“Devaluation” and Other Pricing Myths

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Jackie Barbosa

A natural consequence of writing books with the intention of making a profit from their sale is that the author and publisher (sometimes different entities, sometimes the same) tend to think of the books as having an intrinsic dollar value. In other words, if selling books is your business, you tend to associate a “reasonable” price with those books. What you deem a reasonable price will rest on many factors, including the length and genre of the book, the percentage of the sale price you will earn per sale, and what the market seems to bear for similar titles, but the bottom line is that whatever price you come up with, it is easy to get married to it. I cannot tell you the number of times I myself have thought, “This book is WORTH at least as much as <insert similarly priced disposable item>, damn it, and I will NOT devalue it by setting the price lower.”

But guess what? Every time I have thought that, I have been wrong. Oh, perhaps I have not been wrong that my book is WORTH as much as I think it is to those who know what they’re getting when they buy my books. Fans of my work may even tell me it’s a STEAL at that price. But if there aren’t enough readers willing to PAY that much for it without knowing what they’re getting, I have a problem. The more I stick to my guns and refuse to budge on my pricing, the more readers DON’T discover my book. The fewer readers buy my book, the more it sinks into obscurity. The more it sinks into obscurity, the less money I make, no matter what price I set.

I am dealing with this right now with Hot Under the Collar. I am going to be completely honest, here: I’m disappointed by this title’s sales. I expected it to do much better than it has and at a higher price point, because, after all, it’s longer than the first novella in the series (The Lesson Plan) and frankly, I think it’s a better story.¹

I started out pricing this novella at $2.99. After all, it’s nearly 40,000 words, which is a short novel by RWA’s standards. But it didn’t sell. For a couple of months, I resisted dropping the price and “devaluing” my work. After all, I busted my butt writing that story. It was *worth* $2.99, damn it. Surely it would catch on.

But it didn’t and I was forced to face the facts. I could either drop the price or allow a book I’d put my heart and soul into to drop into complete obscurity, never finding its audience. This wasn’t even about making money anymore; it was about not letting something I care about sink into oblivion. And so, I dropped the price. And then I dropped it more. And then I even made it free for a short period of time. And all of those decisions, in the end, have made me more money than I was making when I stubbornly stuck to my guns about the book’s worth. Making it cheaper didn’t make devalue the book–it made it accessible and visible. And that, in turn, makes me more money than sticking to my predetermined per unit price ever could.

I know a lot of people who say that when a book is free or 99 cents, they assume it’s a crappy book with poor production values and pass right over it. I’m sure this is true. But the majority of readers/digital book buyers simply don’t see things the way those of us who are immersed in the world of books and who understand the time and effort and expense that goes into producing a quality product. And unfortunately, writers can’t make their living by depending solely on the readers who see a higher price point as a sign of quality. We have to appeal to the readers whose impulse buy point is free or 99 cents or “look, it’s under $2 and on a bestseller list so it must be a good book.”

Does this mean our work isn’t WORTH more? No. But Shakespeare is free. And guess what? We still have to compete with the asshole, even though he’s dead.

¹When I say it’s a better story, I don’t mean that it’s better written or more engaging or anything like that. I mean that I personally find the issues and ideas I was able to explore in Hot Under the Collar more personally fulfilling to me. Plus, I’m in love with the hero of that book. Walter is definitely my fictional husband; don’t tell Mr. Barbosa .

Comparing Apples to Apples

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 2 comments.

Today, the Guardian brought us a story ominously titled “Stop the press: half of self-published authors earn less than $500.” If you haven’t read it already, go ahead and click the link. I’ll wait for you to get back.

Okay, there are two bits of this that I want to comment on. This first is this:

…the average amount earned by DIY authors last year was just $10,000 (£6,375) – and half made less than $500.

…

This amount, however, is significantly skewed by the top earners, with less than 10% of self-publishing authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue and half of writers earning less than $500.

