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Writing books is not really a good idea

ellegriffin.substack.com

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Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#41

Post by Finnucane »

beambot wrote: post #11

> there were 2.6 million books sold online in 2020 and only 268 of them sold more than 100,000 copies I'm confused... just the top 0.0001% (268 x 100k) is 26.8M, yet they claim only 2.6M books were sold total for the full year. Am I missing something obvious?

It's also not clear if those numbers are just 'trade' books (i.e., books sold through regular bookstores), or includes academic titles, textbooks, reference books, etc. I mean, there's a lot of stuff published that has a fairly specialized or otherwise limited market. Probably the overwhelming majority of books fall into categories that are never going to sell 100K or more no matter what.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#42

Post by troelsSteegin »

"The one where writing books is not really a good idea". Griffin cites 1000 true fans [0], where for $100k target income, you want 1K fans at $10 month. For me the consumer, that's $100/year per author, times I don't know how many subscriptions I'd budget. It's weird to think that the creative marketplace runs on patronage, but I suppose that's true going back at least to the Renaissance. She's opting to serialize her fiction on substack, toward the possibility of greater scale at lower unit cost.

[0] https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#43

Post by AS_of »

tarr11 wrote: post #23

I used to read a lot more books 10-20 years ago. Now, I mostly read books on vacation. I think I have an unspoken budget of “words read daily” that is consumed by work and my mobile devices.

As you get older, you should read fewer new books, and revisit the ones that have you the most joy. Vacation sounds like a great place for that!

Edit: why? Because you believe in the leverage algorithms can provide https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Deci...

There are probably a lot of single people here that would benefit from that book as well (the stopping problem)

We all "know" the algos. But reading/hearing how they can be applied and what effect they can have on your life can be enlightening.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#44

Post by ellegriffin »

kaesar14 wrote: post #7

Is there somewhere to find the names of the 268 books?

Bookstat didn't share the list of 268 books with me, but they did share the one book that sold more than a million copies in 2020: it was a Kindle-exclusive Thomas & Mercer title called “If You Tell” by Gregg Olsen…

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#46

Post by ghaff »

stakkur wrote: post #30

"98 percent of the books that publishers released" is the key phrase, and it's nothing new; the sell rate in traditional publishing has always been quite low. But this does not include books sold in all the other self-publishing ways.

I'd be skeptical that more than a handful of self-published books sold more than 100K copies (if that).

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#47

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

It would be interesting to have a timeseries plot of this sort of information. Did it used to be easier to make a living as an author? Presumably there was some point at which the ease of making a living as an author peaked. This article suggests that time is in the past, but how far in the past? Has the absolute number of people who can make it as an author decreased, or just the relative fraction of the human population? So many questions.

I do also think that the expectation/standard of a $100k/year salary is a bit high. That's almost double the US median household income, for a job that can be done (some would argue is best done) from a house in the woods. I also know that some authors are turning to Patreon. N.K. Jemisen famously started a Patreon that allowed her to quit her job and begin writing full-time. I personally have donated >$100 directly to favorite midlist authors who have made a big impact on my reading life.

FWIW, I used to read more, but I still buy at least three or four full-priced books a year.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#48

Post by hodder »

mxcrossb wrote: post #3

I wonder how serializing a novel would mesh with most author’s work flow. I guess most would want to write it first and release monthly an already finished product?

It will likely lead to less continuity in the story and far more cliffhangers as it jumps through the chapters like Dan Brown.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#49

Post by hashkb »

AS_of wrote: post #43
tarr11 wrote: post #23

I used to read a lot more books 10-20 years ago. Now, I mostly read books on vacation. I think I have an unspoken budget of “words read daily” that is consumed by work and my mobile devices.

As you get older, you should read fewer new books, and revisit the ones that have you the most joy. Vacation sounds like a great place for that! Edit: why? Because you believe in the leverage algorithms can provide https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Deci... There are probably a lot of single people here that would benefit from that book as well (the stopping problem) We all "know" the algos. But…

> should

Why?

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#50

Post by bryanrasmussen »

I've decided this article is so unclear in its terms that it is unusable - for example:

"According to Bookstat, which looks at the book publishing market as a whole, there were 2.6 million books sold online in 2020 and only 268 of them sold more than 100,000 copies—that’s only 0.0001 percent of books. By far, the more likely thing is to sell between 0 and 1,000 copies—and there were 2.6 million of those last year (96 percent)."

what is up with that 2.6 million, it isn't explainable by just being 'the number of titles!'

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