Writing books is not really a good idea • Hacker News Board

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#351

Post by kbenson » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

peterarmstrong wrote: post #315

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 e…

> For fiction, however, the dream combination is probably publishing in-progress with subscriptions. Currently it seems that Substack is the best for that.

Depending on audience and how you advertise to them, I've seen people be really successful on Patreon. I outlined some of that in a different comment here earlier, but $15k+ a month (from Patreon alone, not including other publishing that you can also do) is achievable and I've seen it more than once on somewhat esoteric genre fiction at Patreon.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#352

Post by bluGill » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

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…

Sometimes those old books are fun in a quaint way. Talk about "negros" where you are expected to understand why the person isn't bad per se, but automatically unable to be anything other than a basic servant. We can laugh at it now, yet it was so common and wasn't even mentioned.

And then of course look at ourselves and wonder what the next generation will laugh at.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#353

Post by gdubs » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

One book that really changed my life was "Feeling Good" by David Burns. It kinda popularize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. But the book wasn't an overnight success. It languished for years as his publisher refused to put any marketing dollars into it. They made it clear that his book wasn't really gonna get any love. Anyway, one day he got a call from Phil Donahue's producer. If I recall correctly, Burns had spent years doing any local spot he could get, and made it a point to be extra appreciative and grateful to anyone who interviewed him. One of these people went on to become one of Donahue's producers. (Donahue was in the class of Oprah back in the 80s and 90s). Overnight, his book became a huge success.

There's a lot of stories of 'overnight' successes actually being many many years in the making. Anyway, this was just one relevant one that came to mind reading this.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#354

Post by vidarh » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

eric_b wrote: post #319

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 mach…

I might have to add "spy" in the description of my next novel.

> the only books I ever hear about from a marketing standpoint

I'm actually pushing my novel via Taboola at the moment. It's definitively not profitable in terms of sales of a single book, but interestingly in terms of signups to my e-mail list it's one of the best I've found, and I'm spending a tiny amount on it each month on the theory that I'm reaching users who are less jaded and more likely to be outside of the typical bubble I reach on e.g. twitter, and who might well turn out to be worthwhile to be able to repeatedly market to over time in the hope of seeding some word of mouth outside of my normal audience.

Half the fun for me (this is a hobby) is trying to figure out the marketing channels that will work...

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#355

Post by spoonjim » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #302

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…

Every major publishing house has a SFF imprint with its own marketing budget and does marketing campaigns. Tor dot com (Macmillan), Orbit Books (Hachette), etc. They have marketing campaigns on youtube, tiktok, instagram, twitter and more. They have little video trailers, cover reveals, physical and collectible advance copies etc. Or in simple words, could you clarify here?

When there is a book that "everyone is talking about" (i.e Oprah or the New Yorker or whatever) it's usually a memoir of someone's difficult life, usually a member of a declared "oppressed" group. For example, Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me."

I read that book. It's not even supposed to be enjoyable, and it's not really great writing or something that I feel like I need to tell my friends about. Essentially it's stuff you feel like you "should" read rather than you "want" to read. Like vegetables instead of ice cream. The ice cream is the page turning thrillers where some guy is beating up criminals in parking garages and chasing art thieves around the world.

The book industry puts its highest profile promotion on vegetables instead of ice cream.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#356

Post by CobrastanJorji » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #352

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…

Sometimes those old books are fun in a quaint way. Talk about "negros" where you are expected to understand why the person isn't bad per se, but automatically unable to be anything other than a basic servant. We can laugh at it now, yet it was so common and wasn't even mentioned. And then of course look at ourselves and wonder what the next generation will laugh at.

I suspect that kind of fun is less fun when they're talking about you, especially when it's still a problem today.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#357

Post by andi999 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

Siira wrote: post #325

andi999 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a scalable product there is usually no middle ground. Either you are getting rich or just getting by, or even not getting by (last one the most likely one)

Isn’t software a big exception to this?

Is it? Can you elaborate? I think if you have a SaaS with happy 100 customers paying 10$ each per month it is easier to scale up to 10k customers than if you only have 2 customers to get to 200.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#358

Post by CobrastanJorji » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

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.

There's also the path of the "Kindle Unlimited" after-the-fact self-publisher.

I've seen several times now where an author does this:

1. Publish their novel serially on a site like Royal Road. Build up a subscriber base, get on the leaderboards, try to grow. 2. Publish it to Kindle Unlimited. Kindle Unlimited requires that no other copies be available online, so remove it all from the original site. 3. Continue writing new content as "book 2" on the original sites to try and stay discoverable and on top of the leaderboards. Hope new readers will read the first few books on Amazon, thereby finally earning some money.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#359

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

ellegriffin wrote: post #114

salamandersauce wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Needs comparison to past years to be useful. Would also be helpful to compare books that came out in past year or few years to see how their sales trends. We also need to know what those books that are tracked are. Are they just in print titles? Or does it count 60 year old used biology textbooks for sale on Amazon no one wants? Or dated romance novels long past their prime? Because if those are included I'm not…

I did mention Alexandre Dumas as a case study in a previous article. Here's a snippet: "But there used to be another way. When Alexandre Dumas debuted The Count of Monte Cristo it was published as a feuilleton—a portion of the weekly newspaper devoted to fiction. From August 1844 to January 1846 his chapters were published in 18 installments for The Journal des Débats, a newspaper that went out to 9,000 to 10,000 pay…

Feuilletons still exist even now at least in Germany but they are more devoted to cultural commentary.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#360

Post by snet0 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

jogjayr wrote: post #308

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?

Buying a house from a homeowner gives no money to the original builder, or the first human being to inhabit that piece of land. Do you feel guilty about getting shelter without paying the price of admission?

I think this is a disingenuous comparison. Builders get paid to build houses. Authors, to my knowledge, do not frequently get paid to write books, they get paid when they sell books.

When you resell a house, you are not denying the builders anything. When you resell a book, you are (possibly) denying the author a sale.