Um, I have just one question. When was this equation not true of traditionally published authors? And by traditionally published, I mean those published by the vaunted print publishers who pay advances. I know that when I was published by Kensington, I certainly earned less than $10,000 a year from my writing. (In fact, to this day, I haven’t earned that much from the book I sold to them, and it came out in June of 2009.)

The vast, vast majority of traditionally published authors do not make a living at it. The vast majority of authors published by digital small presses do not make a living at it. A sizable percentage of those published either traditionally or by digital small presses will earn less than $500 from their efforts. And 100% of the authors who don’t get a contract with one of those two types of publishers and don’t self-publish will make less than $500 a year. This is basic math.

As you know, I don’t consider myself a self-publishing evangelist by any means. It’s a business decision, plain and simple, and I support authors in making the best business decision for them, whatever that is. And I happen to believe that, for a lot of authors, a traditional print publisher or small epress is a better business decision than self-publishing.

That said, articles like these that seem bent on scaring authors away from self-publishing by issuing dire warnings about how little money they might earn forget that regular publishing isn’t a guarantee of JK Rowling/Stephenie Meyers/Dan Brown-like success. Being published, however you get there, isn’t a quick road to riches. If anything, it’s a slow road to a little extra pocket money.¹ ETA: An Author’s Guild study back in 2004 found the average income for its members was $5,213.28 per year. That’s hardly raking in the dough.

In other words, if you’re considering self-publishing, don’t let articles like this scare you off. Because, unless you’re offered a very tidy advance by a traditional publisher, the reality is that in an apples to apples comparison, self-publishing isn’t necessarily a bad business decision.

What is a bad business decision is the second point of the Guardian article I want to talk about. To wit:

Authors…would be well advised to spend time and money on making a title look professional, the survey found: self-publishers who received help (paid or unpaid) with story editing, copy editing and proofreading made 13% more than the average; help with cover design upped earnings by a further 34%.

So, yeah. If you do choose to self-publish, don’t cut corners. Produce a professional product. Generally, it pays off.

Okay, off my soapbox for the day.

¹There’s an old joke from auto racing that my father used to tell that seems appropriate here: “How do you make a small fortune in racing? Start with a large one.”

Have You Ever Read a Self-Published Book?

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 2 comments.

Okay, that’s a trick subject, because this isn’t going to be a poll or a question. It’s going to be a statement of fact. I am willing to bet that everyone reading this post has either read or is extremely familiar with the story I am going to name below. I would further be willing to bet a large sum that it is this author’s best-known, most-beloved work.

But before I give you the name of the story, why does it matter? Because every time a website reviews a self-published book unfavorably, it seems there are a host of commenters who find it necessary to pop in and say, “This is why I’ll never read a self-published book. They’re all garbage!” Now, hardly ANYONE pops in with such a statement when a NY-published book gets a poor review. I’ve never seen a commenter say, “This is why I never read books from the Big 6. They’re all garbage!”

I get pretty tired of this attitude. It’s not that I don’t agree that there are a lot of bad self-published books. It’s not that I don’t think the error rate, so to speak, is higher in self-published books than in those put out by major publishing houses. It’s the nature of the beast. BUT…to tar all self-published books with the “garbage” brush because many (or even most) self-published books are bad is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are some self-published gems out there, and there always have been. The only difference between the self-publishing of today and yesteryear was that it’s now so much more affordable that almost anyone can do it. Used to be, you had to plunk down a lot of money to make a self-published book happen, which naturally limited the number of them.

Okay, so here is where I pause and add dramatic space before revealing my punchline…

……

Drum Roll

……

…and the self-published book I’m betting you’ve either read or know very well is…

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A Year in Self-Publishing

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 5 comments.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my entry into the world of self-publishing. I began this journey as an experiment, with low expectations and merely the hope of recouping my own costs. 365 days later, I’m pretty well sold on self-publishing as a good business decision for me, although 2012 will truly be the make or break year for me.

Since I’ve always been pretty open about sales figures and money, though, I thought it was time for a recap, complete with graphs and charts (because yes, I’m a geek) and (gasp!) actual dollar figures.

