Historical and Contemporary Romance Author
In all the emotionally fraught discussions of the past few weeks about the making the choice between traditional and self publishing, there’s been very little discussion about the fact that there is a third option. It’s not either turn down an advance with low digital royalties OR self-publish. Authors who don’t want to self-publish but either don’t get an offer…
For the record, I totally agree with folks who’ve said that the much-discussed, ballyhooed, and denigrated Author Earnings report way overreaches the conclusions that can be drawn from the current data set. Both Dear Author and Courtney Milan have done excellent posts on the subject, so I won’t belabor the point. But the defenders of the traditional publishing model who…
Because I’m apparently incapable of staying out of trouble lately, I got into a discussion on Mike Shatzkin’s blog the other day about advances and earn-out. In discussing Hugh Howey’s comparison of earnings for authors in traditional publishing versus self-publishing, Mike (who’s an industry consultant) pointed out that it’s hard to pinpoint a traditionally published author’s income based on royalty…
One of the statistics that’s commonly batted around these days in publishing is that 70% of book sales in trade publishing are in print. This figure is commonly touted by the AAP (no, not the American Association of Pediatrics, but the American Association of Publishers). And I’d bet it’s pretty accurate. Yesterday, however, Hugh Howey posted some data on his…
Some comments on another blog got me wondering which digital books are more profitable for Amazon to sell–those from Big 5 traditional publishing houses or those put out by authors/publishers using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). At first blush, you’d think it would be the traditionally published books, since they generally sell at a higher price than self-published books, but I…
In the past few days, I believe I’ve given some people the impression that I hate traditional publishing.1 I don’t. I don’t think publishing houses are evil. I don’t believe authors who choose to go with the traditional model are doing anything stupid or wrong. I don’t want print publishing to die. None of those things are remotely true. What…
I have been debating for the better part of the day whether I should type up this post or not. If it gets me into even more trouble than I already am, I’m blaming Cecilia Grant, Kinsey Holley, and Olivia Waite. I’m not going to bother you with the background here. There’s a lot of it. Most of which it…
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about print books, book sales, and bestseller lists. My thoughts have been spurred by several blog posts/discussions, primarily these: A Note on Historical Romance Sales in Print on Courtney Milan’s blog. USA Today released its list of the top 100 bestselling books of 2013, and Publisher’s Weekly noted that not a single self-published…
By now, I don’t suppose anyone is terribly surprised by the news that some authors (notably self-published “sensation” John Locke) have paid to have reviews posted on Amazon in the hopes of boosting their books’ visibility. (NYT article here.) The fact that it isn’t surprising doesn’t make it any less unethical, but it does make me look at my own…
It can’t have escaped too many authors’ notice that most of the major publishers are opening digital-first/only romance lines. Harlequin was first out of the gate with Carina Press, but now we have Avon jumping into the game with Avon Impulse and Random House with Loveswept. I’m sure the other major houses can’t be far behind. There’s a lot to…