Category Archives: Weekly Update
Weekly Update: Giving it all away.
Hey Howdy Hey!
Not sure if you noticed or not, but I’m blogging the contents of V&A Shipping. I find it a little funny that when I would ramble about myself I’d get 10-20 hits per day. Now that I’m giving away a story by blogging a couple chapters daily I’m seeing fewer and fewer hits. Color me confused, but I know it’ll take more than just a couple of days before people start to take notice. If you’re here and you’re reading, I hope you’re enjoying the story so far. If all goes as planned 2013 will see content every day for the entire year. I’ve got a lot of stories to publish and I’ll be blogging the contents of every one of them.
Here’s where I take one moment to say, “If you like what I’m doing, pick up a copy.”
Also, don’t forget, if you get a print copy, I’ll send you the ebook for free as well as the ebook Astel. If you pick up the ebook of V&A Shipping, I’ll put you in the drawing for a print edition. If you leave a comment on the blog, ReTweet on twitter, like it on FaceBook, give it a +1, I’ll put your name in the drawing for a print copy of the book. I’m giving stuff away! Come take advantage. I’ll do the drawings on Friday, Feb 1st. Act now!
To understand the below rant, please Visit John Scalzi’s Whatever blog. Never did I think the name of his blog would be so well placed here.
I’ve seen a couple blog posts lately. One was by John Scalzi trying to break down what he would have earned on the ebook edition of Redshirts had he self published. If you look at his blog, he has a neat pie chart showing the sales breakdown for 6 months. He sold roughly 35,000 ebooks. I’m sure other people will have a better analysis of his math, but someone pointed out that he would have made $300,000 on the sales of the ebook alone. He did his own math which, if you’ve done your home work, was terribly incorrect, to show that he would have only made roughly $100,000.
Here’s where he gets things terribly wrong. The ebook was $11.99. Now that’s a price point for Amazon that’s too high, so let’s push him down to $9.99 so he’s getting 70%. His first error was to say that since he’d be selling the ebook elsewhere, he’d only get 35%, not the standard 70%. Bzzz. Wrong. If your ebook is priced between $2.99 and $9.99 you get 70%. Period.
His excuse I didn’t care for. It was, in my opinion, pretty lame. He’s lazy. Okay, I get lazy, but there’s lazy and there’s just being dumb. Sure the publisher got the book edited, got a nice cover, interior layout design, did some promo on the book. How much of a price would you put on that? Well, let’s do a simple breakdown of what a normal contract would look like.
35,000 ebooks x $11.99 (publisher price) = $419,650
$419,650 * 70% (the money the publisher collected from Amazon) = $293,777
A standard contract would pay the author 20% of the net. If we use the amount the publisher got from the sale of the ebooks, Scalzi would have made:
$293,777 * 20% = $58,751
This means, in Scalzi’s opinion, editing, book cover, and promotion is worth $235,026. And let’s not forget that he’s paying an agent 15% on that $58,751 leaving Scalzi with only $49,938 on a book that brought in over $400,000 (slightly better than 12% of the cover price where even 35% starts to sound good).
Um, that’s a lot of money. And that’s just for the ebook. He still sold 35,000 hard covers. 35,000 audio books. If we assume roughly the same amount (obviously numbers would be more skewed) Scalzi thinks it’s down $705,078 for a publisher to edit a book, do the layout, record an audio book, and do some promotion on his work! While he brings in roughly $170,000 (minus 15% agent fees). That’s a huge disparity. Even if he were to do it on his own, hire two personal assistants, pay his own editor (between $1500 and $3000 for editing services), pay to have his audio book recorded ($2000-$5000), get a fantastic cover ($1000), and pay for some promotion, he would still be far ahead of the $170,000 he made. He could spend $10,000 and go it on his own, reap all the rewards, and take in all the money.
Or he could be lazy and say it’s worth $700,000 for a publisher to do this all for him. And this is just the first 6 months and doesn’t include paperback editions.
