Exciting Times for Indie Authors

Those who follow my blog know that I’m always interested in the data released by Hugh Howey and others through his Author Earnings Reports. Howey’s research began nearly two years ago, and with each report he uncovers a little more to better reflect what’s happening with Amazon sales to indie and traditionally published authors.

In his latest report, Howey notes that he’s uncovered plenty of info that hasn’t shown up in earlier data. This time, he and his team have gone beyond Amazon’s bestsellers list to collect data. They’ve scoured the also-bought recommendations and authors’ complete catalogs. Howey states that this resulted in a million-title dataset that allowed his team to look at the earnings of a wide range of authors.

As is normal for Author Earnings reports, Howey also incorporates detailed charts about the ebook market share. In the past, the reports have focused on ebook sales, but this report takes things to a whole new level by including hardcover, paperback and audio sales on Amazon (note that the study still doesn’t include sales from other platforms).

Rather than repeat all of his results, I encourage you to read the report here. It’s detailed but easy to understand and the charts really help visual learners. But I will share Howey’s summary because I believe it to be true. Based on his research, it is certainly possible to earn $50,000+ a year from fiction writing without ever sending out a single query letter to a traditional publisher. A growing number of indie writers are doing just that.

As Howey says, these are indeed exciting times! Oh, and one eye-opening hint, literary fiction isn’t doing as poorly as some might think!

Debra

Twelve Reasons Why Authors' Incomes Are Dwindling

Last week, I received my annual check from Access Copyright. For those who don’t know, Access Copyright is a national, non-profit organization here in Canada that represents thousands of writers, visual artists and publishers.(There are similar organizations in other countries). Access Copyright licenses the copying of the creators’ works, collects the proceeds, then distributes it among the writers and visual artists. Once a year, all participants receive a base payment. Over the past two years, the payment has dropped from $146.18 in 2013, to $112.75 in 2014, and this year was $79.48. This is possibly due to licensing battles with some educational institutions. Not every post-secondary school wants to pay to copy an author’s work. (I’ll save that ethical discussion for another time).

I’ve also been read interesting blogs from mystery author Hope Clark. She’s been in the writing biz a long time and recently discussed the number of emails she’s received from disillusioned writers who aren’t selling nearly as many books as they’d hoped, and who want advice. In Nov. 20^th issue of her newsletter, Hope makes some great points, all of which address why readers shouldn’t expect to make money.

Overall, writers’s income are dwindling for several reasons. Here’s my top 12:

1)      As Hope states, readers expect to pay less for books. There’s a glut of free books and $.99 books enabling anyone to fill up their Kindles by spending very little.

2)      As a mystery writer, most of my readers are women in their 40’s to 70’s, who are downsizing their homes and learning to live on fixed incomes. Print or full-priced books have become a luxury that an increasing number of readers can’t afford.

3)      Ebooks can be borrowed from the library, and one can now read award-winning fiction from established authors free of charge.

4)       The growing number of published books far exceeds the growing number of readers.

5)      As Hope has also indicated, authors are selling fewer books. Not so long ago, an author could reasonably expect 500 sales. Now, many writers are lucky if they sell a 100 copies.

6)      Some authors are falling into the quantity is better than quality trap. In the rush to increase the odds of making sales, they are writing at a frantic pace without stopping for proper editing. Ultimately, this will harm their reputation.

7)      Amazon’s ever changing and mysterious algorithms changes visibility for some authors.

8)      Authors whose books can be borrowed through Amazon’s subscription service are also  finding that the shared pot is shrinking.

9)      Authors under contract with larger publishers are receiving smaller advances than their counterparts from a few years ago.

10)  Self-publishing, done properly, can be expensive. A good jacket designer and an editor could cost hundreds of dollars.

11)  I can’t speak for other genres, but the number of established mystery reviewers who write for major publications has shrunk. Print space is becoming almost non-existent in Canada, and this has impacted sales.

12)  My final reason will be the least popular, but it’s true. I’ve talked to wannabe authors at workshops who have neither the time nor interest in marketing their work. That doesn’t make them bad people or lazy people, just people with other priorities, i.e. day jobs and family members to care for.

I’m sure there are more reasons than the ones I’ve covered and, of course, there are always exceptions. If you read Kindleboards, you’ll know that plenty of authors appear to be making more money than ever through self-publishing. My advice is to study what the successful ones are doing. Read their blogs and follow their strategy. It takes a great deal of time and energy, but with patience, tenacity, and adaptability, it can pay off.

Debra

What's Missing From This Picture?

If you’re a professional author who works hard to make a living from writing, this week’s news is grim, based on three surveys from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. TheWriters’ Union of Canada (TWUC) reported that writers’ incomes are down by 27% from 1998. 45% of survey participants report that they are working harder just to earn what they had previously. Note that the average income for writers is $12,879, which is $36,000 below the poverty line, and women earn only 55% of that earned by their male counterparts. One of the major reasons cited by TWUC’s executive director is weakening copyright protection in Canada. Also note that TWUC is comprised of 2,000 members, but this is only a fraction of all writers in Canada. Ironically, some writers I know find TWUC’s annual fee too expensive.

