Now, this is only peripherally a writerly type post, but bear with me...
Earlier this week, I got an email from Goodreads telling me that I have a credit on my marketing account or some such thing and that I needed to do something about it.
First off, I thought it was a spoof email and I sure as hell wasn't clicking any links* in it. Why did I think it was a spoof? Because, to the best of my knowledge, I had never marketed with Goodreads or put any money into an account with them, so how could I have a credit?
Well, it turns out that at some point in 2015, I had done something. My best guess? They offered me a $1 credit to play with. So, I used the credit to set up an ad for Dying Embers. One person clicked the ad and then the ad was done. Leaving a whopping 50c in my account with them.
According to the email, that 50c is going to become the property of the state of Delaware if I don't claim it. (From what I gathered, I can contact support at Goodreads and have the money transferred into my bank account.)
Delaware? But Goodreads is in CA. Hubs says a lot of companies incorporate in DE, so that explains that. :shrug:
Anyway, I've already wasted more than 50c of my time dealing with this, so I moved the email into the Archives so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore. But it stayed in my head.
This is bad business. It's also bad government, but I won't get into that here. Think about it... Goodreads - a business - offers its customers a credit (not real money) to encourage sales of its marketing but when the credit isn't used in its entirety, they're willing to send the remaining credit as actual money to either the customer or, according to the laws of the state of Delaware, to the state of Delaware. But it was never actual money.
I never gave Goodreads my account number. I never transferred any money to them via bank or credit card. It's not my money.
And it's not the state of Delaware's money.
It's Goodreads' own money. Because even though it wasn't actual money when they gave me the credit, it's actual money now - ready to be plopped into a bank account somewhere. Sure, it's only 50c for me. But what if 1000 authors received the $1 credit and never put it to use? 10000? Now we're talking money any one of us would certainly like in our own pockets. Drop in the bucket for Goodreads, right? Probably, but that's not the point. It's bad business.
And it's bad government because I'm sure this thing where they're offering to give the money back - well, not really 'back', per se - is driven by some strange ass law in DE.
Part of me wants to claim the damn 50c because I don't want the state of Delaware to have it. It doesn't belong to them. But it doesn't belong to me either. It belongs to silly-ass Goodreads. And it always has.
Frankly, I'm surprised that a business like Goodreads would make such a gaff. Especially since it's now owned by Amazon. But the credit was given before the takeover, so maybe that's the answer. :shrug:
Any of you get a letter like that from Goodreads? Have you ever used Goodreads to market anything? How'd that work for you?
* I don't click links in emails unless I know exactly who it's from, why I'm getting a link, and where it's going to take me. In this case, I went directly to Goodreads and checked my marketing account (not easy to find, BTW) to verify that the email was correct. No link clicking necessary.
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Monday, July 1, 2019
Budget Quandary
Budget-wise, I'm not sure how other writers do this self-publishing thing. Obviously, they are selling more books than I am, so their budgets have more padding than mine. But is it only that? Or do they have a second job to help fund this venture?
I've pared my budget down to the barest of bones. I do most everything myself. The only exceptions are certain covers (because I do not have the skill for paranormal covers like my artist does) and the editing (because unless you are an exceptionally objective person, it's hard to edit your own books to the level they need to be for publishing).
The quandary I find myself in at the present point is: spend my limited resources on marketing or save it up until I have enough money to pay the editor? (I've already paid the cover artist for the next two Sleeping Ugly covers.) These past few months, I've been paying for ads.
Without ads, my sales would be totally ghost town and crickets.
On the other hand, if I don't put out new books, my sales will continue to dwindle as I reach market saturation.
Blerg.
I've thought about getting a second job - especially since I don't seem to be doing much on the first job lately - but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to work outside the house after all these years. Most places would allow me to be as flexible as I need to be.
And I can't make myself take any more money out of the house budget to fund this. Every time I think about how much money I've spent vs how little money I've made... the guilt... it burns.
For now, I'll keep marketing and hope something breaks. (Hopefully, this writerly dry-spell breaks along with it.)
How to do decide where to spend your publishing monies? Or is that not a problem for you?
I've pared my budget down to the barest of bones. I do most everything myself. The only exceptions are certain covers (because I do not have the skill for paranormal covers like my artist does) and the editing (because unless you are an exceptionally objective person, it's hard to edit your own books to the level they need to be for publishing).
The quandary I find myself in at the present point is: spend my limited resources on marketing or save it up until I have enough money to pay the editor? (I've already paid the cover artist for the next two Sleeping Ugly covers.) These past few months, I've been paying for ads.
Without ads, my sales would be totally ghost town and crickets.
On the other hand, if I don't put out new books, my sales will continue to dwindle as I reach market saturation.
Blerg.