So, without further ado, here’s a chart of total sales of each book:

A little explanation–the chart runs 1-13 because it covers January 18, 2011 to January 17, 2012. Paying sales of The Reiver came to a virtual standstill when it went free on Amazon US in November. It’s still picking up paying sales from Amazon in other countries (although it is free in Spain and Italy, it is still not free in the UK, Germany, or France–don’t ask!) as well as a few a day from B&N, where people don’t always seem to notice that there’s a free alternative to the 99-cent one. (I didn’t take the 99-cent one off B&N because that would have taken down the free one at the same time; again, don’t ask!) Obviously, Carnally Ever After and The Lesson Plan have no sales figures prior to the dates on which they were released (in September 2011 and December 2011 respectively). None of these number are quite final yet, since January sales figures aren’t in for any of the retailers I distribute to through Smashwords, but they’re not off by much.

So, what’s the deal with that big spike in sales of The Reiver over the summer? Honestly, I haven’t a clue. I’ve yet to figure out why that story took off the way it did and I’m nowhere close to repeating that kind of success–although The Lesson Plan‘s sales have picked up dramatically over the weekend, so it maybe it’ll take off…but who knows?

Next, let’s do sales by retail outlet, because I know you’re curious about that, too:

Obviously, Amazon US blows all the other retailers out of the water, but if we subtract those two summer months when The Reiver sold like gangbusters, I sell about 5 copies at Amazon for every 1 at B&N and about 10 for every one at All Romance eBooks. Most of my Apple sales have been in the past three months, so it’s difficult to say how the iBookstore will compare to the other retailers going forward, since before then, I sold almost nothing at Amazon (although The Reiver has been free there for quite some time and was–and may still be–in the top 10 list for free historical romance).

Okay, now what you really wanted to know–the money!

Things to notice here–The Lesson Plan has earned almost $1,000 in sales, but it cost me almost $800 to publish it (including my advertising budget). Because The Reiver and Carnally Ever After were rereleases of previously edited/published stories, the only thing I had to pay for was the cover art. I didn’t purchase any ad space for them, either. I also decided not to invest in my own ISBN numbers for rereleases, only for originals, so I didn’t have that expense with either of the first two books. Technically, the ISBN number cost me $250 up front, but since I get a block of 10, only the one used for The Lesson Plan is actually counted in its expenses.

So, how does this compare to what I’ve earned from the books I sold to “major” publishers–those being Kensington and Harlequin? Well, Kensington paid me a $2,500 advance for Behind the Red Door. Since then, I’ve received three additional royalty payments of roughly $800 (I’m guessing, so don’t hold me to that figure), for a grand total of $3,300. And that is over the course of three years (from signing the contract in 2008 through to the end of the last reporting period, which was June 2011). Harlequin paid me $800 each for Grace Under Fire and Taking Liberties. I’ve only received one statement from them so far, and although Grace had sold about 1,500 copies in the first two months it was in release, that was not enough for me to earn out my advance. Both of those advances were paid in 2010.

Long story short, I’ve made more money in one year from my self-published books than from everything I’ve ever sold to major publishing houses since 2008. Even if I were to add in what I’ve earned from my epublished books, my earnings from August 2007 through today would be no better than equal to what I earned in my 2011 from my self-published releases.

Please note that I’m not trying to make any claims here as to the outcomes for the self-publishing for anyone but me. Moreover, my results are fairly modest. Setting aside those huge summer months, my earnings wouldn’t be nearly so impressive. In those two months, I earned about two-fifths of what I made for the whole year. Without that bubble, I’d be closer to my total payout from Behind the Red Door. That would probably still be enough for me to feel I’d been fairly successful at self-publishing and to continue to pursue it, but it might not be the results other authors are looking to achieve. At the same time, I’ve managed these modest results with relatively little expense or promotional effort, and I was hardly a household name before I began and am not all that much closer to being one now.

The number that has really convinced me to keep going, though, is this one:

Total copies sold: 11,907
Total free copies: 25,000+

My main goal isn’t to maximize profit (except to the extent that making enough money from my books might someday allow me to quit my day job so I could write even more of them), but to get to readers. And for the first time, I really feel I’m achieving that latter goal.

