25 replies to this topic

[C. Taylor]

Ruth, just ran across this blog post and thought of you: http://danieljfriedm...-published.html


Kudos, girl!

I sort of agree with one of the comments left on the post-- How many traditionally published books actually sell over 100K copies? It's certainly not the majority. In addition, the author of the post keeps using .99 as the price which he's basing his math on, and truth is, most ebooks are priced higher than that. At 2.99 per copy (a popular price point for ebooks), the author gets about $2 for each book sold, not the .35 he keeps mentioning.

[Cat Woods]

Should clarify, Cali. Your points were my points.

What many writers/readers don't understand is that only a small percentage of books (traditionally or otherwise) hit it big. The vast majority of novels languish in mid-list range or lower. Many never reach the kind of sales that Ruth has already realized. I am constantly reminded of this when I attend writer's conferences or read blogs of traditionally published authors who make a living writing, have sold ten, twenty or thirty different titles and yet I've never heard of them.

No matter how much I love writing and plan to make a career out of it (sheesh, I'm busting my butt trying to do so), I think it helps to keep in mind that not every published author is a household name and not every published novel makes enough back in royalties to support said author, let alone have theme parks built after them. In a strange way, it gives me hope.

And so, I was giving Ruth a huge back pat.

[C. Taylor]

Cat, I got that it was a huge pat. : )

I just thought that his points were a bit skewed. Like you said, there are so many traditionally published authors that don't make enough to live on-- even with several titles under their belt-- and obviously, the same can be said for self pub'd authors. Like Ruthie's proven-- as well as other AQ'ers who've gotten great traditional deals-- there's more than way to be successful with publishing these days. And yes, like you, it gives me hope!! : )

[TBruce]

Should clarify, Cali. Your points were my points.

What many writers/readers don't understand is that only a small percentage of books (traditionally or otherwise) hit it big. The vast majority of novels languish in mid-list range or lower. Many never reach the kind of sales that Ruth has already realized. I am constantly reminded of this when I attend writer's conferences or read blogs of traditionally published authors who make a living writing, have sold ten, twenty or thirty different titles and yet I've never heard of them.

No matter how much I love writing and plan to make a career out of it (sheesh, I'm busting my butt trying to do so), I think it helps to keep in mind that not every published author is a household name and not every published novel makes enough back in royalties to support said author, let alone have theme parks built after them. In a strange way, it gives me hope.

And so, I was giving Ruth a huge back pat.

Absolutely! I was trying to make this point on another thread, but you made it much more eloquently! I'm constantly discovering new authors that have been around for ages (heck, I only recently discovered Georgette Heyer and she is/was rather a big deal in the romance genre). Ruth's accomplishment defies words, I think - it's mind-numbingly huge for ANY author to accomplish what she has and to have done it on her own, without a big six marketing budget is....searching for a word big enough....failing to find a word big enough...::finishes lamely:: amazing.

Go Ruth go!!!

[RuthCardello]

Thanks Cat. I really appreciate all of the support I've gotten here.

I checked out the article and found it a little of a simplistic view of the self-pubbing market. There are so many variables that go into getting and staying visible. That's why being part of a community like this one is so important -- we've got to stay informed.

[Dawn Marie]

Brilliant, well done.