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You might want to take a good, hard look at the royalty agreements for ACX before you start worrying about audiobooks.quote:2. How much will my audiobook sell for in stores? With the current royalty structure at 40% and the WhisperSync option making your audiobook available for $1.99 to anyone who bought the Kindle version, you may very well find yourself earning less for your audiobook than you did for the ebook. Sundae fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 20:03
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You can probably find me saying this several times in this thread but I regret every penny I spent producing audiobooks.
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Nov 21, 2015 06:17
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magnificent7 posted:I did a book giveaway on goodreads, got a lot of activity from it, including a review and three book ratings. (Somebody gave it one star? And didn't bother to write a review to back it up? If you're that passionate about something, I'd assume you'd want to elaborate.) This is one of those milestones you reach once you've published. You will get one star reviews that make no sense. It just happens. quote:My kindle numbers have been going up, so that's also a good thing. This weekend I'm doing a 30-minute facebook event. A FB book release party or some poo poo? I honestly have no idea what it is but a lot of authors on FB say it's a great way to get exposure. It might be too late but it would be worthwhile looking up what these are and what's expected. Don't squander a chance to shine. quote:Next month I'm going to record the audiobook of my book. Has anybody done that? Has it paid for your beach house? Because I am counting on that. I think this could be a fun experience, but it won't earn much money. I've got like a dozen short stories turned into audiobooks, and in the past year I don't think they've earned $200 combined over that time. As others have said, ACX is the biggest scam in self publishing but they're the only real game in town. To point out how absurd it is: ACX takes a 60% cut for their share. If you split the remaining with a narrator, you each pocket 20%. As an Amazon Affiliate, someone clicked one of my links for an ebook but then bought an unrelated audiobook. I got paid 29% of the retail price of the audiobook as an advertiser's fee. It was a very cheap audiobook, but it was still more money than I would earn as one of the creatives behind my own audiobook.
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Nov 21, 2015 11:54
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I've made almost nothing on the audiobooks I've put out and I'm fairly convinced that they destroyed the sales of the actual books
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Nov 21, 2015 16:59
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:This is one of those milestones you reach once you've published. You will get one star reviews that make no sense. It just happens. "This book is fantatic! However my Kindle's battery died right before the climax so ONE STAR"
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Nov 21, 2015 22:52
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Roar posted:I've made almost nothing on the audiobooks I've put out and I'm fairly convinced that they destroyed the sales of the actual books I'll do a little poking around on audible, find out if there's any other options besides ACX, but unless there's something amazing, I'll save the time an effort. Thanks for the info. - Edit. Well. An hour later and I know less than I knew before. So, yeah screw that noise. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Nov 22, 2015 |
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Nov 22, 2015 01:06
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There really aren't any options other than ACX but I don't think that you should go with them. If you agree to publish with them exclusively (and you must do this to get a royalty share agreement), you're locked in for seven years. I think there will be a better option in the next seven years but even if there's not, nobody I know who makes serious money makes more than 1% of it on audiobooks.
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Nov 22, 2015 04:11
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EngineerSean posted:There really aren't any options other than ACX but I don't think that you should go with them. If you agree to publish with them exclusively (and you must do this to get a royalty share agreement), you're locked in for seven years. I think there will be a better option in the next seven years but even if there's not, nobody I know who makes serious money makes more than 1% of it on audiobooks.
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Nov 22, 2015 05:05
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We're turning my latest novel into a full-cast audio drama, and plan to release it as a podcast serial starting in January. Depending on how it goes, I might just do that instead of audiobooks going forward.