Sticking It to the Man

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Jackie Barbosa

There is one comment.

So this is an installment in my ongoing (and sporadic) series on the reasons I’ve chosen to self-publish–and the reasons I haven’t. This one falls into the haven’t category.

So, there’s a certain “I’ll self-publish and show you mean publishers (aka “The Man”) how wrong you are about me/my writing/my book!” mentality out there. I can understand the appeal of it, too. If your book has been rejected over and over again by traditional publishers and you go the self-publishing route and do really well, selling lots of copies and making good money, it’s easy to imagine that the publishers who rejected you are looking at your success and crying bitter tears into their cups. How could they have been so wrong? How could they have missed such an amazing opportunity?

Except, realistically, they’re probably not. In fact, in most cases, they’ve already forgotten about you and your book. I’m not trying to be a buzz-killer here, but honestly, even when editors lose a manuscript they hoped to acquire to another publisher, they don’t spend a whole lot of time bewailing their loss. For every manuscript they buy, there are tens (perhaps hundreds) of others they could have bought instead, and the difference between bought and not often comes down to very small things. If the book a publisher wants to buy is picked up by another house, there are many, many more waiting in the wings, and a lot of them are probably just as good or better than the one they lost. And if yours was one they didn’t even want to buy? Frankly, they’re unlikely to even know you self-published it, let alone spend time watching your Amazon rank go into the stratosphere.

Do some self-published authors do really well and eventually get picked up by New York houses who eventually realize their mistake? Absolutely. But believe me, when they do, it’s because it’s a business decision that makes sense now, not because they regret passing on the author’s books in the past. And if they do regret a past error of judgment, it’s not the main reason they change their minds. Publishers win and lose all the time in this game (hello, publishing houses that passed on Harry Potter and the one that paid $5 million for Audrey Niffenegger’s second book) and compared to those whiffs, missing out on a self-published author who sells a few hundred thousand copies at 99 cents (or even $2.99) apiece is small potatoes.

In short, I don’t view my self-publishing efforts as a way to strike a blow against the oppressors. It’s not Occupy the Big 6. It’s just me doing what I enjoy (writing books) and getting them to readers in the way that makes the most sense to me at this point in time.

Is You Is or Is You Ain’t a Publisher

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 6 comments.

Before I launch into today’s post, a few quick words. I have been on vacation for almost two weeks. Although I got back early Monday, I’ve been playing catch-up in all aspects of my life (family, household, day job) and thus haven’t had much time for the writerly side. So, hi, here I am, and I’m glad to be back.

Among the things that apparently erupted while I was gone was a brouhaha over whether or not The Knight Agency is establishing a digital publishing arm. (See here for what I think is a comprehensive run-down of the story, albeit from the perspective a one author.) Courtney Milan also posted her thoughts on the question of agents becoming publishers and the potential ethical issues that raises.

I bring these things up not because I’m going to launch into a rant on the reasons I think agents shouldn’t become publishers (I’ve already been there and done that), but because I think it’s important that we define what a publisher actually is. Only when we determine what makes an entity a “publisher” can we decide whether or not any particular agent/agency has actually become one.

Now, maybe you are going to want to argue with my definition, and that’s fine, because I think there are a lot of disagreements over what a publisher is or isn’t (e.g., are “vanity” publishing companies like AuthorHouse “publishers”?), but the bottom line for me when it comes to deciding who “publishes” a book is simple–it’s whoever the retailer/distributor pays first when a copy of the book is sold.

In the case of traditional print publishing, the publishing house is first in line. It then distributes the author’s percentage either to the author (if unagented) or to the agent, who takes his/her 15% off the top and passes the remainder on to the author. The same holds true of digital small presses–they get paid first when copies of the book are sold, then pass the author’s percentage on either through the agent or directly. And when you are self-published, YOU get the money from the retailer/distributor; that’s what makes YOU the publisher.