The American AuthorsGuild (AG) conducted a similar survey in April 2015. Results are still being analyzed but they do state that writing incomes have decreased by 24% since the last survey in 2009. Median incomes were $8,000 with full-time writers’ incomes dropping from $25,000 to $17,000. Here’s the stat that got me: writers who’ve been writing for 25 to 40 years have seen the greatest drop in their incomes from $28,7500 to $,9500. Yikes! The Guild is citing unfair publishing contracts as a main reason for the drop, claiming that publishers’ revenues have steadily risen over the years.

In the UK, TheAuthors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), gathered information in 2013 from different writers’ organizations. They found that writers’ incomes have dropped by 29% since 2005. They also found that the number of writers who’ve been able to make a living from writing dropped from 40% to 11.5%  This survey also acknowledges the self-publishing aspect a little, by indicating that 25% of survey participants had self-published at some point and that 80% would do so again.

But here’s the thing. All three surveys don’t come close to capturing the real story of writers’ incomes because, aside from ALCS, they don’t address indie authors. I suspect that many indie authors don’t belong to these organizations. I also believe that there is an increasingly large shadow industry of writers writing and selling books and earning money.

The shadow industry was alluded to in one of Hugh Howey’s Authors Earnings reports that I blogged about earlier this year. Howey discovered that a fair number of titles were selling without ISBN numbers on Amazon. ISBNS are used by many organizations to identify the number of books being published globally, but the stats aren’t accurate. I am just one of many authors who bought several ISBNs back in the day, but never used all of them. Also, I and other writers use local services to print books which we sell by hand at trade shows and other events. Honestly, I sell more print books than TWUC or any organization realizes. This doesn’t mean that I’m earning more than the average writer. In fact, I’m earning less. But neither am I working at publishing and selling full-time.

My point is that although those surveys reveal important things, they don’t tell us the whole picture. No one does because I seriously doubt that anyone knows what it really is.

Debra

Are Publishing Choices Confusing You?

Hugh Howey has produced another insightful AuthorEarning’s report, this time focusing on the impact of Kindle Unlimited (KU), which is Amazon’s ebook service launched this summer. According to Howey, and based on what I’ve read elsewhere, it’s possible that KU might be hurting sales for self-publishers. According to Howey, the reason is that ebooks downloaded from KU earn the same amount as a sale for traditional publishers but for self-publishers payment depends on how much money is in the shared pool of funds.

For the October report, Howey’s team pulled data from 120,000 ebooks off of Amazon’s data product pages, which is his largest snapshot of the industry to date. The first five charts in Howey’s report focus on five different assumptions about the KU borrow rate, and what it could mean to an author’s income. He then goes on to assess daily sales rates and other data. As Howey notes, these snapshots started only nine months ago and might not reflect true and consistent trends in ebook sales. It will be interesting to see if next year’s reports differ significantly from what he found this year.

Howey’s findings show that KU does seem to have an impact on ebook rankings, visibility, and therefore potential income for self-published authors. I know that indie authors have been complaining about it for weeks on various forums, so he could be right, but I’m not sure if the impact affects all genres or all authors.

Howey states there were 2,908,475 ebooks sold on Amazon, and that 25.6% of them are available through the KU program at the time he prepared this latest report. Of those 25.6% available, 20% of them are on KU’s bestseller list and sub-lists. You can read a lot more information and interesting stats by reading the full report.

Author Earnings reports were created to help authors make clearer choices about how to publish and sell their books. I think the intention was good, but after studying all the material and charts, and reading all the explanations and interpretations of  Howey’s findings over the past nine months, I still have no idea which publishing option would generate the best income for me. If I was to self-publish, should I go with KDP or not? KU or not? CreateSpace or not? Of course, my royalty rate would be higher than it is with a traditional publisher, but would I sell enough copies to cover the cost of hiring a jacket designer and good editor? Despite the growing number of self-publishers making a living from writing, the overwhelming percentage of authors are not, based on stats from different sources. While I appreciate the time and trouble Howey has taken to compile all that data, the decision about publishing choices is more perplexing than ever.

Debra

Good News for Self-Publishers

This month, author Hugh Howey posted another Author Earnings report and the data is really interesting. Howey started this project to identify emerging trends in digital publishing and therefore help writers make more informed choices about publishing their manuscripts. To acquire the data, he looked at four things on Amazon: number of ranked titles, number of unit sales, gross earnings, and author earnings. He also has a link describing his methodology and, although I haven’t read that link, his stats are intriguing. Of course, there are always skeptics and critics, which is good. Questions should always be asked.

I won’t go into all the numbers and stats Howey came up with as you can read the report and see the graphs yourself, however a couple of things did strike me. The numbers show that self-publishers (also known as indie publishers) and small-to-mid-sized publishers are outselling the big five publishers on the bestseller list. They are also doing better in daily unit sales, (a combined 51% of sales to the big five’s 38%,) however, the big five publishers are making more money. Book pricing appears the big difference here, although there could well be other factors.

