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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

#311

Post by sremani »

teucris wrote: post #84
sremani wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-reading Pop-Psy and Airport literature is not the recommended reading. How about reading Hayek, Strauss for second time? How about reading man's search for meaning for the third time? You re-read great works, not NYT best shiller! (sic).

Quite an assumption to make about those that don’t like to re-read books. I love reading, I’m very picky about the books I read, and yet I find I’m only re-reading a small handful of books, many years after I last read them. What am I to read in the mean time?

I had to make some assumptions - given the OP said they did not see any value in re-reading. Not every thing is a candidate for re-read, for the fact of the matter 90% of airport literature is not worth single read let alone re-read.

Take any good from my post and leave the rest. I am not the most finesse commentator.. but at least I am not accusatory.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#312

Post by KineticLensman »

trutannus wrote: post #282
CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #254

Unlike movies/TV shows, books tend to 'age' relatively slowly. Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today. Not only that, but there are a literal ton of books out there that have been read by hundreds of thousands of people and reviewed extensively. I have found my personal enjoyment of a book to be loosely correlated with the goodreads / B&N scores. This gives me at least some sign…

> Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today I'd argue that there's a large amount of books that don't age out of their value. There's a lot of good material out there written over a hundred years ago that's more enjoyable that the average modern book. Even books which are tightly coupled to their time period are all still relevant and valuable today. A funny example, I was reading…

> Even books which are tightly coupled to their time period are all still relevant and valuable today

As an example of this I would cite "Mr Britling Sees It Through" [0] which was written by HG Wells during World War 1. It was published in 1916 and describes in a novel the public reaction to the early stages of the war - and Wells had no idea how the war was actually going to pan out when he wrote it. I read it in April last year, one month into the first COVID lockdown. Some of the reactions Wells describes (from fear to to panic buying to concerns about the economy) were exactly what was happening in the pandemic. I found it amazingly relevant even given the massive changes in society over the last century because in many ways basic human nature is just the same now as then.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Britling_Sees_It_Through

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#313

Post by MisterBastahrd »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #109
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #35

How many of these were politically oriented and had sales bolstered by political organizations to get them on a best seller's list?

Good point. More than a few I would wager. It's also a way to pay a politician in a backdoor way. Having said that, I'm amazed that so many of those titles are actually bought, they do appear to be at least somewhat popular. Any thrift store has piles of Presidential biographies and outraged-about-a-President books, they're over by the microwave cookbooks.

Yeah, for example, the Republican National Committee spent over $300K on Donald Trump Jr.'s book, which it then turned around and gave to donors, and $100K more on one of his other books. It spent over $400K on Dan Crenshaw's book and almost $100K on Tom Cotton's book. When Herman Cain was running for President, his campaign committee bought up pallets of his book that happened to be on sale at the same time as his political candidacy. The RNC also spent over $100K on a Sean Hannity book. The DNC spent nearly $100K on Chelsea Clinton's book.

The FEC is apparently on board with all of this, as long as the candidate isn't... using the books their campaigns purchase for their personal use. I guess the next time Ted Cruz gets shamed into staying home during an ice storm, he'll be disappointed to know that he can't burn his own books for warmth.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#314

Post by pie420 »

padobson wrote: post #218
kevinmchugh wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vonnegut I remember writing somewhere that radio and especially TV had killed the market for short stories in magazines, which were a great way for authors to get started. Here's some other things he said on making a living as a writer: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/vonnegut-writing-i... Note that he got paid $750 for his first short story in 1949! I don't know how many places are paying first time author…

750 dollars in 1949 is about $9,000 in 2021. Vonnegut had to convince at least two gatekeepers: his own agent and the editor at Colliers. I spent a large chunk of time a few years back looking into the questions OP is asking, and the ultimate truth I came to is this: whether you're self publishing or going the traditional route, you're going to need some established gatekeepers to support you if you're going to make…

Yep, in almost every industry it was always been 50% how good you are and 50% who you know. Over time, who you need to know to be successful has changed, and new artists need to adapt, as they always have. Getting an audience is easier than ever in history. That is amazing for hobbyists who just want some readers and recognition, and not great for those who want to earn a living while writing.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#315

Post by peterarmstrong »

One thing to consider is royalty rate. If you sell 5000 copies for $20 and earn a dollar per copy, you've earned $5,000. (This math is based on 10% royalties on the publisher's portion, which is about half of retail. And no, fiction books don't sell for $20 typically, but I'm using this number to make the math easy.)

Now, if you sell 5000 copies of an ebook for $20 and earn 80% royalties, you earn $16 per copy, and earn $80,000. This is the royalty rate on Leanpub (disclosure: cofounder), but with Gumroad or blog + Stripe approaches you'd earn an even better percentage (if you want to run your own store).