So, when it comes to whether agents/agencies are publishers or not, the question is–are they first in line? If they are uploading the book to the distributors themselves and in charge of managing the account, and they are the ones who get paid when the distributor cuts the checks/EFT entries each month, then as far as I’m concerned, they are the publisher. It doesn’t matter whether they’re taking a smaller cut of the proceeds than other publishers would. It doesn’t matter that they would have been “before the author” in line if the book had been sold by another publisher. The bottom line is that they have control of the account with and are first in line for payment from the distributor, and that makes them the publisher. But if the author is first in line and pays the agent a cut for services rendered, then the author is the publisher.

I have no idea what The Knight Agency means by “assisted self-publishing.” But if they are not going to be in charge of the accounts and will be paid their cut by the publisher (in this case, also the author), then I have no problems whatsoever with their claims that they aren’t opening a digital publishing arm. Whether or not the services they are offering are worth 15% is entirely up to the authors they contract with to decide.

But if what an agency does when it “assists” an author to self-publish is to open an account with Amazon and the like and upload the books (with full control of pricing, cover art, book formatting, etc.) and then receive payment from Amazon, passing on the author’s percentage after taking its cut, then I say the agency is a publisher and is, in fact, not assisting the author to “self-publish” because in no way, shape, or form does this arrangement resemble the author acting as his or her own publisher.

Agree? Disagree? Tell me about it! (Said in my worst Brooklyn accent.)

Now It Gets Scary

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Jackie Barbosa

June Sales Data

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 4 comments.

I know some people are interested in seeing sales trends for self-published work, but if you aren’t interested, please feel free to click away, because this is going to be boring, boring, boring.

Here’s the sales chart for The Reiver through June:

If you’re looking at that line for Amazon sales and thinking “What the hell,” rest assured you’re not alone. I’m thinking the same thing .

There are a few explanations I can come up with, but once again, none of them is anything that was in my control:

1) Amazon sent out an email plugging six 99-cent books, including Courtney Milan’s Unlocked and Paula Quinn’s Laird of the Mist. Even though The Reiver was not mentioned in the email, it has strong “Also Bought” associations with Quinn’s book and less strong ones with others on the list. That led to a massive bump in sales that day and, although sales dropped off some since then, they are still running at about 100 a day compared to 40-60 a day earlier in the month.

2) The fact that my sales have been consistently steady for the last six weeks or so has kept its overall ranking in the Kindle store very solid (drifting between the high 300s to the high 500s after the boost from the Amazon marketing email), which has also kept it on the second page in the Historical Romance lists (both Kindle and Books) for over a week. Although I think being in a top 100 list is of less value than Also Bought lists in generating sales, I agree with Courtney, who said last month that she thought it depended where you were on the list (the higher up, the better). I also think which list you’re matters. For example, The Reiver has been on the Romance Anthologies list’s first page for quite some time, but it doesn’t have as much value as being on the second page of the Romance Historicals list, because people are much more likely to pull up the Historicals list than the Anthologies list in the first place.

Finally, yesterday, RT Book Reviews featured The Reiver on its blog in a list of their “favorite” twelve bargain ebooks. Look at that placement! I was shocked (and many thanks to Elyssa Papa for the tweet about it, or I never would have known). So far, I don’t think I’m seeing any effect from this promotion, since their link goes to Smashwords and I haven’t sold a single copy on Smashwords since the first day the book was available for sale. (Twenty-two copies were downloaded using a coupon code, but I don’t count those as actual sales since there was no money involved.) Despite that, I’m thrilled that RT even knows I’m alive .

So, that’s all the sales news for this month. Things seem to be rolling along so far in July (26 copies at last count, less than 12 hours into the day) and even if they dropped into a black hole at this point, I’d be happier than a pig in slop.

Amazon Marketing and Unintended Consequences

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 12 comments.

I feel like a real chatty Cathy this week, with posts that are literally all over the place in terms of topics, but yesterday was particularly eventful, and I have musings I must share.