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Nov 22, 2015 21:47
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Did another "Meet the Author" video for the facebook event thing I'm doing in three hours. Used a different camera, (different smart phone) and the mic is a piece of poo poo. So, that's my edge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kjyChof0dA Oh yeah, included my new alternative to Audiobooks at the very end. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Nov 22, 2015 |
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Nov 22, 2015 22:06
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Book trailers never made much sense to me. You still have to find a way to get them in front of your customer, so why not just get the book itself in front of your customer. Also, they appeal to... what audience, exactly? The people who like to read but would rather learn about their word-based entertainment in video format? People who watch youtube for entertainment but will suddenly decide to read your book instead of catching their usual show? I don't think the media formats overlap quite that much. I could be wrong, of course. I often am.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:58
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Sundae posted:Book trailers never made much sense to me. You still have to find a way to get them in front of your customer, so why not just get the book itself in front of your customer. Also, they appeal to... what audience, exactly? The people who like to read but would rather learn about their word-based entertainment in video format? People who watch youtube for entertainment but will suddenly decide to read your book instead of catching their usual show? I don't think the media formats overlap quite that much. I could be wrong, of course. I often am. Totally Agree. That's a lot of time and money that could go towards writing another book, editing, and paying for regular old promos.
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Nov 22, 2015 23:07
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For the most part, I'd agree, book trailers are stupid. Except that I discovered my favorite author and favorite book because of a lovely trailer. I'm sure a huge part of that was the story itself, it was unique and interesting, but the trailer got the book in front of me in a place where I'd normally NOT be looking for a book.
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Nov 23, 2015 05:24
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With a book trailer you're asking people to watch an ad. Nobody is doing that.
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Nov 23, 2015 12:38
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ravenkult posted:With a book trailer you're asking people to watch an ad. Nobody is doing that. I really liked Zack Parson's Liminal States trailers. But that was probably him social networking with some goony goons to get them film school creds
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Nov 23, 2015 12:46
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https://vimeo.com/40797554
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Nov 23, 2015 12:50
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syscall girl posted:I really liked Zack Parson's Liminal States trailers. It's backwards marketing though. You're getting your fans to watch your video, which would be fine if you were trying to sell them videos, but you're not, you're selling them books. Spend your time selling them the book.
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Nov 23, 2015 12:51
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ravenkult posted:It's backwards marketing though. You're getting your fans to watch your video, which would be fine if you were trying to sell them videos, but you're not, you're selling them books. Spend your time selling them the book. It sold me And what about those ads on TV and radio for best selling authors? Not advocating it but someone thought it was a good idea.
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Nov 23, 2015 12:59
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syscall girl posted:It sold me Your trailer isn't going to be on TV though. There are easier, cheaper ways to convert customers, is all I'm saying. I mean here we are talking about how to have the best cover, title, blurb, to get their interest as fast as possible. A book trailer is the antithesis of that.
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Nov 23, 2015 13:07
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is synirc down right now?
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Nov 23, 2015 13:56
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angel opportunity posted:is synirc down right now? Nope, I don't think so
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Nov 23, 2015 14:42
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Bobby Deluxe posted:If you're doing it in your spare time, you should be aiming for 1k a day. If you get to the point where it's your job, 2k a day. 500 words is the absolute minimum you should be writing every single day. I don't want to tell anyone how much they should be writing per day, because I think it's pretty personal, but I think just on its face suggesting that you can do half as much in your spare time as you can in a full-time job is kinda hosed up. You're basically saying "spare time" writing is equal to a half-time job, which is completely unreasonable.
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Nov 24, 2015 11:13
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:I don't want to tell anyone how much they should be writing per day, because I think it's pretty personal, but I think just on its face suggesting that you can do half as much in your spare time as you can in a full-time job is kinda hosed up. You're basically saying "spare time" writing is equal to a half-time job, which is completely unreasonable. I don't really like to lay down hard numbers either but you have to be able to write a lot if you want to make this a career. Everyone is going to have different levels that are reasonable to them, and if I tracked my daily word count I'd have a lot of "0" days, but I don't see a lot of people having success in self publishing if they're not producing a lot of words of fiction on a consistent basis.