For fiction, however, the dream combination is probably publishing in-progress with subscriptions. Currently it seems that Substack is the best for that. If you can get a few thousand people to subscribe for a few bucks a month, you could do well. The people at the top are doing really, really well: https://stratechery.com/2021/sovereign-writers-and-substack/

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#316

Post by Aerroon »

ellegriffin wrote: post #307
Aerroon wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound $5262/month: https://www.patreon.com/puddles4263 The author of Azarinth Healer has 3317 patrons at $2 minimum: https://www.patreon.com/RhaegarRRL Basically, you can look through RoyalRoad, Scribblehub, WebNovel, and various other places where quite a few people seem to find success. And that's not even mentioning the people who write novels and publish them on Amazon. >…

These are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. I will look into these as case studies.

One more thing to consider is that some (many?) of these authors are from poorer countries. $1500 a month for them might go a lot further.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#317

Post by ellegriffin »

snet0 wrote: post #233
kpwagner wrote: post #99

In the month it will take me to finish reading Storm of Swords, I will watch ~10 movies. Plus, I'm reading Storm of Swords, which needs no additional support from readers to be discovered or validated--though I still want to read it. Plus, I digitally loaned it from my local library. I own a number of books (~200) and have probably owned x4 that total in my lifetime. Maybe 1/3 of those I paid full price for new. The…

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but my assumption is that buying second-hand books gives no money to the author. I don't know, morally speaking if this should be the case. It does feel wrong for people to get the experience without paying the price of admission. Can this be solved logistically, though? And do publishers factor this into their RRP?

NFTs are trying to solve for this, but I'm not sure how mainstream that will become.

For instance: https://emily.mirror.xyz/0AFENlMKv9amUC1OJIZY26udpISw_raXkoE...

In this case, Emily crowdfunded her novel using the cryptocurrency ETH. People "invested" in her book buy purchasing the NFT, so that they can later sell their investment again (and the writer will get royalties if they do).

I think this might be a little too out there to become mainstream. HOWEVER, I do think the library model could be tweaked to favor the author.

Right now the ebook library model is based off the physical book library model where the library purchases a certain number of ebooks (say 10) and the author only gets a portion of the royalties on those ten copies, and then the library loans those copies out to an unlimited number of people.

It should be managed more like Spotify- where books can be read unlimitedly, but the author gets paid royalties every time someone reads their book. (Similar to how an artist gets paid everytime their song is streamed). I might actually write about this for a future post.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#318

Post by ellegriffin »

ghaff wrote: post #240
snet0 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but my assumption is that buying second-hand books gives no money to the author. I don't know, morally speaking if this should be the case. It does feel wrong for people to get the experience without paying the price of admission. Can this be solved logistically, though? And do publishers factor this into their RRP?

That same logic presumably applies to libraries. Books are physical objects at the end of the day just like a piece of pottery someone made. First sale doctrine explicitly allows the owner to lend or resell it to someone else.

Yes! Exactly! Right now the ebook library model is based off the physical book library model where the library purchases a certain number of ebooks (say 10) and the author only gets a portion of the royalties on those ten copies, and then the library loans those copies out to an unlimited number of people.

It should be managed more like Spotify- where books can be read unlimitedly, but the author gets paid royalties every time someone reads their book. (Similar to how an artist gets paid everytime their song is streamed). I might actually write about this for a future post.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#319

Post by eric_b »

NoOneNew wrote: post #290

I have one big issue with the book industry... many actually... but related to the article, all this whining is self imposed. Literary books are marketed far heavier than genre. This is the equivalent to arthouse films vs what actually makes money as a movie/show. Let's take one similar plot. A chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer, cant get treated and eventually dies. Literary and arthouse will do a discovery…

I think you're spot on. I'm an avid reader but I enjoy all the "low-brow" stuff. Tropey high fantasy, cheesy sci-fi, formulaic legal thrillers, I love it all. If it has "spy" anywhere in the description I'm in.

But you're right - the only books I ever hear about from a marketing standpoint are the ones my wife is reading for her book club. So either Oprah talked about it, or it's part of the "book club marketing machine" or whatever.

I wish the publishing industry could turn things around. I think the low percentage of people who actively read fiction is ultimately a bad thing. Binge watching Netflix is not the same as binge reading a good book series imo.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#320

Post by Siira »

NoOneNew wrote: post #290

I have one big issue with the book industry... many actually... but related to the article, all this whining is self imposed. Literary books are marketed far heavier than genre. This is the equivalent to arthouse films vs what actually makes money as a movie/show. Let's take one similar plot. A chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer, cant get treated and eventually dies. Literary and arthouse will do a discovery…

I don’t really see the evidence backing this claim. Most popular fiction books on Goodreads are not exactly “deep.” Publishers aren’t some stupid ideologues either. It’s far more probable that books simply can’t compete with the addictive, visual, social entertainment that is growing by the day.

This isn’t such a big problem either. The minority that does read books are still huge in absolute terms, and we have more options than ever to read.

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