So, as many of you probably know, possibly because you received it, Amazon sent out an email yesterday highlight six 99-cent romance titles that were highly rated and doing well in the Kindle store (among them Courtney Milan’s UNLOCKED and Paula Quinn’s LAIRD OF THE MIST). Immediately after that email blast, those titles started shooting up in their Amazon ranks. Courtney’s novella reached the #2 overall spot and LAIRD OF THE MIST is currently at #11 (and may have peaked higher).

But as the day wore on, I began to notice a strange phenomenon. Suddenly, THE REIVER was selling TONS more copies than it ever had before and climbing the charts rapidly. Other romances ALSO seemed to be gaining in overall ranking in the Kindle store (although not necessarily changing places all that much relative to one another). By the time I went to bed last night, my story had sold a whopping 200 copies in 24 hours (it had never before sold more than about 75 in a single day and was selling about 40-50 on an average day for the last couple of weeks). Its overall ranking in the Kindle store climbed from somewhere in the 1500s or thereabouts to as high as 323, and at its peak, it was #21 in Books | Romance | Historical.

Well, um, wow. I didn’t expect that. And it didn’t dawn on me until I hopped onto the Kindle boards this morning and read a post there on the subject that the reason for all those sales was, paradoxically, an email in which my story wasn’t mentioned at all. It seems that what happened was that people who jumped on that email and bought one or more of those titles also started scrolling through the Also Bought lists for those titles, likely searching for other well-rated romances with low prices. And, by virtue of the fact that THE REIVER was already on the Also Bought lists for several of the books Amazon highlighted, people found it and a fair number of them bought it. I suspect that my sales benefitted most from Paula Quinn’s book, which is also a Scottish historical.

Oddly enough, Courtney’s novella doesn’t appear at all on my Also Bought list. I find it hard to believe that no one who’s bought her novella (and at this point, that has to be a LOT of romance readers) has also bought mine, but for whatever reason, there’s absolutely no link between us (and that’s a shame, because I’d love to be linked to Courtney in anyway possible).

Sales have slowed considerably today as yesterday’s Amazon-induced buying frenzy seems to have slacked off to more typical historical levels (and I’m plenty happy with that!), but I learned something instructive. Amazon can pick and choose to promote certain titles, but when it does so, what it chooses to promote has unintended consequences. Those consequences can be happy for some (in this case, for authors with highly rated romance titles prices at 99 cents that already had decent sales rankings and Also Bought associations) and possibly not so happy for others (anything that wasn’t a romance and lost ground in overall rankings due to the sudden rise of romance titles).

Who’s Published (Are You Listening, RWA?), Part 1

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Jackie Barbosa

There are 6 comments.

As of this morning, I reached an interesting milestone on sales of my self-published short story. I’ve now earned $1,000 from it. That amount is a net, including the $250 advance I was originally paid by the editor of the anthology it first appeared in, less the cost of the cover art.

The reason this is interesting is because the $1,000 threshold has meaning within Romance Writers of America. An author is considered “published” for the purposes of joining RWA’s Published Author Network (PAN) when he or she has earned a minimum of $1,000 from a single published title. There are a couple of caveats to this. The first is that the work must be novel (40k+) or novella (20k-40k) in length. The second is that it must be published by what RWA terms a non-vanity, non-subsidy publisher.

I met the minimum requirements to join PAN when I sold Behind the Red Door to Kensington for a $2,500 advance back in 2008. (I’ve since earned about $800 more in royalties from that book, mostly thanks to digital sales.) This means RWA considers me published pretty much forever. I never have to sell another book to a publishing house to remain in PAN or stay on the list of published authors on their website or get the “Published Author” moniker on my conference name tags.

But here’s the thing. It has long been a precept of the professional writers’ organizations (not just RWA, but also SFWA, MWA, and, I’m sure, others) that all monies in publishing should flow toward the author. This means that authors are cautioned from signing with agents or publishers who charge any fees (other than, of course, the percentage they take of the book’s earnings or the author’s royalties). For a long time, RWA and other organizations hewed to the notion that it was critical not only for the author not to pay anything upfront to publish a book, but also to receive an advance on royalties, thereby effectively ensuring that author was never paid less than that amount for the work.

