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Most books (including all of mine) sell less less than 5000 copies because that’s what they deserve not because they need a 2 year ooga booga. Most books should get low quality, quick production if the material even deserves bookification, and get polished post-publication
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The industry is built on unnecessary authorial Stockholm syndrome around a game of gatekeepers generally not worth playing for 90% who try. Self-publish, keep 10x more of the money, ditch quality fetishes unless you like doing it yourself, save trees.
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FWIW I don't disagree with this at all. I probably should have added something about self-publishing. I wasn't trying to say that there aren't a lot of benefits to it, only that if you are trad publishing most of the timeline is eaten up in things like edits and promotion.
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My point is it’s 90% misallocated effort and the industry is kinda a dinosaur like buggywhip makers miraculously managing to continue selling whips to a market which had moved on from horses to cars. It feels like car owners buying whips as a backup 😂
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lol. Although has the market moved on ? Ebook growth has stalled and print still somehow dominates book sales. Obviously some people make a lot of money with ebooks, but with the overall market print still is king which means dealing with retail if you go that route
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Text on the internet absolutely dwarfs books though As a blog native I’ve never thought of paper books as anything more than an archival curiosity and something to give my parents as a souvenir. 9 of my 10 volumes are ebook only and do good enough sales for me at 10x margin
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yeah I think this gets into larger questions of being read vs. earning a living and also the differences between fiction and nonfiction. (Even short fiction doesn't do that well online, although I certainly love to see that change.)
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The limited short fiction I’ve posted online has been very well-received and I plan to do more, though my past viral hits have all been nonfiction The big issue is fiction needs more rewrite passes to get to coherence. Nonfiction I can get to good enough in one shot
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Re: being read vs earning a living, I’ve done okay… I suspect I’ve been read vastly more than most book authors since most of my books were free blogs/newsletters first, and the money’s been decent enough pocket change over a decade. Did some analysis here if you’re interested
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Life in the long tail 10 years (started with Tempo paperback in May 2011) 10 volumes — 9 ebook-only, 1 e+p book ~84k at ~90% gross margins ~16.5k ebooks (2/3 of rev) , ~2.8k p books (1/3) 7/10 books in the black, 3 still in red Takes a couple of years for a book to recover costs
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