I've thought about getting a second job - especially since I don't seem to be doing much on the first job lately - but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to work outside the house after all these years. Most places would allow me to be as flexible as I need to be.
And I can't make myself take any more money out of the house budget to fund this. Every time I think about how much money I've spent vs how little money I've made... the guilt... it burns.
For now, I'll keep marketing and hope something breaks. (Hopefully, this writerly dry-spell breaks along with it.)
How to do decide where to spend your publishing monies? Or is that not a problem for you?
Monday, June 10, 2019
Watch Everything
Over the weekend, I sold a book. Yes, I sell few enough right now that it's an event, but that's not why I bring it up. I sold a copy of a book at $3.99. And I got $1.40 in royalties when I should have gotten $2.74. (When you're small beans, every penny counts.)
Basically, they gave me the 35% royalty rate instead of the 70% rate.
Once I realized this, I checked first to make sure I hadn't accidentally clicked the 35% rate at some point. Nope. I've got it clicked right. Then I contacted Amazon to get it fixed. (I'm still waiting on a reply at the time of this post's creation.)
Then I got to thinking. I don't usually check this stuff. Usually, I assume everything is hunky-dory until I match up the deposits with the amounts I assume I'm going to get. Which is two months down the road from the actual sale. So far, everything has matched up.
But what if it didn't?
And what if I was selling way more books, so one messed up royalty percentage wasn't as obvious?
What a clusterfuck that would be.
Now, I don't believe this was intentional. I think it's more an issue of the massive amount of calculations and code it takes to run a website like Amazon. There are bound to be errors now and again.
Sometimes, it's a customer issue. In February, Amazon showed that I sold a copy of Project Hermes, but the money never showed in my Royalties Earned section. I chalked that up to the actual payment never going through - which sometimes happened. Sucks, but it does. Oddly enough, I got paid for a copy of PH in April that I never showed selling. So it all worked out somehow or other.
My point is authors really have to watch what's going on. All of it. All the time. $1.34 doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up over time. Or think of it this way, that's a cup of coffee. Over 100 sales, it's $134 which I'm sure none of us can afford to lose. Over 1000 sales... 10000 sales...
:shudder:
Or think about the agent that screwed all those authors out of royalties last year because he was funneling the money into his private charity. And somehow the authors just assumed their books weren't selling? I'd be watching even closer when someone was handling those amounts of my money. Embezzling... it's a real thing, folks.
I know it's a pain in the ass to have to watch every little thing. We've all got better things to do with our time than babysit this stuff. But not watching could really hurt the bottom line. And I, personally, like to get paid what I'm owed.
Anyway, I'll try to remember to let you know how this all works out. I have every faith that Amazon will fix my little burp. Well, not every faith. I did screen capture how my pricing page looked for WIOH before I emailed them. You know, just in case. ;o)
Basically, they gave me the 35% royalty rate instead of the 70% rate.
Once I realized this, I checked first to make sure I hadn't accidentally clicked the 35% rate at some point. Nope. I've got it clicked right. Then I contacted Amazon to get it fixed. (I'm still waiting on a reply at the time of this post's creation.)
Then I got to thinking. I don't usually check this stuff. Usually, I assume everything is hunky-dory until I match up the deposits with the amounts I assume I'm going to get. Which is two months down the road from the actual sale. So far, everything has matched up.
But what if it didn't?
And what if I was selling way more books, so one messed up royalty percentage wasn't as obvious?
What a clusterfuck that would be.
Now, I don't believe this was intentional. I think it's more an issue of the massive amount of calculations and code it takes to run a website like Amazon. There are bound to be errors now and again.
Sometimes, it's a customer issue. In February, Amazon showed that I sold a copy of Project Hermes, but the money never showed in my Royalties Earned section. I chalked that up to the actual payment never going through - which sometimes happened. Sucks, but it does. Oddly enough, I got paid for a copy of PH in April that I never showed selling. So it all worked out somehow or other.
My point is authors really have to watch what's going on. All of it. All the time. $1.34 doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up over time. Or think of it this way, that's a cup of coffee. Over 100 sales, it's $134 which I'm sure none of us can afford to lose. Over 1000 sales... 10000 sales...
:shudder:
Or think about the agent that screwed all those authors out of royalties last year because he was funneling the money into his private charity. And somehow the authors just assumed their books weren't selling? I'd be watching even closer when someone was handling those amounts of my money. Embezzling... it's a real thing, folks.
I know it's a pain in the ass to have to watch every little thing. We've all got better things to do with our time than babysit this stuff. But not watching could really hurt the bottom line. And I, personally, like to get paid what I'm owed.
Anyway, I'll try to remember to let you know how this all works out. I have every faith that Amazon will fix my little burp. Well, not every faith. I did screen capture how my pricing page looked for WIOH before I emailed them. You know, just in case. ;o)
Monday, December 24, 2018
Yet Another Reason to Never Have an Agent
I know I live in a hole, but I totally missed the hullabaloo surrounding a literary agency, their bookkeeper, and a bunch of authors earlier this year.
