Alternative Facts

Copyright 2017, Author Earnings

Author Earnings' latest report came out via Data Guy's presentation at last week's Digital Book World '17. This was more of an overall view of the industry and included not just Data guy's spiders, but also information from Nielson and Bookscan.

Yes, there was some pretty significant information. Such as the strength of indies in underserved markets such as African-American-themed books. Or that the print book sales surge was actually a test by Amazon offering consumers steeper discounts on trad published books after post-conspiracy debacle contract negotiations were resumed. Or that e-books have plateaued or shrink and instead are up 4%.

What's more telling to me though is that the same people, who derisively dismissed Hugh Howey and Data Guy's efforts when they started Author Earnings a little over three years, are now listening attentively. Yeah, the same people, who screamed from nearly every online venue that DG was a liar and his data was false, are now inviting him to their conferences, sitting raptly at attention and soaking in the numbers.

I know there's at least one of you out there thinking, "But, but, but digital was growing 100-200-300% back 2010-2011. 4% is awful!"

No, it's isn't. Let's say you sold 1 e-book in 2010. Not a lot, but a good start. In 2011, you sold 2 e-books. That's a 100% increase. In 2012, you sold 20 e-books and that's a 1000% increase for you.

Compare that to total e-books available on Amazon (because I'm trying to make this easy to follow). When I first started publishing, there were roughly 3 million e-books available. Staying in the top third, i.e. your rank was above #1,000,000, was fairly easy.

Now, there an estimated nine million e-books available. My books are generally ranked roughly around #2,500,000 mark. That's still the top 30%. However, there's more books to choose from so it doesn't mean I'm making anywhere near the amount of sales I was before.

(And no, I'm not blaming Amazon or anyone else. I only started publishing again last June after a nearly three year hiatus due to personal issues that I enumerated extensively during that time period. I still hold to the belief that the best way to market your books is by producing more material for your readers.)

So the money pot is actually growing. There just happens to be more people dipping into it. However, there's still room for indie growth.

How so?

Beyond numbers, there's something more telling. Trad publishing is leaving a hell of a lot of money on the table. Remember the African-American themed books I mentioned above? 96% of those sales were e-books, and guess who controls that market? Trad publishers like to claim that certain portions of our country don't read, but the numbers say otherwise.

The best thing indie writers can take from the latest AE report is that trad publishing is leaving a lot of genre territory for us to claim. So get out there, find a niche genre you love and start writing it!


P.S. Yes, I stole Data Guy's Pac-Man slide. It's cute, and it's a generational thing.

The World Is Mad I Tell You! Mad!

DH's dad is still in the hospital (complication from his surgery Wednesday) so this is a round-up of stuff y'all may be interested in.

First off, my self-editing post got a few comments yesterday. Just a reminder that there is no "right" way to edit. If you can proofread your own stuff, more power to you! Honestly, I proof my own short stories. However, it's the only area of where I think money can be wisely spent, just like it's overall cheaper and faster for me to hire out my formatting these days.

Ironically, Kris Rusch posted about the nightmares of dealing with trad publisher editors.

In that same blog, Kris also talked about the recent bloodbath at Penguin Random House. The layoffs included several editors.

And that led to this little bon mot my friend Angie e-mailed me this morning. Just how bad are things at PRH that la Nora jumps ship?

Are publishers in that much trouble? Yeah, they are. Data Guy's recent talk at the Digital Book World Conference shows trad publishers are sort of acknowledging that they sail in iceberg infested waters, but they still believe the icebergs pose no danger. *sigh*

On the other hand, anything that improves DG's scraping and analysis of book sales can help us indies in the long run.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Why the Digital Book World-Writers Digest Money Survey Is Flat-Out Wrong

A lot of trad publishing pundits, including Steve Zacharius of Kensington, have been quoting a survey done by DBW-WD saying the average income for writers is $1000.

Why do I think it is highly misleading on earnings for writers? Let me reframe WD's basic supposition regarding income to apply to plumbers instead of writers.

I grew up on a farm. My dad taught me the basics of home repair. I can swap out gaskets and bobbers on a toilet. I can replace a faucet. I know where the cut-off valves are for each inlet and the main one for the entire house.

Does this make me a master plumber? Hardly. Can I go to True Value Hardware and buy the parts I need? Yep. Does this mean I made money? Excuse me while I laugh.

For things that surpass my meager abilities, like replacing the hot water heater or the garbage disposal, I call our plumber Bob. Bob is a licensed master plumber and has been for twenty years. This is how Bob make his living.

For simplicty's sake, let's assume Bob makes $60K a year. If we averaged my income from plumbing ($0) and Bob's, we get $30K a year in income. Add in my husband and son who've never touched any plumbing in their life and the average goes down to $15K. Then we turn around and say all plumbers in Houston average $15K in income per year.

Silly, right? The number isn't close to being accurate because three out of the four people averaged are not plumbers!

Yet, this is exactly how WD did their survey. 64% of those surveyed haven't finished writing a book, MUCH LESS STARTED ONE.

Why on earth would you include people who HAVEN'T PRODUCED A DAMN THING?

Sorry for the shouting, but this REALLY pisses me off!

Before anyone jumps on my case, I know what it's like in the beginning. How hard it is to finish that first story. How that first novel took years to write. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt.

But nowhere in my wildest dreams do I think my $0 income from 2004 should have been included in a survey regarding the 2004 income of professional writers.

The definition of "professional" means you are making money from a trade. I wasn't making money from my writing in 2004 because I didn't have anything for sale. 64% of folks from the WD survey didn't make any money because they didn't even have anything to MAKE AVAILABLE for sale. Therefore, WD's conclusion is meaningless.

If you want to check out a survey that at least talks to writers who have stories for sale, I recommend Beverly Kendall's look at published writers. I think it gives a far more accurate look at which writers are doing what and why.

Do I think publishing will make every writer a millionaire? Heck, no! But as the late, great Mark Twain said once, "There lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Trust your gut and always question someone's statistics.

What "Publishing Industry"?

Sometimes, I read other people's insights on this strange new world we fiction writers find ourselves in and the LED bulb goes on:

The mental model we share of this thing we call the publishing industry is no longer useful. Most of us think of the publishing industry’s product as “books”. That’s like thinking that Amazon sells two products, bits and cardboard boxes. Amazon ships stuff in cardboard boxes. It’s what’s inside the box that you are buying. Likewise, it’s the information contained in the bits that you are buying when you buy a digital product from Amazon.

You can read the rest of fellow Houstonian John Cavnar-Johnson's article at Digital Book World.