Howey also notes that self-published authors have been steadily earning more income (although disgruntled indie writers on Kindleboard forums would dispute this) while big five authors are earning less. Howey states that indie authors now earn more royalties than all big five authors combined. Based on his last two reports, indie author royalties are definitely creeping up the ladder. In fact, self-published authors are earning 40% of all royalties paid on the Kindle store. One possible reason for this, Howey says, is that big five publishers do seasonal promotion rather than year-round events like indie publishers tend to do.

One of the biggest myths out there, and something I’ve been wondering myself, is whether romance/erotica and sci-fi/fantasy novels are grabbing the lion’s share of indie sales. According to Howey, the answer is that while romance/erotica does sell more than other genres, nonfiction and mysteries are right behind them, with sci-fi/fantasy a little down on the list. Take a look at his findings  at http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/

 Debra

The Challenge of Staying Relevant

After taking a look at a selection of this week’s blogs and articles, it’s clear that Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings has, shall we say, ruffled a few feathers in the publishing world, and most of these feathers belong to those who make their living through traditional publishing. It’s not surprising. Howey’s second report now involved 54,000 books rather than 7,000 the first time, and added more categories to include nonfiction, literary, and children’s books. Howey’s findings support what he concluded last week. In a nutshell, e-book publishing is having a significant impact on overall sales. He provides a detailed breakdown which you can find through the link.

Although literary e-books only make up a small fraction of all e-book sales, Howey also found that self-published literary authors do make more money. In fact, Howey says that self-published authors earn 5.6 times more money than their traditionally published counterparts, although I’m not sure where that figure comes from. His blog suggests that this is an already determined fact. But you can see why his report is sparking controversy. There’s plenty of argument about how he captures his data and whether these snapshots of sales is even relevant.

One interesting comment from a blogger really struck me. The blogger said that diminishing revenue isn't irritating the traditional publishing world as much as the underlying realization that traditional publishing isn’t as relevant as it used to be. They’re losing their grasp at the top, as a growing number of authors aren’t even bothering to submit their books. Now, I’m quite sure that the slush piles are still large on publishers’ desks. I’m just suggesting that those stacks aren’t as tall as they would be if self-publishing didn’t exist.

In any event, I do wonder if relevancy is also worrying literary agents and bookstores. Given that  brick-and-mortar stores sell only 1% of all released titles, they’re shelves aren’t relevant for many authors. What about the relevancy of agencies like the Authors Guild? Again, blogs and articles over recent months strongly suggest that the Guild is woefully out of touch and—to put it mildly—not overly supportive of self-publishing.

And what about the relevancy of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). They’ve been swept up in an internal brouhaha alleging not only sexism among members but bias against self-publishers. Clearly, not all members believe that self-publishers should have the same status has traditionally published authors. You can read a detailed account of the situation in Teleread, which comes straight out and asks if SFWA is even relevant anymore?

The second-class status issue has been one of the less appealing aspects of mystery conferences for years. A couple of conferences I attended (this was about five years ago) made it quite clear that self-publishers need not apply to be on panels. Of course, organizers happily took their registration money, but self-publishers weren’t allowed to sell their books in the dealers’ room either. Are these conferences relevant today?  It’s hard to stay on top of things, isn’t it? It’s even harder to know what to do when one feels that it’s all slipping away. I do know that a number of organizations, such as Crime Writers of Canada, make everyone feel welcome. If publishers and organizations and stores want to stay relevant, then they’d better start embracing new realities. Fighting through a war of words just won’t cut it.

Debra

More Revealing Stats!

About three weeks ago, I posted a blog called “A Financial Reality Check for Writers” which discussed a survey about the poor earnings many authors receive for their work. The survey prompted a fair bit of discussion about whether the authors questioned were a true reflection of the whole writing community. Some claimed that most of those surveyed were beginning writers, therefore the meager earnings was expected.

This week I found that bestselling indie author Hugh Howey has launched a brand new site called Author Earnings, for the purpose of gathering and sharing information about earnings and bookselling so that writers can make informed decisions. Howey will be taking regular snapshots of sales in the industry, using not only Amazon’s stats, but information from BookScan. BookScan gathers stats from traditional book publishers brick-and-mortar stores. A piece in The Bookseller provides a good overview of what Howey’s done so far and what he hopes to accomplish. Also, Howey provides some detailed findings called What Writers Leave on the Table.

What’s exciting about this new site is that Howey’s is not just looking at e-books, but at print, audio, and other platforms. He’ll also be conducting regular surveys and looking at a much broader spectrum of authors and publishers than in previous studies. He’s even provided a way for authors to take part through the petition button on the Author Earnings website.

Some of the findings that have stood out for him so far is that 90% of Amazon’s book sales come from e-books. Also, in the mystery/thriller, fantasy/sci fi, and romance categories, indie authors are now outselling the Big Five publishers. Who would have thought that five years ago? Anyhow, I signed up today to receive Author Earnings newsletters. I can’t wait to see what else this interesting site turns up.