Go here, read this and follow the links. It's quite an education.
If you're disinclined to do all that, here it is in a nutshell.
Literary agency has bookkeeper to take care of all the financial stuff, including dispersing author royalties. Bookkeeper has side business slash charitable foundation. Bookkeeper's side thing is tanking, so he 'borrows' money from the literary agency. Over the course of 7 years, bookkeeper steals over $3 MILLION dollars.
Author who was hit the hardest assumes his money is drying up because of piracy and slow sales.
Gah.
I'm filing this one under 'Yet Another Reason to Never Have an Agent'.
Also, it should be filed under 'Never Trust Anyone Else With Your Money'. There should've been a dozen sets of eyes watching everything the bookkeeper did, the agency did, etc. And with the millions of dollars we're talking, a bit of it should've been set aside to pay for a yearly audit. But no one thought of it and now the agency is bankrupt and the hardest hit author is nearly broke.
Think about that. Broke after having several best selling novels and a freakin' hit movie people quote on a regular basis.
So, please, if you're selling enough books to warrant having someone else touch your money, watch them like a freakin' hawk. If you're not selling that many books, but you have an agent, watch them like a freakin' hawk. Doesn't matter how awesome and nice and trustworthy you think they are. Money like that is awfully tempting to a certain type of person. And there are times when you can't tell if the person you're trusting is that 'certain type of person' until it's too damn late to do anything about it.
I know it's a pain in the ass, and in a rational world, it wouldn't be this way. But we don't live in a rational world these days. Not sure if it was ever rational in my lifetime. =o\
And, yes, despite all the effort and headaches of being an independent author, I'm so glad I don't have an agent. Now, if there were just a way to audit Amazon... but that's a post for another time. At some point, though, you just have to trust and hope the Big A isn't quietly screwing its authors. Because it would be so easy for them to do... :shudder:
Friday, October 12, 2018
Writerly Depression
Always on the lookout for ways to boost sales, I read Amazon Decoded by David Gaughran this week. If you're not familiar with Gaughran, he also wrote Let's Get Digital and Let's Get Visible - two books that were instrumental in my self-publishing decisions early on.
Now, you can only get Amazon Decoded if you subscribe to his newsletter, but the newsletter is chock full of useful into, so it's a good idea anyway. Plus you get this book. I reviewed it on Goodreads. If you're interested in that, you can see the review over there or you can wait and see it on my Reading Update over on The Writing Spectacle tomorrow.
It's a good book. It was also depressing as hell for me. Because I am not anywhere near where I want to be. He's talking about sales way above anything I've ever gotten. And ranks I don't know if I will ever hit. And he's talking about them as if they were old hat. Not for me, man.
He's also talking about ads I am not in a position to pay for. I mean, you gotta spend money to make money. But you gotta HAVE money to spend money to make money. Know what I mean?
I don't even want to think about how many spreadsheets I have to do to scrape together $500 for an ad. One ad. That may or may not pay for itself? Ugh. Not happening any time soon.
Still, the book gave me some ideas. I'll give them a try and see how things go. Maybe I'll be better prepared with Unequal launches in... well, whenever it launches later this year.
I do have an ad going live today with Authors' Billboard. I have low expectations. But it's a $6 ad, so maybe I can break even. Fingers crossed.
On a side note, I saw an author complaining that they only got 50 sales on launch day for their new book. I kinda hated them a little right then. Then I hated myself a little because I don't know what I'm doing wrong. What can I say, it's been a week for the writerly depression to rear its ugly head. Which is why I've been spending a lot of time in the gardens instead of at the keyboard.
Now, you can only get Amazon Decoded if you subscribe to his newsletter, but the newsletter is chock full of useful into, so it's a good idea anyway. Plus you get this book. I reviewed it on Goodreads. If you're interested in that, you can see the review over there or you can wait and see it on my Reading Update over on The Writing Spectacle tomorrow.
It's a good book. It was also depressing as hell for me. Because I am not anywhere near where I want to be. He's talking about sales way above anything I've ever gotten. And ranks I don't know if I will ever hit. And he's talking about them as if they were old hat. Not for me, man.
He's also talking about ads I am not in a position to pay for. I mean, you gotta spend money to make money. But you gotta HAVE money to spend money to make money. Know what I mean?
I don't even want to think about how many spreadsheets I have to do to scrape together $500 for an ad. One ad. That may or may not pay for itself? Ugh. Not happening any time soon.
Still, the book gave me some ideas. I'll give them a try and see how things go. Maybe I'll be better prepared with Unequal launches in... well, whenever it launches later this year.
