"Fair Compensation" for Your Work

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Something I see regularly discussed in writing and publishing circles is the subject of a writer being

"fairly compensated" for her/his work. Often this takes the form of a pricing discussion, or perhaps in the context of reports on authors' average or median income. There are many common refrains I think are misguided. They include:


"I set my ebook price at $9.99 [or other high amount] because I want to be fairly compensated for my work."

In indie publishing, seeking "fair compensation" on a per-unit basis is the wrong strategy. You're not flipping a house; you're creating a work of which you can sell an unlimited number of copies. Your strategy should be what any competent businessperson does: find the price point at which sales*price= maximum revenue. The ability to offer books at a significantly lower price than traditional publishers and still make a solid royalty per-sale is one of an indie's most effective tools. We'd be foolish not to use that to our advantage.

I recently participated in a pricing discussion in  which an author advocated for the $9.99 price point, cited the length of her books as a deciding factor, and claimed her readers "thanked her for charging a fair price for her work." Her book was ranked around 1,000,000 on Amazon, which means she probably hasn't sold a copy in more than a month. We'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she's selling a copy a month. Is the (a little less than) $7 she earned last month a "fair compensation" for her work?

"I'm going to set X price point and train my readers to expect that price for my work."

Bad news: your readers aren't exclusively yours. They're reading lots of other authors in your genre (and probably in other genres) and those other authors, if they're indies are most likely pricing according to the market. In commercial fiction, our work is fungible. Fans of George RR Martin don't go on a "book fast" in between new installments of A Song of Ice and Fire. If I stopped writing tomorrow, readers who love Dane Maddock will be disappointed, but they aren't going to give up reading forever. They're going to keep enjoying all the other thriller and action-adventure authors in their TBR pile. If I were to start charging $9.99 for an ebook, a fraction of those readers would come along for the ride, but most will simply spend their money one more reasonably priced indie authors, or will buy books from better-known trad-pub authors.

"I'm not going to charge less than X for my book. I worked too hard on it for that."

The level of effort you put into your work has no bearing whatsoever on what price point will maximize your revenue. If you want to be compensated for your hard work, charge a price that the market will bear, and earn as much as you can from your book.

"I'm not going to be a part of the race to the bottom in indie book pricing."

There's no race to the bottom. The indie ebook market is fairly stable, with $2.99-$4.99 being the price points (according to Data Guy) at which authors are maximizing revenue, and that's been the case for a while. Thanks in large part to Bookbub, 99 cents is no longer "special," and is now typically used as a special sale price. The same with free books- authors offer them as part of a larger sales strategy.

"X author charges X and earned X last year!"

- Are you sure?
- Even if that's true, the exception doesn't prove the rule.
- I'll wager I can point to many, many more authors who are pricing according to the dictates of the market, and are making a lot more money than X author.
- If you're new to publishing, or haven't yet reached the level of success you're aiming for, X author's income probably seems like a lot, but remember, your best chance of earning that much (or much more) is to follow the examples of those authors who are enjoying the most success.

"Oprah says, 'Don't accept no from people who don't have the power to say yes.'" 

I saw this comment in reply to a debut indie author who was planning to charge $9.99 for his book. (Side note- Oprah's a badass and, in context, that's a great quote.) If your goal is to succeed in indie publishing,  it is absolutely your prerogative to ignore the experience and advice of the authors who have worked their way to the level you hope to reach, but do so at your peril. No one's telling you "no:" they're saying, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." (Side note #2- the author did, in fact, price his book at $9.99, and it's not selling.)


"It's so awful that the average author only earns X per year. People need to value our profession more than that."

While I won't dispute that the vast majority of authors don't earn a substantial income from writing, let's face some harsh realities:

-A commercial fiction author is creating a product for sale.  The author's compensation is dependent upon that product's commercial appeal, the pricing and marketing strategies applied to that product, whether or not a publisher and an agency are taking cuts of the author's work, and how frequently an author generates new products.

-We are compensated for the product, not the process (and not the effort we put into it, nor the 'intrinsic value' of our work.)