Of course, the digital publishing model came along and threw that logic into a cocked hat as authors began to earn good money. Although the sales numbers were lower, the royalties were significantly higher, which led to more money in the author’s pockets. The digital publishers also paid more regularly, sometimes as often as monthly, which meant that although the author didn’t receive any money upfront, the actual payout of royalties beyond the amount that might have been advanced was much quicker. But the recognized digital publishers still followed the primary tenet of writers’ organizations–the author was never charged upfront for cover art, editing, or distribution. All monies still flowed toward the author, albeit at a different point in the publishing process.

Even so, digital publishing was viewed askance for quite a long while in writers’ organizations. Although it seemed some authors made a LOT of money at it, the majority of authors didn’t (and probably still don’t). Moreover, there persisted a persisted a perception of a “quality gap” between ebooks and print books (although that divide between digital and print has narrowed because pretty much every print book issued now has a digital counterpart). Notwithstanding, there’s still a certain “sniff test” factor out there, and I imagine a lot of us still suspect that if you submit to enough digital publishers, eventually you’ll find one that’s willing to publish even the crappiest manuscript.

Now, we have the new age of self-publishing. Digital self-publishing is so cheap and easy¹, everyone really can be published. And let’s face it–this fact, that everyone CAN be published, even the worthless hacks–is a huge bone in the craw of professional writers who’ve been at this a long time and feel they’ve “paid their dues” and shouldn’t have to share the status of “published” with authors who haven’t proven themselves through the gatekeeping structure of agents and editors. It just doesn’t seem “fair” somehow.

But it’s time for the writers’ organizations to get real. The fact that authors got published through the gatekeeping structure has never been an objective measure of quality or talent or skill. The fact that an author has earned at least $1,000 from a single title is no guarantee that the work isn’t a worthless piece of trash. The writers’ organizations like RWA have set up a system that is TRYING to control for quality by demanding the existence of a gatekeeper, but the reality is that this has never actually worked. When a relatively unknown author like me (I can’t even call myself midlist) can earn more money by self-publishing a short story than by selling a short story of twice that length to a major publisher (my advance from Harlequin for Grace Under Fire and Taking Liberties was $800 for each manuscript, and I will almost certainly never see another dime from them since the royalty rate is only 8% per copy sold) AND hit the Amazon top 100 with that self-published story, it’s difficult to see any reasonable rationale for steering authors (even previously unpublished ones) away from self-publishing.

Quite simply, RWA and other writers’ organizations have to stop pretending that the PUBLISHER matters. Authors who have published a book and earned the prescribed minimum from its sales should be treated as published authors, regardless of how the book was published. And yes, I’ll go so far as to say that even if there is a vanity/subsidy publisher involved (rather than the author acting as the publisher), that should be the case.² If there are upfront costs to the author involved in publishing the work, perhaps those figures should be netted from total revenue to ensure that authors aren’t earning $1,000 on a book they paid $5,000 to publish, which isn’t exactly a winning strategy for a career, but that should be the only real difference between the self-published and the publisher-published book.

“But, Jackie,” you’re saying, “what about the Ritas? What about the horrible books that for inexplicable reasons sell thousands and thousands of copies? And ONLY $1,000? Shouldn’t it be more?”

To which I say, read Part 2, which I imagine will be up sometime early next week. (I was going to try to do this all as a single post, but this one is already too damned long!)

¹I am not saying it’s easy (or necessarily cheap) to create a high quality product through self-publishing. But if you don’t care about having great cover art and you think your critique parts are editors (hint: they aren’t), you can publish a book for an upfront investment of less than $100. Doing it right is going to cost you a lot more than that–I anticipate spending around $500 to publish The Lesson Plan, which I’m expecting to release toward the end of October. That’s because I paid for a professional cover design (although really, that was very inexpensive) and I expect to pay my content/copy editor a nice chunk of change for her efforts. I won’t put out a book that’s not professionally edited. I just won’t.

²Given that several well-respected epublishers, most notably Ellora’s Cave, started in large part to publish books written by their founders, the distinction between author and publisher becomes even sillier, doesn’t it?