I do have an ad going live today with Authors' Billboard. I have low expectations. But it's a $6 ad, so maybe I can break even. Fingers crossed.
On a side note, I saw an author complaining that they only got 50 sales on launch day for their new book. I kinda hated them a little right then. Then I hated myself a little because I don't know what I'm doing wrong. What can I say, it's been a week for the writerly depression to rear its ugly head. Which is why I've been spending a lot of time in the gardens instead of at the keyboard.
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Marketing Stuff Again
Mornin' Folks.
With a lack of anything else on my mind right now, I thought I'd talk a bit more about my marketing efforts, how they're working for me, and what's next.
First off, I realize you have to have money to do marketing. At least any effective marketing. I mean, there are Facebook groups you can post to that sometimes can bring you sales without you having to shell out any dough, but that's rare. And it's inconsistent. Hit or miss, if you will.
But, not every outlet will break the bank. There are some nice little venues that can give you at least an equal ROI. (You pay $6 and you make about $6.) You might even make a little money over and above, which is always nice. And it helps the soul to see people actually buying your books, even if the money isn't rolling in.
Last month, I had that ENT ad which cost me $40 and a smaller ad with PUFB that cost $8. I'm still seeing residual sales from those. Mostly in page reads with Kindle Unlimited, but hey, those page reads bring in money, so they count as sales. I've already had almost as many page reads this month as last month and this month beats every other month but May this year. And it's only the 6th.
Plus, I'm still seeing some page reads for DE and that sale was in April.
I'm not making money hand over fist, but I'm about 2/3rds of last year's total sales over the first 5 months of this year. And last year I did very little advertising. Because the money to do it just wasn't there. But that's another story, eh?
Looking ahead, I've got Kindle Countdown Deals set for the 19th thru the 26th of this month on Accidental Death and Natural Causes. I've already set up an ad for AD with a place called ebooksHabit on the 21st ($10). And I'll set up something with Author Billboard for both AD and NC for the 22nd (she only runs her newsletter on Fridays) which will cost me $6 ea. We'll see how those work. If I sell at least 32 books and pay for the ads, the rest is gravy.
I don't care what the dieticians say, gravy is good.
In August, I'll run sales for the Once Upon a Djinn books again with as much advertising as I can swing in anticipation of the release of Sleeping Ugly - which isn't part of the genie series, but its a paranormal, so I hope I'll get some crossover readers there.
What I really need is more reviews because there are lot of advertising venues that won't accept an ad for books with less that 5 Amazon reviews (or under 4 stars, but that's not a problem right now). Which means I can't push ads for the majority of my books at those outlets. I wish all the people reading my books on KU would write reviews. Not sure why they don't. =o(
I could also use a big lottery win. I think reviews will be easier to get. But only slightly.
With a lack of anything else on my mind right now, I thought I'd talk a bit more about my marketing efforts, how they're working for me, and what's next.
First off, I realize you have to have money to do marketing. At least any effective marketing. I mean, there are Facebook groups you can post to that sometimes can bring you sales without you having to shell out any dough, but that's rare. And it's inconsistent. Hit or miss, if you will.
But, not every outlet will break the bank. There are some nice little venues that can give you at least an equal ROI. (You pay $6 and you make about $6.) You might even make a little money over and above, which is always nice. And it helps the soul to see people actually buying your books, even if the money isn't rolling in.
Last month, I had that ENT ad which cost me $40 and a smaller ad with PUFB that cost $8. I'm still seeing residual sales from those. Mostly in page reads with Kindle Unlimited, but hey, those page reads bring in money, so they count as sales. I've already had almost as many page reads this month as last month and this month beats every other month but May this year. And it's only the 6th.
Plus, I'm still seeing some page reads for DE and that sale was in April.
I'm not making money hand over fist, but I'm about 2/3rds of last year's total sales over the first 5 months of this year. And last year I did very little advertising. Because the money to do it just wasn't there. But that's another story, eh?
Looking ahead, I've got Kindle Countdown Deals set for the 19th thru the 26th of this month on Accidental Death and Natural Causes. I've already set up an ad for AD with a place called ebooksHabit on the 21st ($10). And I'll set up something with Author Billboard for both AD and NC for the 22nd (she only runs her newsletter on Fridays) which will cost me $6 ea. We'll see how those work. If I sell at least 32 books and pay for the ads, the rest is gravy.
I don't care what the dieticians say, gravy is good.
In August, I'll run sales for the Once Upon a Djinn books again with as much advertising as I can swing in anticipation of the release of Sleeping Ugly - which isn't part of the genie series, but its a paranormal, so I hope I'll get some crossover readers there.