-Author earnings reports tend to be skewed by authors who: don't put out books regularly;  write bad books; write good books but use bad business practices; are fully invested in the traditional publishing model (meaning they're earning pocket change per book sold, and then giving an agent a cut too) but have midlist, or lower, sales figures.


At this point, there are several rabbit holes down which I could run, but instead, I'll save those topics for another day and underscore my main points:

The best way to be fairly compensated for your work is to use the best possible pricing strategies.

While luck plays a part, your compensation as an author will be determined by the commercial appeal of your work, your business decisions, and your work ethic. The time we spend grumbling about underpaid authors is time we could spend writing. Get to work!

Book Review- The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

From the publisher:

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . .

Read a review of The Magicians and, odds are, the reviewer will make a comparison to Harry Potter. Don't buy it. Yes, the story begins with a young man learning he's a magician, heading off to a magical university, making friends, and developing his powers. I emphasize "begins with" because all of this happens in a few hundred pages. Imagine Harry Potter if: all the years at Hogwarts were compressed into the first half of the first book; then Harry and crew move to New York, where they spend their time drinking, having sex, and feeling depressed. Harry spends a lot of time brooding over how sad and pointless live is, how he doesn't really have feelings for Ginny any more, and magic hasn't made his life any better. Voldemort makes a very brief appearance early on, one which no one really understands or thinks about until he shows up again at the book's climax.

This is not to say The Magicians is a bad book. Just don't go into it looking for Harry Potter. I tried reading it shortly after its release, and didn't finish it, possibly because I was looking for something like HP. After trying The Magicians television series on NetFlix, I decided to give it another try, and found I enjoyed it for what it is. (I confess I prefer the show to the book.)

What I found most interesting about The Magicians is its main character, Quentin Coldwater. He's unhappy, dissatisfied with life, seldom heroic, not easy to like, but easy to root for. He's probably the most honest representation of the introverted fantasy novel lover that I've seen in fiction. Many of us find ourselves wishing Hogwarts (or insert your favorite fantastic setting) was real, and daydream about what it would be like if we could live there. Let's get real: if the average bookish, introverted, depressed person got to go to Hogwarts,  (s)he might enjoy aspects of it, but would still be the same shy, unhappy person on the inside, and would spend a lot of time in her/his dorm room or the library, reading and daydreaming about the magical world outside of school. That's Quentin. He's a bit of a downer, but his struggles are real, and he's the same jerk even after he discovers magic.

Overall, I liked but didn't love The Magicians. It was a bit slow, but good enough to keep me reading. I didn't, however, enjoy it enough to dive into books two and three, though I might read them one of these days.

Buy The Magicians here

Aztlan- A Dane Maddock Short Story

Maddock and Bones go rock climbing in a remote area of the American Southwest and stumble upon a place out of legend that changes their world.

Virtual Book Launch Events

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Online Launch Party

Last month saw the launch of the new Dane Maddock Kindle World, and with it, the publication of six new Maddock adventures. Because this was a big deal, I wanted to do something more than what I usually do with a book release. So, I decided to host a virtual launch party on Facebook. If you’re thinking of doing something similar, here are a few tips:

Set up a Facebook event:

Doing it this way keeps your author or personal page from getting cluttered and also gives the event that “special” feel you’re looking for.

Choose the date and time:

I chose the day of the Kindle World launch for the event. It was a Thursday, which I think was better than a weekend night, when people are more likely to have other plans. Because the vast majority of my audience lives in the US and Canada, I chose a time in the evening when people were likely to be home from work, and not too late for the folks in the Eastern time zone, which is the most heavily populated time zone in the US. This also worked out for some of my friends in Australia and New Zealand, though the fact that it was a Friday morning there limited participation. Readers in Europe mostly slept through it. Sorry!

Send invitations:

Obviously, having the launch outside of your usual pages means you’ll have to reach out to people, or else no one will come. With a Facebook event, you can send direct invites as well as posting an open invitation to the event. Beginning a little more than a week before the event, I posted invitations on my author page and personal page, then followed it up several days later. I didn’t want to overdo it, so I didn’t do any more advance open invitations, just a last-minute reminder.