My thinking, that’s not lazy. That’s putting your head in the sand, singing “LALALALA CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALALA” and pretending like it’s alright to lose somewhere near $1,000,000 per book because you don’t want to take the time to learn how to do things on your own. Things that aren’t that difficult. Things that could be budgeted for to pay for services one time and not for the entire life of the book.
Now keep in mind I don’t know what Scalzi’s contract looks like. These numbers are just small guesses, but I can bet they’re pretty close to the truth.
And Scalzi isn’t alone in this world. At World Fantasy Con 2011 I spoke with a couple authors who are starting to do things on their own, get the rights to their backlist novels, and start doing things that make them more money. Those few have been beating on other authors who are “too lazy” to go after their own properties and start making money they should be making rather than allowing a publisher to either sit on the rights, or pay a pittance for what they do exercise.
Do I have all the answers? No. Would I like to just sit and write and watch checks roll in? Well, sure, but I’m not going to watch money go out the door waiting and hoping that I’m being treated fairly when I could very easily spend my time learning how to do many things myself or find someone to pay a fair price to do it for me. I’ve decided to start self publishing and I know it’s a long hard road to build an audience. I won’t sell 35,000 ebooks this year unless I get really lucky, but the books and print books I do sell will be money that rolls to me so I can keep doing this, buy better covers, perhaps get better audio books done, and keep quality work going out to the you, the reader.
I didn’t mean to rant today. Normally I’ll read Scalzi’s blog and think “Man, he’s making a good point here.” But his blog post today about being lazy and it not being worth it is like saying, “Oh, I accidentally threw away a $1,000,000 lottery ticket and if you dig it out of the trash for me so I don’t have to, I’ll give you $900,000 of it.” That’s not lazy. Sorry. Even if you only sold half the number of ebooks (16,000), you’d have made $150,000. Still far better than what was potentially paid to him based on my math.
I need to get some writing done. I just needed to vent. If you see an error in my math, if you think I’m wrong, if you think I’m right, post in the comments below.
Until Next Week!
WOO WOO!
Weekly Update: Wow what a busy, busy week.
Let me put work aside here for a minute. Yes, work was crazy, crazy busy. I mean like can anything more happen in a given week of work?
That being said, it was also a busy week with getting V & A Shipping ready to go. Edits have been applied and I’ve been working on formatting the interior of the book for both ebook release and print release. I spent the week working with Starla Hutchon to get a cover ready to go and today I paid for and received my cover! This is an exciting time. Not only were we able to get the ebook cover completed, but I’ve also got the print cover in my hot little hands. This is so exciting!
My decision on the cover was based on what I’d consider a lower quality graphic. Now that I see all the detail in this version, I’m even more excited than I was when I paid for my cover. This looks so good! Starla and I had a 30 minute conversation about what he cover would look like. We had a couple back and forths about certain elements, and in the end, this is what I got. I couldn’t be happier.
So like I said, I’ve been working diligently on getting the interior of the ebook and print books up to what I feel is a publishable level. Not just the words, but the appearance. I want it to look good, not just read well. I think I’ve gotten this story to that point. I’ve adjusted, finagled, tweaked, exported, compiled, and uploaded until I’m blue in the face. BUT, not only do I have the ebook version ready to go, I also have the print book version ready to go well ahead of schedule.
What don’t I have ready? Well, I want to blog this story as well. It’s currently 85 chapters (plus an epilogue) and I need to break that up into chunks so it’ll run from 2/1/2013 to 4/1/2013. On 4/1 I’ll have my next book (hopefully) ready to release and being blogging that one to coincide with the release date. There is much work to do and I’m realizing that I should have spent more time getting Astel ready to go.
What am I going to do to promote this book? Not much.
I know, sounds silly, doesn’t it?
Well, consider this. I want to release a large number of books over the next couple of years. If all goes right, one book every two months. That’s aggressive. That’s a brutal schedule to keep up with as well as pumping out new fiction, holding down a full time job, going to volleyball tournaments, working on Sputtery Truck (replaced the coils and plugs this weekend with help from The Millican) and just having some semblance of a personal life. I’ve already packed in as much as I can. If I start doing a ton of promo work that I don’t even know if it’ll pay off, that’s time I could be spending completed V&A Shipping II and getting it ready to publish before the end of this year.
