I enjoyed reading the article. However, I think the author is over-generalising a bit with targeting this at "non-fiction" authors. #1 & #2 are perhaps broadly aplicable, but #3 & #4 seem more geared towards self-help books, books about management and the like. I suspect people who read a memoir, an auto-biography, an eulogy or about true crime may well be interested in reading about a topic rather than looking for actionable advice?
Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
111–120 of 148 posts
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure why the downvotes. That's absolutely a fair comment. There are some cases where creative work can benefit your day job through visibility and related skills. (A talented amateur actor is probably going to be better at presentations for example. And being that really good presenter at your company's user group event every year isn't going to hurt you.) But it seems a good point overall. Being great on som…
I would also say, people make more money doing stuff that's hard. (and of course the bar goes up)
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Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#113I'm an author of a non-fiction book. I self-published. My book has a 5-star rating to date even though it was published nearly 5 years ago. My book meets most of the criteria laid out in this book. I even had both a publisher and distributor approach me and I had plenty leverage. Despite all that, I didn't get the book sales I wanted nor the PR. Everyone that reads my book is surprised to hear it's not topping the ch…
I'm curious which geographies you marketed to, I can totally imagine a lot of my American friends being hesitant caught reading this book for ahem keywords. But this book can also totally sell in other places!
You're right. In the UK and America it doesn't have as much appeal but in Middle East and Asia it gains a lot of interest. The problem in those territories is distribution. Distribution is much better in the West for self-publishers.
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Authors have the same problem as musicians. And app developers.
Sorry, but this applies only to non-fiction. You can always make a usable app or non-fiction book, so you have one extra dimension of objectively measured value of your product. The first one, common to software and art, is the quality of the implementation.
Applications just like music have a near zero marginal cost. This is why the app stores are littered with $1 apps.
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
The owners of and investors in publishing houses, movie studios, and music labels tend to expect something beyond 'making a living'. Whereas those who actually generate cultural phenomena (our culture, aka the shared framework of references that allows us to define an us) see little to nothing from work that is foundational to multi-billion dollar media empires. Not making a living means that the class of people most…
Ha ha what? The problem is there are low barriers to entry to working in the creative arts so there's huge competion. It's like app development. Creating isn't enough. You need a marketing strategy. Publishers OTOH diversify so can build their empires by backing multiple authors etc, some of whom break out.
Anybody with feet can run around a track. So athletics has, in
that sense, a low barrier to entry. That doesn't make them
Usain Bolt.
It's an interesting look past the mystification of how capitalism is claimed to work. Behind the curtain it is unable or unwilling to find a way to sustain the existences of the producers of goods that the public desires. Instead it relies on disposability. Burn a part out (and many do; it's particularly a problem among romance writers -- and on through Hollywood, the porn industry, et cetera) and replace. Rinse and repeat.
The question becomes: is it a system instated by humans and controlled by humans, or a system that has come to control humans, a meta system, global capital as a type of planet-wide intelligence analogous to an ant colony or the cells in an individual body, bent on its perpetuation at the necessary cost of any of those individual components.
It's an interesting system to discuss in the hypothetical. The genre, however, changes when or if one realizes the part you are in such a system as it exits. Of course, we all think we're special. There's always a war going on around us, but there isn't a bullet out there with my name on it; those shells rip others to pieces, not me.
Which, circling back, is why we need 'content creators'. We need Lovecrafts to distract us from the cosmic horror of ourselves and what we label reality.
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The review that you got there was pretty cool! The reader was actually surprised by the innovative way that you've put together your narrative :)
Thank you ^^ Well... If you enjoy reading maybe give my novel a go :) You do need a Kindle though /wouldn't recommend reading on a phone. But no hassles. Cheers
Just bought it. Will post back here when I finish it.
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a publisher author of a non-fiction book with an established publisher, I had to stop reading after that first point because he is completely wrong.
I think it makes sense. He's saying that if you get a 15% royalty, vs the 100% royalty minus costs of self publishing, you need to sell 5x more books via the publisher. It's oddly worded, but the math roughly works depending on your self publishing costs.
Self-publishers only get a 100% royalty if they self-retail as well (very few do this, I think). Otherwise, they only get the ~50% that the publisher would get paid from the sale price.
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Writing a book is like creating anything else. Whether you're writing a book, making music, producing goods or offering services, people need to actually try what you've made. This is why "advertising" is so important. Not necessarily traditional advertising, but some form of getting the word out about your amazing creation.
With books, the time commitment you need from people for them to "try" what you created is immense compared to other efforts. Like if you are a painter, it takes a couple seconds for someone to have a look at what you created. If you are a musician, a few minutes spent on a track is enough. For a book, you need someone to sacrifice a few hours of their life for a non-guaranteed return, time they could spend reading s…
I'm not so sure about that. I think most people won't continue reading a book that they don't like after the first few minutes while taking the description/summary into account. It would have to be well recommended for me to consider that.
I think fiction is going to move more and more towards the web novel model, where extremely long stories are published on a chapter by chapter basis. It has a far higher chance of attracting new readers, because new stuff is constantly happening surrounding the work.
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can relate a bit. I also wrote a book that quickly faded into obscurity. The biggest learning I had was I had no audience. I needed to build that first with blog posts or what not, THEN write the book. I’m surprised that’s not covered here in this article
I published a book in November. It's selling. Slowly. I'm not expecting it to be profitable for several years (I've self-published, and so I've had some costs such as a cover design, editing and proofreading). I'm ok with that - I'm writing a series, and everyone I talk to suggests sales for self-published series rarely do much until at least the third volume, and it's a hobby for the most part. It's only worth it fo…
Woh. This is a really fantastic post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts/knowledge.
What's the name of your book that you published in November?
Re: Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you ^^ Well... If you enjoy reading maybe give my novel a go :) You do need a Kindle though /wouldn't recommend reading on a phone. But no hassles. Cheers
Just bought it. Will post back here when I finish it.
Good man. I really appreciate it :)
Be interested in any thoughts you have. I don't mind if you are critical. And hope you enjoy it ^^