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Nov 24, 2015 12:59
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:I don't want to tell anyone how much they should be writing per day, because I think it's pretty personal, but I think just on its face suggesting that you can do half as much in your spare time as you can in a full-time job is kinda hosed up. You're basically saying "spare time" writing is equal to a half-time job, which is completely unreasonable. I wouldn't have thought there are many people writing as their day job who are putting in the equivalent of 9-5 hours, so maybe when I said full-time it would have been better as day job or main income. e: to clarify, I was spitballing the limits i've set myself. 1k target, 2k on a good day, 500 minimum if i'm just not feeling it that day. I'm probably not the greatest person to be stating limits because I haven't managed that most days, i'm just repeating rough wordcounts I hear thrown about on DD and other places. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 13:38
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Before my day job went nuts on me again, I averaged 3-5 hrs per day (including weekends, 0hrs days, higher productivity days, etc) for writing. I typically burn out after 1-1.5 now. I can't wait for my upcoming FMLA since it'll give me three weeks of writing time.
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Nov 24, 2015 16:43
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What I meant was that if you can write 1k/day in your spare time, you should be able to write way more than 2k/day if writing is your job. If you can only write 2k/day when it's your job, fine, but it's probably unreasonable to then expect to write 1k/day in the few hours of spare time you have if you're working a full-time day job. Obviously writing a lot consistently is mandatory to succeed as a writer. I didn't mean it's no big deal if you don't write much, so just do whatever. Daaaaaaaaang. Really though, everyone is going to have their own amount of writing they can do in a day. Maybe it's more helpful to think of how often you want to (need to?) put out a book, and then divide it by the number of days, and there's your answer. That's how many words you should be writing per day. For what it's worth, I go the complete opposite way and do it completely by time, because I actually don't procrastinate when I have to stare at the computer and do nothing else for 30 minutes, but I can always tell myself there's plenty of time left in the day to write another 500 or so words. Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Nov 25, 2015 |
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Nov 25, 2015 02:15
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That calculation might be a bit off anyway, how much of the wordcount do you guys lose/strip in editing? 5%? 20%? 100%
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Nov 25, 2015 08:53
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^^^ I overwrite by 10% in my first drafts so I can feel confident I have lots to edit. But as I hope is apparent, i'm not a professional and i'm just repeating things i've heard others say. From my point of view, I only tend to have enough ideas to produce about 2k max of useable writing a day. It's not so much about having the time to write as it is about other limitations. My WPM typing speed and RSI limitations mean if I sat and freewrote literally whatever came out of my head, I could probably produce 10k in a day. It would be unusable dreck though, and i'd be burned out for the next day. I'm reluctant to get into that side of the argument though, because writers not writing because they're 'not inspired' that day is such a lame excuse. And i'm aware that not many writers are going to share my issues and circumstances. I'm just saying that having all day free to write because you don't have a job might not mean spending all of that time writing. A lot of people have been talking about pomodoro because it allows you to produce short bursts of focussed writing, but I think it works because trying to maintain that focus for too long is not something most people have the mental stamina for. I'm blathering, but I think what I mean is that most people will be capable of 500-1k a day with a job on top of it. But not having a job (because you're finally making enough from the writing or have an understanding partner) doesn't mean you can produce for 7 hours during the day instead of for 2 in the morning / evening, it just means you relocate your writing time to the day, get a bit more done in the extra time, and then relax / prepare ideas in the evening and the rest of the day. Besides, I think for most people the goal of dropping the day job is so you can spend an hour or two working in the morning and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever you want, right? Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Nov 25, 2015 |
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Nov 25, 2015 09:18
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:That calculation might be a bit off anyway, how much of the wordcount do you guys lose/strip in editing? 5%? 20%? 100% Lose? I add like 5%. Because everything I originally write is brilliant and people need more. (this isn't a joke)
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Nov 25, 2015 16:01
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brotherly posted:Lose? I add like 5%. Because everything I originally write is brilliant and people need more. (this isn't a joke)
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Nov 25, 2015 16:21
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magnificent7 posted:Or many many people tell you that 50,000 words is never enough for a completed novel, and you're all, "oh gently caress but there's nothing left to write, okay I guess I'll add a dog dream sequence in there." I mean I've never added a dog dream sequence but you have no idea how many times I've been like "god, where can I put another sex scene in here?" or "can I have them verbally spar one more time in chapter seventeen?"