What I really need is more reviews because there are lot of advertising venues that won't accept an ad for books with less that 5 Amazon reviews (or under 4 stars, but that's not a problem right now). Which means I can't push ads for the majority of my books at those outlets. I wish all the people reading my books on KU would write reviews. Not sure why they don't. =o(
I could also use a big lottery win. I think reviews will be easier to get. But only slightly.
Monday, June 4, 2018
A Question Posed and Answered
On FB, a writer posed the question about whether one would prefer a soul-sucking job making $100K a year or a satisfying job for beans. (I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist.) Then farther down, in the comments, he explained that he had recently realized certain people thought less of him because of the amount of money he was making as a writer.
First off, let's address the question. Obviously, I'd rather be working as a writer making $100K a year. Durr. But yeah, that wasn't one of the choices. And since I've never had a job - soul-sucking or otherwise - that paid anywhere near $100K, I can only imagine. I have had soul-sucking jobs that paid way less, though. It wasn't a question whether I could quit them to follow my bliss. I worked them because I needed money to keep myself alive. You can't eat bliss.
I don't need money to keep myself alive right now, but I would take craptastic employment in a heartbeat if I had to. A soul-sucking job is better than starving to death while your bills slowly mount and someone comes along to take your home. Am I right?
As for the second part, it makes me sad. There will always be people who look down on you for one reason or another. Screw them. If they can't be supportive, one hopes they at least won't be negative. If they're negative, you need to determine how much value you're getting by keeping them in your life. Are they enriching you in some other way? Great. If not... Well...
I imagine a big set of scales. Put the good of your relationships on one side and the bad on the other. Which side weighs more? If the bad outweighs the good, then you've probably got some hard decisions to make.
Yeah, it's harsh, but it helps keep you sane.
Listen, nobody promised this writing thing was going to be a road to riches. :waits for laughter to subside: It's hard. Sometimes, it's deciding whether to buy a new washing machine or pay the editor. (If it's whether to buy groceries/pay bills or pay the editor, I might suggest finding a day job and writing in your off hours.) Sometimes, it's waiting for sales to come in to pay an editor before you send her anything, and that can take months (err... lots of months... :thinking of last year:) If writing is your bliss, you'll find a way to do it even if it means not publishing anything any time soon.
But if you're waiting for validation from the peanut gallery as part of your pay, don't hold your breath. You'll turn blue, pass out, and wake up with a tremendous headache. You've gotta do this for yourself or you'll go nuts.
First off, let's address the question. Obviously, I'd rather be working as a writer making $100K a year. Durr. But yeah, that wasn't one of the choices. And since I've never had a job - soul-sucking or otherwise - that paid anywhere near $100K, I can only imagine. I have had soul-sucking jobs that paid way less, though. It wasn't a question whether I could quit them to follow my bliss. I worked them because I needed money to keep myself alive. You can't eat bliss.
I don't need money to keep myself alive right now, but I would take craptastic employment in a heartbeat if I had to. A soul-sucking job is better than starving to death while your bills slowly mount and someone comes along to take your home. Am I right?
As for the second part, it makes me sad. There will always be people who look down on you for one reason or another. Screw them. If they can't be supportive, one hopes they at least won't be negative. If they're negative, you need to determine how much value you're getting by keeping them in your life. Are they enriching you in some other way? Great. If not... Well...
I imagine a big set of scales. Put the good of your relationships on one side and the bad on the other. Which side weighs more? If the bad outweighs the good, then you've probably got some hard decisions to make.
Yeah, it's harsh, but it helps keep you sane.
Listen, nobody promised this writing thing was going to be a road to riches. :waits for laughter to subside: It's hard. Sometimes, it's deciding whether to buy a new washing machine or pay the editor. (If it's whether to buy groceries/pay bills or pay the editor, I might suggest finding a day job and writing in your off hours.) Sometimes, it's waiting for sales to come in to pay an editor before you send her anything, and that can take months (err... lots of months... :thinking of last year:) If writing is your bliss, you'll find a way to do it even if it means not publishing anything any time soon.
But if you're waiting for validation from the peanut gallery as part of your pay, don't hold your breath. You'll turn blue, pass out, and wake up with a tremendous headache. You've gotta do this for yourself or you'll go nuts.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Facing Rejection and Running Away
One would think that because I don't have to query anymore, I'd be past that whole rejection thing. Umm, right. I still have to submit my books, but not to get them published anymore. Now I have to submit them to get them noticed.
I'm talking about advertising. You don't just get to send these people money and they'll put your books in their marketing whatevers (newsletters, FB posts, tweets, websites, etc.) Nope, you submit your book and then wait for them to tell you whether your book is good enough to appear under their logo.
