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

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#201

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

lacker wrote: post #186

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…

how many people like me does it take to support one professional writer? Back of the envelope, I would estimate authors get 1/4 of book sales as royalties, so you've sent $1000 to authors in your lifetime. I don't know how old you are, maybe that's $100/year since you were at book-buying age. If an author gets by on $30k/year then it takes 300 people like you to support a professional writer. That's not bad, really.…

Many problems with this analysis, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to notice what they are.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#202

Post by ellegriffin » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #161

obviouslynotme wrote: post #154

Computers and the Internet have democratized culture in a way never seen before. This is both good and bad. Newspapers are dying. Television is dying. Hollywood is dying. Books are dying. Now we have people co-creating on blogs, YouTube, self-publishing, and fan-fiction websites. The production quality is certainly down from the peak of professional culture, but software tools are helping individual creators gain an…

The scariest part about the latter model is how the hell are we going to find any more Susanna Clarkes, J. D. Salingers, and any other author that doesn't want to or isn't able to buy into the parasocial nature of patreon and similar platforms? What if the author isn't hot, charismatic, or pleasant to listen to?

I used to be that way. I created social media accounts this year (and started writing this newsletter) because I realized it was the only way to get my work read. There are so many amazing books out there that only ever see a couple readers because they don't market. It's just a hard reality (unless readers decide to go all indie and hunt for obscure books on the internet, like I do. But I'm sure I'm in the minority).

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#203

Post by jimbob45 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #199

blululu wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100k is not that unreasonable of an expectation as the necessary base for a freelancer. Keep in mind that you will need to cover additional taxes that your employer would normally cover, and you will need to plan on variability so you need more cushion than a salaried employee. Add in the fact that an author would need to be in the top 10% of a competitive field and you need to start considering the opportunity cost…

And no benefits, including insurance. That $100K for a fairly to very successful author starts to look a lot like a pretty middling $60K or so income in an office job.

You two make excellent points. Although the author seems greedy for wanting a 100k salary, that 100k is going to feel closer to 50k for reasons outside of their control.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#204

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

lacker wrote: post #173

I feel like the article glosses over a key point: Even on the high end, there were only 11 books that sold more than 500,000 copies. If I can spend two to three years writing a novel and my best case scenario is having it sell a couple hundred copies Isn't the best case scenario here that you are the top -selling author, selling over a million copies? I feel like the author of this post is just assuming that they are…

For anyone else who was surprised by that stat, don't forget that this is for books sold online.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#205

Post by failwhaleshark » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

dovrce wrote: post #125

joebob42 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, for whatever it's worth the classic is already guaranteed to be culturally significant. Other people will have read it and you can talk to them about it, which can be a fun exercise and may not be true for whatever random book you could otherwise read.

Exactly, anything that has survived 100 or 1000 years is most likely worth your time

The Epic of Gilgamesh is roughly 3800-years-old.

One has to wonder though if something has survived as an artifact only because there were a zillion copies of the then "Steven King's" latest, or if it truly was great and preserved with care by those with taste.

You have to wonder if the then Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs down compared to other contemporary works.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#206

Post by ellegriffin » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #73

> As the going wisdom states: it only takes 1,000 true fans spending $100/year for a creator to earn a salary of $100,000/year—and there are 83,397 books every year that have at least 1,000 true fans. Theoretically then, an author could release a new chapter every week, charge subscribers $8 or $9 a month, and earn $100,000 a year—from only 1,000 readers. She's basically proposing an episodic model for books, with ea…

Yes, I think there's a strong possibility this might wind up being the case. My idea is only a working hypothesis as I try to figure out a model that will work for the fiction author and right now I'm banking on the idea that it USED to work (and that Substack CURRENTLY works). But I am definitely open to ideas if there is another one that might work better!

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#207

Post by sublimefire » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

The thing not mentioned or at least something which is quite opaque here is an easier access to foreign markets (did stats include those?). This sounds almost like a no brainer to me: self publish and translate your books to other languages - maximize the reach with additional investment. Obs I do not know the costs involved in translating the books.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#208

Post by rchaud » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

obviouslynotme wrote: post #154

Computers and the Internet have democratized culture in a way never seen before. This is both good and bad. Newspapers are dying. Television is dying. Hollywood is dying. Books are dying. Now we have people co-creating on blogs, YouTube, self-publishing, and fan-fiction websites. The production quality is certainly down from the peak of professional culture, but software tools are helping individual creators gain an…

> The consumer is absolutely winning right now. There is a lifetime of free diverse content just a click away.

Theoretically the consumer should be winning. But the glut of content (TV shows, new bands) and the supplementary marketing for that content (blog posts, tweets, IG, newspaper articles) makes it very difficult to actually locate the content itself.

"One click away" suggests that I should be able to acquire it at any store. But that is not true either. Some things are exclusive to a streaming network or store (Apple Music/Amazon).

There's a discoverability problem here, as well as friction when it comes to acquiring the product itself.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#209

Post by iib » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

kevinmchugh wrote: post #175

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #47

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 popul…

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…

I assume even in radio and TV, not all segments are created equal. Maybe live, ad-libbed shows had a more detrimental effect, in the sense that at least scripted shows employ more writers?

Also, would it not make sense to look at writing even from a more indirect point? For example, millions of people enjoyed the creativity of the /Friends/ writers, without actually reading a single word. Should they be counted as successful as a book writer with millions of readers?

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#210

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c » Mon, May 10, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

This seems to match how music is consumed as well. You can release a great EP or album, but unless you're a marketing savant or you're well connected to someone who has a large following, your work will not be discovered or listened.

There's simply too much music being released every day for anybody to discover it, so your best bet is to target a rather slim niche where you might have a chance to come to the surface with a small clique of rabid fans of the genre, and slowly build mass appeal one fan at a time.