I just uploaded a free version of From the Clay of His Heart to the stories area. Check it out. The story made the Locus recommended reading list for 2008 and was included in the Year’s Best Fantasy 9 anthology published this summer.
After discussions with my agent and a few others, I’ve decided NOT to shop BAD PENNY to New York publishers. In fact, I’ve decided I’m not going to be shopping anything to NY for the next 12 – 18 months.
My agent was certainly willing to take the property out, but given the average expected advance for thrillers ($15-20k per book; maybe up to $100k for three books) and the terms that NY currently wants, I thought that it might be worth it to try to build something on my own.
I do not hold the illusions some do about indie publishing (I probably hold others). For example, I know quite a few authors who have published indie and are selling very low numbers each month–single digits and teens. Of course, I know others, a smaller portion, who are selling just fine.
But then what’s the bar? How many copies do I have to sell on my own over a three to five year period to match what NY can do for me via brick and mortar?
Let’s look at that from a revenue and a unit perspective.
The average advance for a fantasy, according to Tobias Buckell’s survey, is about $7,000 for a new author. $12,000 for an established author. We saw the numbers I gathered for thrillers above.
So lets see how many copies I’d have to sell indie style to earn as much as I’d get in an advance from New York. Why not select a higher number? Well, my understanding is that most books don’t earn out their advance. That doesn’t mean the publisher doesn’t make money; just that a publisher’s profit isn’t dependent on an author earning out.
So what are the numbers? Well, here are the numbers for NY. Down the first column you’ll see the different formats. Across the rows you’ll see how many units I’d have to sell to make the advance specified at the top. And how many units I’d have to sell if I wanted to spread the total over three years.
Okay, and here’s what I’d have to sell if I went indie to make the same numbers. I put in the trade paperback format for both 600 and 400 pages because that’s about how big SERVANT and BAD PENNY are going to be.
What does this tell me?
It tells me I have to sell a heck of a lot more units with NY at a much higher price than I do indie. It tells me that a $5,000 advance is not even close to being worth the control I lose with NY. And if it’s true that most books don’t earn out, then it tells me the units that are being sold by NY on the average book.
Back in 2009 I shared this: How Many Copies Do Average Authors Sell? This was from an editor at Tor Books. Seems like my numbers are in the ball park.
It’s true that NY could get me into brick and mortar stores. But if the book gets shelved spine out in the back, how many people will discover it?
It’s true that NY produces some spectacular hits. I looked at the USA Today bestseller list yesterday and it appears only about 10% of the books there this week are indies. But I can’t bank on becoming a NY wonder. The vast majority of NY published books DON’T make the bestseller lists.
Finally, even if I sold BAD PENNY today, it still wouldn’t hit shelves for probably 12-18 months from now. And then it would only stay on the shelves for 12-18 weeks. Going indie, I will have it up by September. And it will stay. For years and years and years.
There’s no guarantee of success either way. But the indie numbers look good to me. We’ll see how it goes.
You’ll notice that the progress meter for Awful Intent is slowly rising. I just finished the first draft of chapter 23. The meter says I’m almost 75% of the way done. But I’m thinking I might need an extra six chapters to finish this tale. We’ll see. The number of chapters I estimate I’ll have is always, well, an estimate. But we are moving forward. The next chapter is where we get the next step in the mystery which leads to the big twist in the chapter after that which ratchets up the stakes.
And for those of you wondering about the Far-Fetched Fables production of “From The Clay of His Heart,” they usually do two stories in an episode. But my story was too big to be paired with another big story, so they have moved the story “to the June 2nd (the first available spot on our schedule).”
I’m at the 51% mark with my trim and have cut 10,000 words. Right on target. And I haven’t cut any story, just flab in the writing. Usually when I revise, I add words. I thought I wrote lean, but that’s clearly not the case. Strangely enough, I have to say that I’ve enjoyed every hour of this. I’m loving this edit, improving the flow and immediacy, cutting out redundancies and superflous lines. Who would have thunk?
For those of you who are numbers geeks, here’s a peek at the spreadsheet I’m using to track my trim goals and actuals. “Var” means variance. “CTarget” is the target to cut from the chapter.
One of the best books I read back in 2012 was The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. You can see my review here. It’s now out in paperback, and I have a copy.
More importantly, I have decided that it’s time to change one habit.
ONE.
Why just one?
Habits have enormous power in our lives. And Duhigg explains that “A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves.”
Why is this? Because one small win often precipitates a cascade of other small wins and changes.
It’s time for a series of small wins.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to be re-reading THE POWER OF HABIT and applying the insights.
What am I going to change?
Saying no to all the things I want to do at 9:30 PM and getting my keister into bed. So I can enjoy a full night’s sleep. And all the benefits that flow from that.
Please feel free to join me in a quest for one small change.
The United Authors Association is holding a fiction writing conference October 24th in Springville, Utah, and it’s free to the public!
The conference schedule has some great presentation topics on it by authors who are delighting a lot of readers as well as an editor, agent, and a magician.
I’m going to be presenting on the fundamental core of story–“Scene and Sequel”–expect we’ll be replacing those two terms right off that bat. Hope to see you there.