So, sitting here over the weekend, thinking about the sale I'll be having on the Dennis Haggarty books, I went through the list of advertising venues I have. This one already rejected Accidental Death twice. So did that one. That one would probably accept AD, but they're really expensive for free books. This one might accept AD, but they wouldn't accept NC because NC has too few reviews. That one might accept both, but previous ads with them have been lackluster. And then there are the ones who make you pay up front and then reject you - returning your money afterwards, of course, but that's always a pain in the buns.
I ended up not making the jump to advertising with any of them. I ran away. I'm rejection averse. I'm also averse to spending money that doesn't give me an equal or better return. Without ads, though, sales are non-existent.
Anyway, I pretty much did the same things when I was querying. I'd send out a bunch of queries, get rejected across the board, and then not want to query anymore. Then, when I finally got the courage up again, I'd avoided certain agents who were particularly reject-y-ful. Run away, run away.
:shrug:
Damned if I do, damned if I don't. I'm not sure what the answer is. I'll probably blitz the FB groups, tweet a bit, and hope for the best. At least I won't be spending money that way.
I'm talking about advertising. You don't just get to send these people money and they'll put your books in their marketing whatevers (newsletters, FB posts, tweets, websites, etc.) Nope, you submit your book and then wait for them to tell you whether your book is good enough to appear under their logo.
So, sitting here over the weekend, thinking about the sale I'll be having on the Dennis Haggarty books, I went through the list of advertising venues I have. This one already rejected Accidental Death twice. So did that one. That one would probably accept AD, but they're really expensive for free books. This one might accept AD, but they wouldn't accept NC because NC has too few reviews. That one might accept both, but previous ads with them have been lackluster. And then there are the ones who make you pay up front and then reject you - returning your money afterwards, of course, but that's always a pain in the buns.
I ended up not making the jump to advertising with any of them. I ran away. I'm rejection averse. I'm also averse to spending money that doesn't give me an equal or better return. Without ads, though, sales are non-existent.
Anyway, I pretty much did the same things when I was querying. I'd send out a bunch of queries, get rejected across the board, and then not want to query anymore. Then, when I finally got the courage up again, I'd avoided certain agents who were particularly reject-y-ful. Run away, run away.
:shrug:
Damned if I do, damned if I don't. I'm not sure what the answer is. I'll probably blitz the FB groups, tweet a bit, and hope for the best. At least I won't be spending money that way.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
The Foolhardy Venture
Blink of an I is back from the editor and I've started on the final round of edits for that (well, final editor edits, then I'll do a final read-through for the little things). Early Grave went to the editor yesterday. I should be getting the bill for that today. And thanks to the spreadsheet work I do, I have the money to pay the bill.
I was thinking about that last night when my brain probably should've been tucking itself in and winding down to, you know, sleep. If you told me I would bust my ass everyday at my job and not get a regular check for it, I would laugh in your face. But that's exactly what I do.
Some... okay, most... would call it foolhardy. Hell, so would I. If my daughter came to me with this scheme, I would shudder in fear and wonder 'but how are you going to eat?'
I mean, I'm lucky. Hubs has always taken care of the paying for eating and housing and utilities. He's even funded the majority of my foolhardy venture. At some point, though, I had to get off the dole. I had hoped to get off of it by my books paying for themselves. Ummm... not yet. There's always hope, but not yet. I had this grand dream that by the third year of publishing, I would at least be funding myself. Ummm... I averaged about $30 a month last year. That won't even pay for the editing on one book. Forget covers and marketing.
So, I took up this spreadsheet thing. It's kind of like taking in other people's sewing. I get paid by the piece. Not much, but it's paying the publication bills. And it's enjoyable, in a teeth-gnashing kind of way sometimes. Plus, it leaves me time to do my job - which is writer.
Yesterday, I did spreadsheet work in the morning, edited from then until the afternoon (when I got it done - otherwise I would've been editing into the wee hours of the night) and then did more spreadsheet work. Today? I started editing about 6am, then took a break to write this. Whether I get any spreadsheet work to do today is anyone's guess. If I do, I'll get it done and go back to editing. So I can publish Blink on or around the 21st.
So, yeah, it's a foolhardy venture. I'm kind of loving it, though. And if I'm not making money at the writing thing yet, well, there's always hope. Although, right this moment, I'm reminded of Dad's old maxim (paraphrased, of course): Hope in one hand and spit in the other and see which gets full fastest.
LOL
I was thinking about that last night when my brain probably should've been tucking itself in and winding down to, you know, sleep. If you told me I would bust my ass everyday at my job and not get a regular check for it, I would laugh in your face. But that's exactly what I do.
Some... okay, most... would call it foolhardy. Hell, so would I. If my daughter came to me with this scheme, I would shudder in fear and wonder 'but how are you going to eat?'
