Ins & Outs of Publishing

The Knight Agency blog posted the differences between e-publishing and print publishing that seriously pushed me up the learning curve.

Interesting tidbits. Do read the whole thing.

To sell in print, the average author writes for about 7 years and writes an average of 4-5 full manuscripts (of 100K words each) before selling.

I have two fulls and one partial. I'm half way there. I'm not even going to try to count the years

...selling to some e-publishers, like Ellora's Cave, has gotten every bit as difficult as selling to print publishers because they are so popular.

Popular with who? I can't curl up with my computer.

If the book is a $6.20 download and you make 35% of that, then you make $2.17 per book, which sounds pretty good. But many e-authors are lucky to sell 1000 units. So you've spent a lot of time and effort to make $2170. And to make that, you had to do some online advertising, which costs you money. So say you kept $1500. A book that costs $6.20 is a longer one, so let's say you could write 4 of those a year. If you stay on budget and sell 1000 units of each, you've just made $6000 for the whole year. Can't live on that.

Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah. To see my name in print. Money's optional.

So you get "the call" that an editor wants to buy your first book tomorrow, let's say. It will be somewhere around June before you see your contract. IF there are no changes, you'll sign it and turn it in, and get your $2500 within the next 60 days, so somewhere around August. If you have to modify the contract...that just holds the money up. If you turn the book in at the end of September, you'll see the $1250 you're due in late November/early December. Then let's say your book is scheduled to hit shelves in October of the following year. Well, you don't see that $1250 until the following October + 60 days it takes to process they check from the publisher. So you'll have a total of $5000 for that 20 month period.

Think of the long term investment. And the need to get those voices out of my head.

I'm positive I'm missing some really great points. But that's why you should go read the whole thing.