zabu of nΩd
Free Insultation
- Feb 9, 2007
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I'm aware of vanity presses and the need to hire an editor. I already hired an editor once to evaluate an earlier draft of my book. FWIW, the editor said it has potential, and that if it weren't for genre constraints at her publishing house, she'd try to acquire me. The publisher she works for is listed here, and she has good reviews, so I think she's legit. I can afford a full editing job, as well as a lawyer on the off chance I need help dealing with an infringement. I've registered stuff for copyright before, and I know not to infringe other people's work in my own. Amazon's self-publishing service handles printing. Obviously I'm still skeptical of whether a publisher would add value for me, but I'm happy to hear your rebuttal.There is a lot more to publishing than an advance though. There is a hundred 'vanity' publishers out there that for about $5K will take your book and treat you like a publishing house does. They foot the rest of the bill, they do the legals etc but they don't care about the book once it's made their investment back. They wont kill it but that doesn't mean they keep pushing it either. A traditional publisher doesn't necessarily offer an advance, different deals different payments. But they do handle everything from editing (no author can self edit), which includes line editing, spell checking and actual book editing, they handle the printing and publishing, they handle the advertising and marketing and they handle all legals. But they have to see potential in the book, self publishing and vanity publishing doesn't need that.
Your royalty figures are way off according to this article: https://careertrend.com/info-8116741-much-do-bestselling-authors-make.htmlProfit margins are also a possible trap. Sure it sounds good that you're making 70%+ of the revenue (and Amazon should be higher than that) for every sale but if you only sell 10 copies a year that's not really profit. A publishing house might be as low as 30% for print and 70% for electronic but it's in their best interest to push the sales and 30% of their sales can quickly become more than 70% of self published sales.
"According to the Authors Guild, authors commonly receive 10 percent of sales up to 5,000 copies, 12.5 percent of the next 5,000 and 15 percent after that. Any advance paid to the author before publication is deducted from the incoming royalties from sales."
That's why I assume authors typically make next to nothing on top of the advance.
You sure he didn't get ripped off somewhere along the line? I'd like to know the breakdown of where that $40k went. Based on my math, $10k is the most I'd need to go through the publication process, with most of that going to the editor. Good to know about the discount practice on Amazon though.I've got a mate who self published a book of poetry last year. To get the books to printed stage, which was also having a saleable product on Amazon he spent more than $40K. Now he has boxes full of books he sells for about $10 through his own site and through Amazon and a e-reader version which sells for $7 unless Amazon tell him they are putting on sale and he has to sell it for 99cents.
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