I mean, I'm lucky. Hubs has always taken care of the paying for eating and housing and utilities. He's even funded the majority of my foolhardy venture. At some point, though, I had to get off the dole. I had hoped to get off of it by my books paying for themselves. Ummm... not yet. There's always hope, but not yet. I had this grand dream that by the third year of publishing, I would at least be funding myself. Ummm... I averaged about $30 a month last year. That won't even pay for the editing on one book. Forget covers and marketing.
So, I took up this spreadsheet thing. It's kind of like taking in other people's sewing. I get paid by the piece. Not much, but it's paying the publication bills. And it's enjoyable, in a teeth-gnashing kind of way sometimes. Plus, it leaves me time to do my job - which is writer.
Yesterday, I did spreadsheet work in the morning, edited from then until the afternoon (when I got it done - otherwise I would've been editing into the wee hours of the night) and then did more spreadsheet work. Today? I started editing about 6am, then took a break to write this. Whether I get any spreadsheet work to do today is anyone's guess. If I do, I'll get it done and go back to editing. So I can publish Blink on or around the 21st.
So, yeah, it's a foolhardy venture. I'm kind of loving it, though. And if I'm not making money at the writing thing yet, well, there's always hope. Although, right this moment, I'm reminded of Dad's old maxim (paraphrased, of course): Hope in one hand and spit in the other and see which gets full fastest.
LOL
Monday, June 12, 2017
I've Lost the Will...
...to market.
Don't worry. My will to live is fine. My will to write is there, stuck behind my will to edit which is slowly coming back. (Super slowly. I think I did a page last night.) My will to market? It's pretty much on life support.
You see, the last time I paid for a marketing effort, I didn't even come close to breaking even. Basically, I sold like 10 books at 99c each which netted me a negative $13.60. Yeah. And the residuals I usually get after a sale never appeared. (Residuals - when people buy other books after buying the one that was on sale.) The time before that, I barely broke even.
Anyway, stuff like that puts me in a meh mood. If you spend more money than you make, you go broke. Pretty simple maxim. The other maxim where you have to spend money to make money? Yeah, there's that, too. Let's just say that the two maxims are at war and my will to market is the casualty.
To paraphrase a song, it's all about the money money money*. Have to have money to spend money to make money to have money to... :barf:
Add in the fact that I can't even look at my Twitter feed without wanting to beat someone upside the head with Silver's clue by four, and the fact that I'm talking to myself on Facebook for the most part. And people who have more pull than I do keep bashing self-publishing... Yeah, my marketing efforts seem pointless.
Which makes editing the next book seem pointless. Which creates a traffic jam and stalls writing any other books. You get the gist.
Don't get me started on reviews. Seriously. Don't.
So, anyway, that's where I'm at. All whine, no cheese. There will be books in the future, though. Someday. Eventually. When I scrape together the will and the money.
*Yes, I realize the song is NOT about the money. And yes, I just watched Pitch Perfect yesterday.
Don't worry. My will to live is fine. My will to write is there, stuck behind my will to edit which is slowly coming back. (Super slowly. I think I did a page last night.) My will to market? It's pretty much on life support.
You see, the last time I paid for a marketing effort, I didn't even come close to breaking even. Basically, I sold like 10 books at 99c each which netted me a negative $13.60. Yeah. And the residuals I usually get after a sale never appeared. (Residuals - when people buy other books after buying the one that was on sale.) The time before that, I barely broke even.
Anyway, stuff like that puts me in a meh mood. If you spend more money than you make, you go broke. Pretty simple maxim. The other maxim where you have to spend money to make money? Yeah, there's that, too. Let's just say that the two maxims are at war and my will to market is the casualty.
To paraphrase a song, it's all about the money money money*. Have to have money to spend money to make money to have money to... :barf:
Add in the fact that I can't even look at my Twitter feed without wanting to beat someone upside the head with Silver's clue by four, and the fact that I'm talking to myself on Facebook for the most part. And people who have more pull than I do keep bashing self-publishing... Yeah, my marketing efforts seem pointless.
Which makes editing the next book seem pointless. Which creates a traffic jam and stalls writing any other books. You get the gist.
Don't get me started on reviews. Seriously. Don't.
So, anyway, that's where I'm at. All whine, no cheese. There will be books in the future, though. Someday. Eventually. When I scrape together the will and the money.
*Yes, I realize the song is NOT about the money. And yes, I just watched Pitch Perfect yesterday.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
The Value of Time - Part 2
I've been thinking about the whole 'value of time' thing and the hard numbers.
For me, here's an estimate of how it works out...
My first drafts work out to be approximately 70,000 words. I type an average of 1000 words an hour. So, that's 70 hours. Add another conservative estimate of 40 hours for editing it to the point where I can have my editor look at it. Another 25 hours of inputting her initial edits. Another 15 hours of inputting her proofreading edits. Another 5 hours of final read-through to catch anything I might've missed. 2 hours of formatting.
