After reading Barry’s blog post about how shitty his “bigtime” publisher treated him and his new book Bailout Nation, I can’t help but offer my assistance…
Barry, as a successful independent blogger, you should have realized the old-timers just don’t get how much potential the new world offers those willing to adapt. No matter, people make mistakes, the good news is that your blogging success should also help you realize WE DON’T NEED OLD WORLD PUBLISHERS!
Let review the facts:
Going with bigtime publishers authors get:
1-2 years to get a published book on the market
On average, 30-40% of all books bought in bookstores are returned, in this economy it’s probly 50-60%
Authors get paid by their publishers on average $2-$4 per hardcover, 50 cents per paperback copy.
If a book doesn’t sell much, publishers let it sit on bookshelves for 8-12 months then it goes out of print.
Sales reporting is 3-6 months behind so authors don’t know how much they’re actually due until waaay late.
Publishers charge the authors a premium on their own books if they want to send them to friends or have some extras for autograph purposes, minus a few dozen/hundred as freebies….pathetic.
Publishers do send out the books to the main reviewers, but unless you get a large advance, authors, especially business authors, are on their own for marketing and promotional purposes (wave goodbye to little advance $!)
Final edit and say in how the book is marketed varies, but as Barry’s post details, its all very gray area.
It’s an outdated process where authors have very little control over the final product–don’t even get me started on pathetic business book cover designs–and even less monetary incentive.
The main benefit of getting published is getting your name out there with mainstream reviews, maybe even a book tour and to say “I’m a published author”, a foundation from which to build an entire brand or to support an existing business like Barry’s asset management or his proprietary screening software.
Now Barry’s book is already a massive success, apparently 22,000 copies being pre-sold and he probly got a pretty nice advance too so marketing and promotion is a gimme, but here are the benefits of going with an efficient/new age publishing company like my BullShip Press, LLC
Forget bookstores, sell everything online, people who don’t know how to use the internet or order off Amazon.com or BN.com don’t even deserve to be able to buy books, they seem to like living in the Dark Ages.
Totally print-on-demand printing, when someone orders the book, it gets printed and shipped within 1-2 days by Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingram (the largest book wholesaler)
No discounting of 30-40%, no returns, on a $20 retail price, the profit is $12, $6 each for the author and publisher (Amazon/Bn.com & Ingram/Lightning Source split the remaining $8)…on a $25 or $30 retail, it’s even more.
On sale online forever, no 8-12 months-only BS.
Books for signing/sending to friends cost just a few dollars each, get ‘em direct from the printers, no publisher profits there.
Daily sales reporting…yes because the internet is efficient.
No advances, author and publisher split profits 50/50
Publisher works their ass off sending book to every major reviewer–especially the Amazon Top Reviews–and any blogger with any traffic whatsoever…frequent contests for free copies on various high traffic blogs.
I used the above strategy with my book An American Hedge Fund and instead of accepting Wiley’s $35,000 advance offer–which was really $30k after my hastily contacted agent used to negotiate dealpoints and $26k since I’d already paid $4k for editing, which Wiley would’ve taken care of had we’d been in touch earlier.
Overall, I spent like $35k on production and marketing–$18k of which was a total waste on a PR firm–and in just over 15 months, I’ve made in excess of $70k and am still earning a thousand or so each month for the rest of my life….on approximately 6,000 copies sold…with only 1 mainstream review by the DJ Newswire, which unfortunately is a subscription service, but which compared my book to the classic ‘Reminscences of a Stock Operator’ (Think about the profits on a book with 22,000 pre-sold!)
My profits are just part of the story; more importantly, the final product was EXACTLY what I wanted and I got it out in 6 months–that speed proved important by the Leveraged Sellout’s poorly timed flop of a book “Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker”, which was written exactly around the time of my book in early-2007, but didn’t come out until late-2008, the exact worst time to be a banker LOLOLOL…idiot.
So, Barry, open yourself up to a new publishing model and let’s chat sometime.