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Nov 25, 2015 16:27
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EngineerSean posted:I mean I've never added a dog dream sequence but you have no idea how many times I've been like "god, where can I put another sex scene in here?" or "can I have them verbally spar one more time in chapter seventeen?" The nice thing about writing military sci-fi is that you can always have something explode. Bobby Deluxe posted:^^^ I overwrite by 10% in my first drafts so I can feel confident I have lots to edit. But as I hope is apparent, i'm not a professional and i'm just repeating things i've heard others say. It's something I've struggled with a lot, too. You can only force creativity to a certain degree, so you can't scale your word production endlessly. If I had to give an advice, it'd be setting yourself a minimum target that you know you can hit (500 words seems easy enough) and allow yourself to be open ended about it. If you want to write more, write more. High word goals create a sense of pressure (at least for me) that isn't always motivating but often terrifying (the "oh god I still have to writte 1k words and I don't know what I'm supposed to write about, I'm the worst author ever"-effect).
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Nov 25, 2015 17:26
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EngineerSean posted:I mean I've never added a dog dream sequence but you have no idea how many times I've been like "god, where can I put another sex scene in here?" or "can I have them verbally spar one more time in chapter seventeen?" I do this all the time too. I'm only at 48k? Might as well toss in a sex scene. Maybe a random heroine-and-bff-go-to-the-club scene too!
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Nov 25, 2015 17:40
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brotherly posted:I do this all the time too. I'm only at 48k? Might as well toss in a sex scene. Maybe a random heroine-and-bff-go-to-the-club scene too! This explains so much. I wonder how many pointless side characters are a result of word bumping.
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Nov 25, 2015 18:52
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Shirec posted:This explains so much. I wonder how many pointless side characters are a result of word bumping. an unfortunate necessity in today's publishing environment
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Nov 25, 2015 20:36
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ArchangeI posted:The nice thing about writing
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Nov 25, 2015 23:59
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Wait, so you'll not release anything under 50K? It's that hard and fast a rule?
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Nov 26, 2015 00:24
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So is Thanksgiving pretty much a null day with regards to romance/erotica sales, or will there be lots of people needing, er, stress relief after dealing with relative drama all day? Wondering if I should release something tomorrow or wait 'till Friday.
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Nov 26, 2015 01:12
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ArchangeI posted:If I had to give an advice, it'd be setting yourself a minimum target that you know you can hit (500 words seems easy enough) and allow yourself to be open ended about it. If you want to write more, write more. Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 26, 2015 |
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Nov 26, 2015 01:23
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freebooter posted:Wait, so you'll not release anything under 50K? It's that hard and fast a rule? I would guess that the "rule" is to release things that are an appropriate length for your chosen genre. If most big-selling neanderthal-romance novels are 40,000 words or more, then that's the length you should aim at for your own neanderthal-romance novels. If you release a story that is under the expected length people will feel like it's not good value and complain about it. If it's too long people might get bored, or it might just be a poor use of your writing time as 40k is enough and each extra word has greatly diminished returns. There are a bunch of professionals in here that write to make money, and while they care about the craft they don't really care so much about what kind of thing they write. This is a world away from people who wrote a thing for love/art, and then decided that they'd like to self-publish it to make money off it. Some of the advice is interchangeable between these two groups (cover design, marketing, etc), but a lot of the stuff that really counts in terms of $$$ happens before someone even sits down to write. Your surprise at their being set numbers of words that sell well is an example of this disconnect - the "best" version of a given story might be 39k words, and adding an extra thousand might necessarily make it worse. But it will ALSO make it sell better, which is what this thread is all about. People need to ask themselves whether money or art matters more, as they are often be at odds with each other. That said, I hope the disconnect continues because it makes for some entertaining reading sometimes.
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Nov 26, 2015 02:18
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