#authorearnings

[cdefthom]

These two mischief makers in the #crowd at #theskinnyonseries #workshop with #Davidguy of #authorearnings @ #rwa2017 (at Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin)

[selfpublishingnews]

How Much Money Are Authors Making?

AuthorEarnings, a company that uses data services “to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts,” has issued a May report that it calls “the definitive million-title study of US author earnings.” Among the report’s findings is data on the infamous “dark pool” of books that “appear on no category best-seller lists at all.”

The study admits that “[m]ore than 50 [percent] of all traditionally-published book sales of any format in the US now happen on Amazon.com” — which would leave out 50% of traditional book sales (in, say, brick and mortar stores) — but it also points out that “roughly 85% of all non-traditionally published book sales of any format in the US also happen on Amazon.com.” It’s impossible to ignore Amazon, in other words, if you want a broad view of how much authors are earning.

So how much are authors being paid for books sold on Amazon? The numbers are either dismal or inspiring depending (of course) on your point of view. To begin with, around 9,900 writers are earning $10,000 or more from Amazon, which, as AuthorEarnings points out, is “a nontrivial supplementary income.” But it’s important to remember that this number includes authors making more than $10,000. It’s also important to point out that independent authors generally outperform those published by the Big 5 publishers, especially if you consider authors published in more recent years. This pattern would seem to confirm our earlier report that says Big Publishing’s market share is in decline.

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An open letter to Ros Barber on self-publishing

An open letter to Ros Barber on self-publishing

Dear Ros,

First, let me say I understand your decision, as detailed in The Guardian, to embrace poverty through traditional publishing, while refusing to self-publish. After all, publishing multinationals like Penguin Random House are denying you a fair share of your own earnings while they grow fatter than ever. (Oh, and they’re not sharing the revenues with their staffany more than their…

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Writing for the underclass: Is Amazon the great enabler?

Writing for the underclass: Is Amazon the great enabler?

Writer and writing teacher Lorraine Berry has shared an articleon LitHub with the telling title “How the Literary Class System is Impoverishing Literature.” She details the financial and other barriers that conspiring to exclude from American writing “the great American underclass, that perpetually poor group on the bottom tier of society that includes all races/genders/creeds.” But she exhibits…

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Latest e-reader numbers show how skewed AAP ebook figures are

Latest e-reader numbers show how skewed AAP ebook figures are

The latest eMarketer data on U.S. e-reader usage – already covered by Chris Meadows – provides some interesting perspective on those much-vaunted Association of American Publishers (AAP) figuresshowing a static U.S. ebook market. Because, if dedicated e-readers really have held their ground against generic tablets in the U.S., and are still growing their user numbers, then how come AAP is…

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Samhain Publishing shuts down: Small presses versus self-publishing?

Well-regarded independent U.S. dark fiction and romance publisher Samhain Publishing, “an acknowledged expert in digital publishing since its founding in 2005,” has announced its closure after just over ten years in operation. And at least one Samhain author is blogging this as a case of small presses competing against the lure of self-publishing – and losing.

In its announcement, Samhain states

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Amazon says only 40 successful self-published authors? I don't think so

Amazon says only 40 successful self-published authors? I don’t think so

One of the oddest pieces of misreading to come my way arrived earlier with the headline “Only 40 Self-Published Authors are a Success, says Amazon.” This was based on a New York Times profile piece about self-publisher – and more recently, just publisher – Meredith Wild, romance author and creator of Waterhouse Press. Now, the New York Times has not always been distinguishedfor objective or…

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Data Guy, Joe Konrath, whip up a storm round Porter Anderson's AuthorEarnings pushback

Data Guy, Joe Konrath, whip up a storm round Porter Anderson’s AuthorEarnings pushback

A response on Publishing Perspectives by Porter Anderson to the latest AuthorEarnings report looks to have called out all the big names in self-publishing and e-publishing analysis and advocacy: Joe Konrath, Phoenix Sullivan, and Data Guyhimself, author of all the report data. What got their goat is Porter Anderson’s assertion that the AuthorEarnings report come packaged with “the language of…

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