Yes, I’m still working on that. I’m also still working on Golden West despite a minor delay in publication. There’s a lot to do and I would rather spend time right now getting things into print knowing that getting another book out is the most important thing I could be doing right now.
I will, however, be having contests so be on the lookout for those!
Well, one of the most important things. The next thing is to get a store built on my site to people can buy direct. I plan on offering autographed copies from my site. I’ll also work on digitally signed copies. I also need to get all of my short stories available on my site. I’ve been doing some work on ofgnomesanddwarves.com and I need to do some work here at jrmurdock.com.
So there’s still a lot of work I need to do prior to my 2/1/13 release date of V&A Shipping. Yes, I could release it today. Yes, I could just hit the button and go, but I’d rather make sure that I’ve got every set up and ready. I’m far more prepared this time for a book release than I was the last time.
That leads me to a final topic, would you like an advanced copy to review? Hit me up and I’ll make sure to get one over to you. There’s still 2 weeks before the actual release date. I only have ebooks available as I need to order the print copies and approve the drafts before those will be available.
There is so much to do I’m just trying to keep my head wrapped around it all. Seriously though, I’d rather be doing too much than just sitting idle and wishing my books were getting published. So I’d better get at it!
Until Next Week!
WOO WOO!
Weekly Update: So much going on for the start of the year!
2013 is off with a BOOM! Since I’m doing a weekly update feel free to skip past the sections that don’t interest you.
My Favorite Daughter:
Club Volleyball season is in full swing. Things are looking good this year. The team appears to be much more cohesive than last year. Her team is only 9 this year compared to the 14 or 15 from last year. This is a big plus as we’re seeing a much more consistent style of play. The girls on her team are very consistent and at the level they’re playing at it allowed them to sweep their tournament on Sunday. They won all three matches (6 games total) and 4 of those games were crushing wins and the other two were good wins by more than 5 points). It was so great to see them playing. Very happy. They’ve got a long road ahead, but they’re looking good.
Speaking of her club, the club website pretty much sucks. I know this. All the parents know this. The coach knows this. Everyone knows this. Well, the coach found out that I do web work as my full time job so I’ll be taking some time to put together a new website that’ll be easier to maintain, easier to navigate, and just look so much better than what’s there now. It’ll be a fun project and I can’t wait to get started (need to finish my Aunt’s website first though). So many websites, so little time. I really do need to find a cur for sleep.
Sputtery Truck and Sputtery Tahoe:
Why have one sputtery vehicle when you can have 2? <sigh>. Yes, Sputtery Truck I still have not replaced the parts on yet. I will be taking care of that this weekend. That should be a simple enough fix (and relatively quick). As for the Tahoe, that’s a different story. I’m not sure what’s finally going wrong with it and to be honest I’m getting tired of putting money into two vehicles. The wife and I finally decided it’s time for a new vehicle. Because of the company I work for I’ll get ‘fleet’ pricing so hopefully that’ll help keep the monthly payment down. We’ll see. Once we get said new vehicle we’ll be selling the Tahoe and getting rid of that Albatross around our necks.
V & A Shipping:
V&A Shipping has gone through a round of tough edits and rewrites. I also went over to http://www.designedbystarla.com to order cover art for V&A Shipping. It looks good for getting the ebook cover prior to the 2/1 release of the ebook version and should have the print cover completed before the 3/1 release date. So we’re looking good there. I’ve sent of the manuscript for further editing. I’ll also be doing another re-read to make sure V&A II is consistent with what I set up in the first book. I don’t want to start mixing technologies and weird things like that. I’m excited to get this one out there. The podcast was so long ago that I know people are chomping at the bit for a sequel. We’ll have to see when that one will fall into the schedule.
Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty:
My collaborative with Mike Plested (who recently released his 100th episode of Get Published) has gone through a heavy series of rewrites, edits, and corrections. I’ll be hopefully going through another round this week and we’ll have that one ready to submit. Mike and I are sending this one off to a publisher that requested to look at it so we’re very excited about that.
