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Would you want to be a member of a club that wants you as a member?

10/7/2010

3 Comments

 
Or, to put it another way, if you're an indie author, how tempted would you be to take a regular contract, if it were offered?

OK, so I know there lots of factors in this, with lots of different answers. So let's narrow it down a bit.
I recently read a blog that was talking about literary agents who were interested in taking on self-published authors. Sounds great so far. Then it seems they have a criteria of your having sold at least 5K books in the previous year. Hmm, a bit more difficult. I'm guessing if you're selling e books at 99c they're going to want to see considerably higher sales than that before they take an interest in you.

So, assuming I can sell that many books (sounds optimistic but with the e book market growing you never know) would it be worth my while going down that route?

Let's think about this from different points of view.

Let's assume they mean 5K sales at a price that gives you a royalty of at least £1 per book, ie an annual income of £5K. That allows for a slightly higher return at the magic price of $2.99 on 70% royalty but nets down allowing for expenses. That's still a higher royalty per sale than you'd get with most publishers. Let's assume your book is currently selling well. So, if you meet their sales criteria, to make it financially worthwhile, given that you'd probably have the book off the market for at least a year, and thinking about projected increase in e market and therefore your expected self-published income over the next 3 years etc etc, you'd realistically be wanting an advance of at least £20K.

This is without factoring in all the extra work you might be required to do on rewrites etc when you could be writing your next book which will earn you another £5k per year. Plus, you might not like how you are required to rework it. Not such a big deal when it was an embryonic ms maybe but more like invasive surgery further down the line.

So, what's in it for the agent/publisher?

Money. You've found a way to make it, you've already done all the hard work, so now they want some of it.
The book? Probably irrelevant, though if you've got more on the way you can give them more money.

Remind me again what's in it for the author.

Fame, fortune, national press reviews, book displayed in bookshops, reaching a bigger audience, being 'properly' published.

So, assuming you meet the criteria that a mainstream agent/publisher would be interested in signing you, tell me what your criteria would be to consider signing with them. 
3 Comments
Lexi Revellian link
10/7/2010 03:35:03 am

I agree.

Not sure how to sell worldwide, but if I was mega successful in the UK I'm sure I'd find out :o)

Reply
Margaret Lake link
10/7/2010 04:48:51 am

Give an agent 10% plus expenses after I've done all the work? I don't think so. The shelf life of any but a best seller in a B&M store is not much longer than the life of a mayfly.

With Amazon, I'm in the UK, Australia, Japan and Germany. It may take time to build up a readership in those areas, but it will come. I notice on my reports I have a few foreign sales every month besides the UK store. That number can only go up.

I have every hope, based on some forum posts, that Amazon is working to give us tools to make publishing and marketing easier. One thing is for sure, Amazon wants all of us to publish with them even when we are rejected by agents and traditional publisher.

Sign with an agent or publisher? I'll pass.


Reply
sto credits link
12/27/2010 09:58:30 am

Thinking about projected increase in e market and therefore your expected self-published income over the next 3 years etc etc

Reply



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    I'm Ali. I'm an author and musician, living in Devon, and I teach guitar.

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