The main topic of conversation lately in several of the
blogs I follow is the profitability of a book. If you’re an indie author, at
what point does your book become profitable?
Some writers only include their out of pocket costs. But a
lot of folks want to include an hourly wage for their time spent writing the
book, as if they are working in a factory making widgets. This is work-for-hire
thinking.
Frankly, I don’t think an hourly wage per book is the
appropriate correlation. Indie publishing is more like investing in the stock
market. When you buy stocks, do you look at the time spent reading reports and
studying graphs as work you should be compensated for? No, you look at the end result you want to achieve. Buy stock
in Coca-Cola, Inc., today, and you’ll be looking at dividends versus the growth
in value of the stocks themselves, not the time you spent on the john reading their latest annual report.
Or a better example would be a corporation’s CEO. Does
he/she take a salary? In most cases, they receive a token amount, like Jeff
Bezos of Amazon, who receives $86,000 annually. The bulk of their compensation
comes in other forms, such as stock options, which is why Mr. Bezos is worth a
few hundred million.
I agree. It's one thing to look at a wage per hour, or per thousand words, if you're marketing your work to a short fiction market that'll give you a flat rate, or sending your book to a legacy publisher that'll offer an advance and you know that's likely all you'll see on that book until the contract runs out.
ReplyDeleteIndie publishing is different, though, and a published book there is an investment that continues paying dividends rather than a widget to be sold for a one-time fee.
Angie
And that dividend concept is key, Angie.
ReplyDeleteI released Amish, Vamps & Thieves on Friday. A few folks heard about it and bought the entire Bloodlines series.
Of course, the insecure writer in me thinks, 'What if they don't like the series?' The business woman in me slaps her around until she shuts up. *grin*