don't think he wants to hear that.

No one wants to hear that.

But it doesn't take fancy analysis to figure out that riches are rare. All you have to do is look at readily available stats on Amazon and have a tiny bit of insight into how much one earns at various rankings. I'd say that only the top 50K books earn an interesting amount of money, and more books than that are published every month. What's more, the top 50K are in constant flux as some of the new books bump old ones out of those top rankings. Add to that the fact that many of the top 50K slots are held by popular authors who retain multiple slots each with popular series. Their success is sticky, so even if you manage to bump one of their books out of the top rankings, it probably won't last long.

Breaking into the top ranks is difficult to accomplish and even more difficult to maintain. You might argue that the top 100K make a useful amount of money, but that's still a small percentage of the total number of books and not much more than the number of books published each month.

Of course, things are necessarily as hopeless as I'm making them out to be. When I publish a book, I'm not really competing against all other books on Amazon. My readers don't choose my title from the pool of all books, they choose it from the pool of books in their area of interest. That means I have to look at the stats for my genre, which may reveal a better (or worse) picture.

[vrabinec]

Aug 21, 2015 9:10:54 GMT -5 Daniel said:

Of course, things are necessarily as hopeless as I'm making them out to be. When I publish a book, I'm not really competing against all other books on Amazon. My readers don't choose my title from the pool of all books, they choose it from the pool of books in their area of interest. That means I have to look at the stats for my genre, which may reveal a better (or worse) picture.

Right, you're only competing with GRRM and the likes. Piece of cake.

[whdean]

Aug 21, 2015 9:10:54 GMT -5 Daniel said:

Aug 21, 2015 5:40:05 GMT -5 ameliasmith said:

I suspect that this is why Hugh & co. hadn't analyzed the data themselves -- it didn't show what they want to say, namely that self-publishing is the path to riches. As paths to riches go, it's better than trad pub for some -- but not all -- authors, and most aren't ever going to make much. I don't think he wants to hear that.

No one wants to hear that.

But it doesn't take fancy analysis to figure out that riches are rare. All you have to do is look at readily available stats on Amazon and have a tiny bit of insight into how much one earns at various rankings. I'd say that only the top 50K books earn an interesting amount of money, and more books than that are published every month. What's more, the top 50K are in constant flux as some of the new books bump old ones out of those top rankings. Add to that the fact that many of the top 50K slots are held by popular authors who retain multiple slots each with popular series. Their success is sticky, so even if you manage to bump one of their books out of the top rankings, it probably won't last long.

Breaking into the top ranks is difficult to accomplish and even more difficult to maintain. You might argue that the top 100K make a useful amount of money, but that's still a small percentage of the total number of books and not much more than the number of books published each month.

Of course, things are necessarily as hopeless as I'm making them out to be. When I publish a book, I'm not really competing against all other books on Amazon. My readers don't choose my title from the pool of all books, they choose it from the pool of books in their area of interest. That means I have to look at the stats for my genre, which may reveal a better (or worse) picture.

This encapsulates the fight I had over at the WC recently. People were making these broad claims about "the Method," and how you just have to apply yourself, and then, boom, you're in the money. No. It doesn't work like that, and very few people are in the making-a-living range. The numbers just don't allow for more than a few hundred to a thousand indies. Maybe there's even 2,000. I don't know. But the sales-to-rank numbers coupled with discounting, multiple books by the same authors and the churn at the top just don't add up to many people making it big.

Personally, I don't find this all that disturbing because the ability to self-publish is an enormous trump card that didn't exist before.

[Daniel]

Aug 21, 2015 9:20:01 GMT -5 vrabinec said:

Aug 21, 2015 9:10:54 GMT -5 Daniel said:

Of course, things are necessarily as hopeless as I'm making them out to be. When I publish a book, I'm not really competing against all other books on Amazon. My readers don't choose my title from the pool of all books, they choose it from the pool of books in their area of interest. That means I have to look at the stats for my genre, which may reveal a better (or worse) picture.

Right, you're only competing with GRRM and the likes. Piece of cake.

Actually, it could be worse. I could be writing romance.

Here's a quick-and-dirty analysis of how different the competition is by genre.

My trilogy is categorized under Fantasy as Swords & Sorcery. My Ternion Order series is under Fantasy as Paranormal. I'll compare my stats to what I'd be facing if I were writing Contemporary or Historical romance. For reference, Fantasy has 148,507 total titles in all subcats, and Romance has 306,318 (more than double).

Category	Titles	#1 Store Rank	#100 Store Rank
Swords & Sorcery	13,660	253	4,582
Paranormal Fantasy	41,140	93	2,086
Contemporary Romance	111,597	2	455
Historical	34,809	67	2,715

So, to be the #1 bestseller in Swords & Sorcery, I have to rank at #253 in the Kindle store overall. I only have to rank at #4582 to crack the top 100. Paranormal is a much tougher challenge. I have to be #2086 in the overall store to get into the top 100.

This information is just for illustration. You don't have to be in the top 100 to sell books, but you do need to rank less than about 50K to sell more than one a day. That number (or thereabouts) seems to be the visibility threshold. Once your rank is greater than 50K, you no longer get much love from the recommendation lists.

Nonetheless, the above stats show just how hard it is to hold onto a slot in a Romance subcategory versus a Fantasy subcategory. Yes, GRRM is in the Swords & Sorcery category, but having a few heavy hitters at the top isn't what causes a problem. What hurts is when you have to rank between #2 and #455 in the overall store, just to get into the top 100 of your category.