Hard facts about hard cash
Please welcome Edie Ramer who has some interesting information about self publishing. I know she'll surprise you with what she has found.
A big thank you to Mary for having me as her guest today. As an indie author, with Cattitude http://edieramer.com/books/ so recently out, I’ve been asked how much money I’ll make per book. I can tell people that’s 70% per book from Amazon (if it meets certain criteria, which mine did). Or if someone buys directly from Smashwords, it’s 85%.
I wasn’t able to tell people more, because that’s all I knew. That’s not good, because I should know how much money I’ll be getting. It’s a business, not a hobby. One of these days, I hope to make decent money. I’m looking forward to the time when I have to pay a lot of taxes.
That means I’m making a lot of money.
I was happy to see this post by Mike Shatzkin http://www.idealog.com/blog/the-other-comparison-ebook-royalties-versus-ebook-self-publishing giving numbers and percentages and showing them in examples of dollars and cents.
Here’s what he said:
“Smashwords pays authors 85% of the sales price for ebooks sold on its own site, and about 85% of the receipts for sales made through iBooks (Apple), Sony, B&N, Kobo, and the Diesel eBook Store. In other words, an author would get more than three times the “old” standard 25% ebook royalty offered by the big publishers and double the “new” possible 40% royalty implied as the new ceiling by the Random-Wylie agreement announced last week.”
In other words, because Smashwords gets 15% for formatting and distributing, your net is 85% of the following percentages:
B&N, Sony: 42.5%
Kobo: 46.75%
iBooks, Diesel: 60%
I’m charging $2.99 for Cattitude (less than the cost of a cup of coffee!). Here’s the breakdown of what I’ll get per seller:
Amazon: $2.04 (they charge 6 cents for delivering to the buyer through Whispernet)
Smashwords: $2.54
Barnes & Noble, Sony: $1.08
Kobo: $1.19
iBooks, Diesel: $1.55
Compare that to what Shatzkin says an author would get from an e-book sold as an ebook by a print pub:
“On a $9 list-price ebook, the author would be getting $1.125 from a wholesale publisher and $1.575 from an agency publisher at 25% royalty; $1.80 and $2.52 at 40%.”
I hope your eyes aren’t crossing, because there’s more. This is what Joe Konrath said in the comments of this blog https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=11291165&postID=4781617604822572566:
“With a $7.99 paperback, you're getting a tangible item that can be put on a shelf or resold. The cost of that item compensates the artist, the publisher, the distributor, the bookseller, and all the overhead and costs along the way. The artist earns 64 cents on a $7.99 paperback.
On a $2.99 ebook, the item is intangible. It has no resale value. There are no costs for printing or shipping or warehousing.
Yet the artist earns $2.04--more than three times the royalty for a paperback.”
After you comment, go and read that blog. It’s an eye opener in other ways.
It sounds like I’m bashing print publishing, and I’m not. I love print books, and many of my friends are print writers. But now that I have my Kindle, I’m more likely to buy on it because of the convenience. And, yes, sometimes it’s cheaper. (Not always. I bought Deadly Fear by Cynthia Eden on my Kindle. It’s $6.99 on Amazon in print or e-book or if you bought it at a store. But I love her writing, so I bought it anyway.)
And would I sell to a print publisher? Oh yes. In fact, hell yes! But I’m not as needy as I was before I self pubbed. I won’t come to the table hungry. The terms would have to be good for me to say yes.
This isn’t my usually perky blog, but I hope it was informational. Feel free to ask questions or to give your opinion, pro or con. My feelings won’t be hurt.
Edie Ramer
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