Misc:
Now you’re up to date on what I’ve been doing. Couple other minor things I’ve done. I created a motivational thread for the month of January over at sffworld.com. If you need motivation or would like to share your progress and encourage others, hop on over there.
I haven’t written one word of new fiction yet this year. I’m not worried. I just know that I need to get writing soon. I had to major editing projects to accomplish first before I get started on new fiction. I’m nearly done with V&A II so it pains me not to be finishing it. I also need to get the next episode of Golden West produced. So many things to do.
I will also be writing up a weekly rant this week on something I’ve seen authors do recently that to me is deplorable and detrimental. I’ve seen it used in the past and caused a certain author to struggle and I can only see this causing problems for other authors in the future. I won’t go into that here as I’ll get all riled up.
There is much to do and only so much time to get it done. I’d better get on it!
Until Next Week!
WOO WOO!
Daily Update: Going Weekly
During 2012 I blogged a lot. I also wrote a lot. In total I came out to just around 490,000 words. Of that, only 267,000 words were of new fiction. So yes, I blogged a lot. Those blogging words really didn’t detract from my fiction writing and did help me surpass my 450,000 word goal for 2012. I don’t regret anything I did in 2012 and I’m very happy with all the words I got written.
2013 is going to be a little different. I’m not going to try and blog daily. Talking with the Millican, he was right in that I was putting a lot of stress on myself in trying to keep rambling from day to day and it usually wasn’t anything productive and I repeated myself….a lot. My more interesting posts were when I was away for a time and actually had something to say. Therefore in 2013 I’ll be blogging weekly, not daily.
This doesn’t there’ll be lack of content. Each book I put out this year I will be blogging a chapter per day. If all goes right, this will start with V&A Shipping on 2/1/2012. by 3/1 I hope to have the print book out (the ebook being available on 2/1). If all goes well I’ll be able to provide daily content for a majority of the year. I’ve got a lot of completed works and we I said in 2012, 2013 will see a bunch of those in print while I finish up other works. I intend to be prolific in both new content as well as getting completed content out to readers.
Of course, the first step will be covers, covers, covers. Well, okay, that’s really the second step. The first step will be getting the interiors of the books completed so we know the spine size for the print versions. I’ve done a couple layouts and I’ll be re-learing layout and ebook layout so I can make sure the books look as good as possible. I already have a cover artist that I want to use, I just need to get things ready on my end so I can have everything ready to go before 2/1. It’ll be a busy time.
If you’re a writer I hope you have big plans for the new year. Not just big plans, but goals set out before you that you can track the progress of. I’ve seen some goals like “Complete my first novel”, or “Finish my 4th draft of my first book”. To me, those are quite vague. As I said, my goals have morphed over the holiday season and I’ll be posting those out in the next couple of days. My #1 goal will be to average 1000 words of new fiction per day in 2013. That’ll be 365,000 words of new fiction written. Simple enough spreadsheet. I won’t be counting blogging words into my annual goal anymore. I can ramble with the best of them and that’s not fair for me to count those anymore.
If you’re not a writer, I hope you also have some goals (you can call them resolutions if you like) laid out for 2013. It a new year. A fresh start. Time to get on track with any of your goals. Write them down. Refer to them often. Track your progress. Try to make them specific where possible. If you have a vague goal (lose weight) try to better specify that with “Lose 5% of my body mass” or “Drop down to 20% body fat” and figure out how to track that progress. Just saying I want to lose weight isn’t enough to actually realize that goal. Trust me, I tried. I tracked my writing and saw success. I didn’t track my weight and I’m still as chubby as I ever was.
I hope you had a great holiday season regardless of what and how you celebrate. I ate too much, drank too much, watched more TV than I did the entire year, and I’m all recharged and ready to go. Time was spent with family and friends and I’m looking forward to hitting the new year running at full speed (except when I’m taking a walk, that is).
Speaking of hitting the ground running!
Until Next Week!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 