70+40+25+15+5+2 = 157 hours. And that's if I don't make my own cover. And it doesn't count research or networking or any one of a sundry other things I do to make a book happen.
157 hours.
At federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, that means a book would cost $1138.25 in labor. Of course, the last time I had a job, I was earning roughly $19 an hour, so that's $2983 for a book. And if I wanted to get freaky, when I was doing computer consulting, the company billed my time at $60 an hour, so that would be $9420, but they only gave me like $20 of that, so we're back to around $3000.
$3000 per book in labor alone.
If I priced it that way, I'd only need to sell one. LOL. But, like I said before, the market doesn't give a rat's hairy butt what it costs me to produce a book. They only care about what they are willing to pay for said book. Oh, I could charge $9.99. I'd need to sell about 300 books to break even. But when I raise my price, I get no sales. Zero times anything is still always zero, and breaking even point moves farther away instead of closer. True, I haven't tried raising the price to traditional publishing levels. That's laughable to me. I did try once to make one of my books $5.99. Crickets. Drop the price to $3.99, I get some sales. Drop it to $2.99, more sales.
Now, here's where it gets sticky. I get even more sales when I go below $2.99, but then I also drop from a 70% royalty structure to 35%. More sales, less money.
For the same amount of work. But, again, readers don't care about my level of effort. Well, unless my level of effort is low and the book is crap. Then they care. And I'm okay with that. That's how it should be.
I don't tell you any of this to make you feel bad that I'm doing all this work and only making like $2 a book. That's life. I'm pretty okay with that $2. Sell a hundred books, get two hundred dollars. Sounds good to me. I'd get it all in cash and roll around in it naked, but that seems silly. And if I wasn't doing this writing thing for whatever my hourly wage would actually work out to, I'd have to get a job working for someone else. I could make $9.50 an hour at the Tyson plant, where it either smells like yummy chicken nuggets all day or it smells like rotten meat bad enough to make me gag when I drove past. (I used to drive by the place to get to Walmart, so yeah, it's either yum or barf.)
Personally, I'd rather be doing this.
Anyway, that's how it plays out here at the Sanderson Ranch. Any questions?
Oh, and if your comment doesn't show up right away, it means I went fishing. ;o)
For me, here's an estimate of how it works out...
My first drafts work out to be approximately 70,000 words. I type an average of 1000 words an hour. So, that's 70 hours. Add another conservative estimate of 40 hours for editing it to the point where I can have my editor look at it. Another 25 hours of inputting her initial edits. Another 15 hours of inputting her proofreading edits. Another 5 hours of final read-through to catch anything I might've missed. 2 hours of formatting.
70+40+25+15+5+2 = 157 hours. And that's if I don't make my own cover. And it doesn't count research or networking or any one of a sundry other things I do to make a book happen.
157 hours.
At federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, that means a book would cost $1138.25 in labor. Of course, the last time I had a job, I was earning roughly $19 an hour, so that's $2983 for a book. And if I wanted to get freaky, when I was doing computer consulting, the company billed my time at $60 an hour, so that would be $9420, but they only gave me like $20 of that, so we're back to around $3000.
$3000 per book in labor alone.
If I priced it that way, I'd only need to sell one. LOL. But, like I said before, the market doesn't give a rat's hairy butt what it costs me to produce a book. They only care about what they are willing to pay for said book. Oh, I could charge $9.99. I'd need to sell about 300 books to break even. But when I raise my price, I get no sales. Zero times anything is still always zero, and breaking even point moves farther away instead of closer. True, I haven't tried raising the price to traditional publishing levels. That's laughable to me. I did try once to make one of my books $5.99. Crickets. Drop the price to $3.99, I get some sales. Drop it to $2.99, more sales.
Now, here's where it gets sticky. I get even more sales when I go below $2.99, but then I also drop from a 70% royalty structure to 35%. More sales, less money.
For the same amount of work. But, again, readers don't care about my level of effort. Well, unless my level of effort is low and the book is crap. Then they care. And I'm okay with that. That's how it should be.
I don't tell you any of this to make you feel bad that I'm doing all this work and only making like $2 a book. That's life. I'm pretty okay with that $2. Sell a hundred books, get two hundred dollars. Sounds good to me. I'd get it all in cash and roll around in it naked, but that seems silly. And if I wasn't doing this writing thing for whatever my hourly wage would actually work out to, I'd have to get a job working for someone else. I could make $9.50 an hour at the Tyson plant, where it either smells like yummy chicken nuggets all day or it smells like rotten meat bad enough to make me gag when I drove past. (I used to drive by the place to get to Walmart, so yeah, it's either yum or barf.)
Personally, I'd rather be doing this.
Anyway, that's how it plays out here at the Sanderson Ranch. Any questions?
Oh, and if your comment doesn't show up right away, it means I went fishing. ;o)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)