In terms of direct invitations, I didn’t want to be obnoxious, so I gave a lot of thought to those rather than blasting everyone on my list. Also, I wanted people in attendance who actually wanted to be there, and not people who were merely dropping in just to be polite. First of all, I sent direct invitations to Facebook friends whom I knew to be among my most ardent supporters. I also invited my co-authors (and not only those who wrote Kindle World stories) and other fellow authors whose work I thought would be interesting to my readership, and who might add to the discussion. Finally, I invited folks from Cohesion Press, who published my (then) forthcoming thriller, Primordial.

Incentives:

I’m a firm believer in giving back, and I didn’t want this event to come across as, “Everybody drop in and listen to me talk about how awesome I am.” So, I did lots of giveaways, and advertised ahead of time that I’d be giving away lots of free books. I spread these out every ten minutes throughout the two hour block of time in order to keep participants interested. The giveaways included:

*Ebook copies of backlist titles. Since I didn’t know which attendees already owned which books, I selected some of my books that haven’t sold as well, and would simply post, “I’ve got X free copies of X. Comment below if you want one.” Ten minutes later, I’d choose the winner(s) and then post another giveaway. Ebooks are great to give away because they’re easy to deal with and doesn’t cost you anything to give away.

Signed books- I gave away a few of these (one every half hour, I believe.) Obviously, with a signed book, you’ve got to pay for the book, sign it, package it, make the trip to the post office, and pay for shipping. I don’t mind the expense, but it’s an hour round-trip from where I live to the nearest post office, and I can be a slacker about such things, so I keep the singed books to a minimum.

Advance copies of a forthcoming book- Cohesion Press was happy to permit me to give out advance reader copies of Primordial, which came out two weeks after the Kindle World release. Readers loved getting the advance copies, it created some excitement for that book, and we’ve gotten some reviews out of the giveaway.

*Books by fellow authors- Each of my co-authors was happy to do some sort of giveaway from their own catalogs. This was wonderful, because it added variety to the giveaways and hopefully brought those authors some new readers. Best of all, I didn’t have to deal with sending out the prizes! (I told you, I’m a slacker.)

*Note- I don’t recommend giving away copies of the book(s) you are promoting! The purpose of the launch party is to create excitement for the new release in hopes that the attendees will buy the book, spread the word, and give you a quick rankings boost to increase visibility. If you’re a big-time author, it might not make any difference, but if yours is a more modest audience, you need every sale you can get around launch time. Give away back list; sell the new book.

The plan:

*A two hour event

*Giveaways every ten minutes

*Inviting participants to ask questions (sort of an “Ask me anything.”)

*Being prepared with a few anecdotes to share about the new books. (Where the ideas came from, what the writing process was like…) This was helpful to get the ball rolling.

*Periodically posting the link to one of the new books (I was launching six at once) and in the comments beneath it, inviting my respective co-authors to talk about the book. This was a blessing because it got them involved and gave me more time to respond to the questions and comments participants posted, and to deal with the giveaways. Also, whenever a participant asked a writing-related question, I responded, and then tagged my co-authors and invited them to add their thoughts.

*Cover reveal- I used this event to create a little excitement for a book that’s coming out this summer by doing a cover reveal during the event.

*Comic relief- I created a Facebook profile for a popular character from the Maddock series, and had him participate in the party. It was difficult trying to be two people at once, but it was fun.

*Obviously, having six co-authors participate in the event is unique to this launch, but even if you’re simply launching a single solo novel, you might find it beneficial to include fellow authors from your genre in order to add to the discussion and add to the giveaways.

In Summary:

I was very happy with the way the launch event turned out. Everyone, me included, had a good time, and the Kindle World enjoyed a solid launch. I don’t think it’s something I’ll do for every book, but I’ll definitely do it again. 

If you have thoughts, questions, or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments!