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Post by lou on Aug 11, 2016 8:25:24 GMT -5
Did you guys see this? authorearnings.com/2016-rwa-pan-presentation/I was surprised at some of it. (Permafree pays best for a series of 7-11 books, top subgenres, and more) If you're not writing romance, read it anyway and see the comments, in which he does mini-breakdowns for other genres, too. |
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Post by Rinelle Grey on Aug 11, 2016 9:46:43 GMT -5
This one is irritating me a little, to be honest. Could be because there isn't really a lot of info in those slides, that clarifies what all of them mean.
For example, I strongly disagree with the permafree isn't good unless you have 7+ books in a series. Putting my book permafree when I had 3 books in a series trippled my earnings within a month.
They don't say if this is with or without KU, or how that impacts on it, and I think that skews the results. They say above that romance authors in KU are earning a lot more than those not in KU. The majority of authors with books in KU aren't going to have a permafree first in series, so that is going to indicate that permafree is less effective than it is.
While it's great to look at these results and see if there's anything useful in them, it's really much better to look at our own results. Sadly, I'm seeing too many authors just taking it as gospel and not stopping to analyse it.
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Post by lou on Aug 11, 2016 10:44:28 GMT -5
 ? not sure how facts can make you angry. They're facts. You get to change behaviors based on them or not, whichever you please. |
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Post by scdaffron on Aug 11, 2016 14:52:19 GMT -5
I did see it and even downloaded it for posterity because I thought the data was really interesting, particularly how MUCH romance is indie published now. I was a little surprised at how well Rom Com is doing as a subgenre and I wonder if that reflects the fact that so many books in that category shouldn't be there. (One would note that erotica as a subcategory is tiny, mostly because the erotica has been scattered throughout so many other romance subcats.)
I was pleased to see that $3.99 is still a good price point too, since that's where my books have been for a while. I also am finding that I'm making more money having my books in KU, so my anecdotal experience correlates with their data there.
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Post by ameliasmith on Aug 11, 2016 22:53:33 GMT -5
I looked at that in detail after it came out, and, characteristically, I can't remember what lessons I took away from it all, but it was interesting to see that historical romance (the only kind I would be likely to write) isn't all that big.
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Post by Rinelle Grey on Aug 12, 2016 3:26:08 GMT -5
? not sure how facts can make you angry. They're facts. You get to change behaviors based on them or not, whichever you please. There's facts, and then there's how facts are reported. The facts are the data, and then it's been interpreted, and we're only seeing the interpretations. 'Permafree works best for series with 7+ books' isn't a fact, it's an interpretation, and without knowing exactly what data they used to come to that interpretation, and how they analysed it, it's impossible for us to tell if it's useful or not. |
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Post by Daniel on Aug 12, 2016 8:48:27 GMT -5
'Permafree works best for series with 7+ books' isn't a fact, it's an interpretation, and without knowing exactly what data they used to come to that interpretation, and how they analysed it, it's impossible for us to tell if it's useful or not. This is true. It becomes a matter of trust. You either trust DG's interpretation of the data or you don't. If you don't, you try to acquire the raw data to do an analysis of your own, or you choose to ignore the data and its interpretation. DG does show the data that leads him to his conclusions, so I do place a fair amount of trust in his interpretation of that data. They are usually the same conclusions I reach, although I think AE leaves out some points that have interest to me personally. My trust in their judgment is based on the belief that the entire point of Author Earnings is to gather the raw data that Amazon won't share and the industry can't report so authors can learn what is really going on. I also believe that spinning the data to reach false conclusions would defeat that purpose. If they are misleading people, I don't think it's intentional. That said, I think it's a mistake for authors to look at the Author Earnings report as some kind of call to action. The information is useful from a broad market perspective, but individuals are not aggregates. Our experience is a single data point in the big scheme of things, and the averages reflect a broad range of data points that reflect many experiences completely different from ours. All aggregate information must be viewed from the context of our individual experience. Our own anecdotal experience is always more significant than any aggregate and also more significant than the anecdotal experience of anyone else. In other words, the AE reports should inform our decisions, but not direct them. This issue reminds me of the problem I now have with all news reporting and scientific "studies." Not only are the interpretations directed by private interests, but the raw data itself is suspect. Opinion now masquerades as "fact," corrupting the raw data. It's ironic that with all this amazing communication technology we have, the message we receive is completely unreliable. We may as well be medieval serfs toiling in the fields with no knowledge of anything that happens beyond our village border. |
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Post by Rinelle Grey on Aug 12, 2016 10:13:25 GMT -5
'Permafree works best for series with 7+ books' isn't a fact, it's an interpretation, and without knowing exactly what data they used to come to that interpretation, and how they analysed it, it's impossible for us to tell if it's useful or not. This is true. It becomes a matter of trust. You either trust DG's interpretation of the data or you don't. If you don't, you try to acquire the raw data to do an analysis of your own, or you choose to ignore the data and its interpretation. DG does show the data that leads him to his conclusions, so I do place a fair amount of trust in his interpretation of that data. They are usually the same conclusions I reach, although I think AE leaves out some points that have interest to me personally. My trust in their judgment is based on the belief that the entire point of Author Earnings is to gather the raw data that Amazon won't share and the industry can't report so authors can learn what is really going on. I also believe that spinning the data to reach false conclusions would defeat that purpose. If they are misleading people, I don't think it's intentional. Yeah, I usually find data Guy's info is great, and I trust it a lot, but this one seems a little off to me, because it's so at odds with what I've experienced, and the experiences of many people I've talked to about it. The usual author earnings reports have a lot of info on how the data was obtained, and how it can be interpreted, but since this one is just slides from a talk at a conference, were missing that info that could have put this in context. It could well have been there at the conference, but without that, it's hard to say. |
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Post by Daniel on Aug 12, 2016 10:31:38 GMT -5
Yeah, I usually find data Guy's info is great, and I trust it a lot, but this one seems a little off to me, because it's so at odds with what I've experienced, and the experiences of many people I've talked to about it.(emphasis mine) What that says to me is that the aggregate data doesn't match your anecdotal data, which is actually a cool thing. The true value of Author Earnings is to expose the market behavior and trends that none of us can see from our limited perspectives. If AE tells us something that is at odds with our experience, the least we can take away is that we can't trust aggregate data for our own marketing purposes. We can go a step further though, and realize that our next book or our next series may not follow the "outlying" trend we are currently experiencing. Knowing the aggregate experience allows us to adjust our expectations of the future without necessarily changing what's working for us now. Knowledge is good for perspective, even if the information isn't immediately actionable. |
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Post by Rinelle Grey on Aug 12, 2016 19:43:47 GMT -5
Trouble is, I'm not sure it is the aggregate data. I have a degree that included statistics, and I know how easy it is for the interpretation of data to imply something that isn't true.
In this case, I think the fact (a few slides up), that authors in KU are earning significantly more than those not in KU (on Amazon obviously, since that's all they're looking at), is skewing this data. Those in KU are less likely to have a permafree than those out of KU, and thus those not in KU without a permafree are earning about half what those out of KU with a permafree are, this is skewing the results, and making them useless unless this is accounted for in their interpretation.
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Post by Rinelle Grey on Aug 12, 2016 19:56:06 GMT -5
Just posted the question on the post, so will see what he says. That's the only way to really know for sure!
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Post by Becca Mills on Aug 15, 2016 22:51:50 GMT -5
Wow, 235 million romance ebooks are purchased in the U.S. each year, plus another 27 million paperbacks? That's mind-boggling.
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Post by ameliasmith on Aug 16, 2016 5:00:34 GMT -5
Now here's a thing to compare Data Guy's analysis with: RWA's summary of the Nielsen data: www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=580 This shows Romance as having only 13% of the adult fiction market. I believe that Nielsen sticks to the US. There's more interesting data here, too: www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=582, again mostly from Nielsen. Down the page was this: and I thought. WTF is this ebooks.com??? (http://www.ebooks.com/information/authors.asp). I seriously wonder what this place is and how I've never heard of it. Obviously it's been around for donkey's years, but it's completely off my radar. What's its market share? For lack of actual data, I checked its Alexa rating (and noticed for the first time that Amazon owns Alexa). It's not high, but it's about on par with Kobo in the US: www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebooks.com, www.alexa.com/siteinfo/kobo.com I suspect that on most measures the truth lies somewhere in between Nielsen and Data Guy, but right now I really need to get off this internets and to work, so I can fit at least some editing in before the birthday stuff. ETA, survey data is from 2014: |
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Post by Daniel on Aug 16, 2016 8:44:12 GMT -5
I suspect that on most measures the truth lies somewhere in between Nielsen and Data Guy... I think you're right, but I would skew my "faith" toward DG's analysis for three reasons: 1. Author Earnings focuses on the market that is most relevant to me: ebooks sold at Amazon.com. 2. Nielsen lack data on a large chunk of the market that is most relevant to me (ebooks). 3. Nielsen's aggregate figures are largely influenced by print sales, which has little relevance to me. In other words, the Nielsen analysis not only lacks significant data, but their figures include a lot of noise. Nielsen is partially responsible for the difficulties traditional publishers face today; Publishers are making business decisions based on an inaccurate view of the overall market. An accurate view would look at both ebook and print purchases at all retailers. (It would be interesting to compare such data for ways in which the digital and print markets differ.) Such a view is technically feasible even if it's politically impossible. Since the Nirvana of publishing data is unlikely to ever occur, I'll take my chances with the data that most closely reflects the specific vendor and marketplace I'm competing in. |
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? not sure how facts can make you angry. They're facts. You get to change behaviors based on them or not, whichever you please.
