I’ve kind of abstractly mentioned a few times that I was approached by a literary agent a few months ago to put together a book on the occult in pop culture. The basic idea is one I like, but I’m finding that literary agents have a rather different idea about what people want to read than I do. Actually, it seems to be wholly focused around what they think they can sell, rather than what the average person wants to read. More power to them, I think, as long as the system works for them and they’re putting out good products. Well, that second part is debateable, right? The other thing I’m looking at right now is how “hot” niche markets (and the so-called long tail) have become now, thanks to the internet. As I see it, the internet helps people realize how weird they are, and even revel in it. Look no further than this site for proof of that.
What I’m really left wondering amidst all this is, would it even be worth it to put together something for a mass market? Certainly the potential financial rewards would be nothing to scoff at. But let me ask if you think my writing style and pointed type of exploration can really survive the mass-marketization process? I’ve been wondering it a lot myself lately, and can’t come up with a satisfactory answer. I’m already sensing that my approach would need to be necessarily snipped, stripped and modified in a lot of major ways in order to be viable in the marketplace - or at least that segment of the marketplace they are interested in. On one level, I’ve argued with myself, that going through such a process would necessarily teach me a great deal about the professional publishing industry (which I would like to break into) and marketing in general - not to mention communication skills. But would it be a crash course or a simple painful crash? The jury’s still out. Let me just clarify though: I’m confident in my ability to make good choices and not screw up, but I’m not certain it’s really the best path to take in terms of my time and effort.
So I’m looking at self-publishing options again (not that I’ve decided either way, at this point - just exploring). I’m focusing mainly on Lulu.com, which I recently discovered was founded by the dude who created the Red Hat Linux company. Anyway, Lulu seems to be getting big right now, has tons of positive reviews online, and you don’t put any money down, unless you want to sell it through Amazon, etc. Then it’s something like $150 per title - which is a lot less than most of the other POD (print-on-demand) publishers I’ve investigated.
Anyway, I’m not so much interested in advice on whether or not to self-publish. I’m pretty set in what I think about that already (ahem, notice this website). But I am curious if I could actually make it work with Lulu. Now, I don’t expect to get rich from any of this, and that’s not why I do it. But I’m curious just what people would be interested in, hence this discussion. Lulu has a book cost calculator, which indicates the base production price for a 100 page 6×9 inch B&W inside, color outside, normally bound paperback is about $6.50. The way they work is give you that price, you set your royalty above that, and then they take 25% of that, smack it on the top and that’s the sale price. So, in other words, say I want to make off this hypothetical $6.50 book, a two dollar profit. So their sale price would be just under $11. That seems like too much to me to pay for an approximately 100 page book. Even though I’ve actually bought books at that price myself. Does that seem like too much to you? If I were to drop my profit down to one dollar, we could sail the cover price in below $9.50, which is starting to make more sense to the consumer, but not as much to me the writer. I don’t have any grand expectations that any such book I might publish would sell maybe more than 10 copies in a year. That’s fine, but making $10 off that doesn’t sound especially amazing.
Then there’s the issue of Amazon distribution. In order to be able to cover the cost of that, I’d have to sell either 75 books (through the Lulu website) at a $2 profit, or 150 books at a $1 profit. Both of these seem equally unlikely. Especially since I myself wouldn’t be much interested in buying a book through the Lulu website (I hate signing up for new online merchant accounts). And I’m not interested at this point in dropping the money out of my own pocket just for vanity’s sake to have it on Amazon. Potentially, I could cover those costs in a few months with my current advertising system. But that money wouldn’t necessarily pay back out in book sales.
Like I said, I don’t need or expect to get rich off this, but neither do I think I should squander possibilities this site and my writing afford me. I feel like I could probably polish off approximately 6 or more books at about 100+ pages in a year, covering a huge variety of subjects and interest levels. Maybe some longer than that, and some shorter. Some could be more pulpy and speculative, and some could be a lot more polished - kind of like what Brad Steiger does, that guy’s like a writing fiend. I would probably want to have all the content of all the books also available online as well, although I know a lot of people disagree with that approach. I personally think it’s stupid not to do that, because it makes the content available for reference and casual use, and only the most die-hard weirdos want to read a hundred page book all online when they could be curled up in their easy chair with a beer or a joint or what have you.
Anyway, if anybody has any thoughts on all this, I’d much appreciate it. Even if I did land a “real” publishing contract, I might still try to augment it with this secondary strategy, and just ride on my own coat tails and the marketing a major publisher would do (contract allowing, of course).
- END -
ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- Computerism, A Definition
- Tim Boucher’s SIX STRATAGEMS
- Google skewing research
- They Stole My Idea!
- Working Now?
13 Comments
work with an agent who can get you to market. once you have some sales you can indulge yourself. money is good, that`s why they call it money. your style is clear and concise. just make sure that you don`t censor yourself by contract. you still need to blog and publish niche works.
Thanks. I’m not saying the money is bad. I’m over balking at the “selling out” argument. If I were to write something to a mass market, I would simply look at it like a job, and figure out how to effectively and creatively satisfy the requirements of that job. If I can do both that and this alternate strategy, that’s great. I’m just trying to not put all my eggs in one basket.
I have a close family member who has self-published with one of those self-publishing companies, and he’s had endless problems with Amazon and B&N, but you encounter those problems if you self-publish the old fashioned way: that is, paying a printer yourself to print your book and kill the middle man. But the self-publishing companies do help you get into Amazon and B&N, but you still have to hustle — like, my family member has to every week set up his own readings at B&Ns, libraries, conventions, etc. That’s how he has to sell his books.
You obviously already have a base and could likely sell quite a few books straight through your site: PayPal works wonders.
Knowing this business, you could pay a lot less for books if you paid for the publishing yourself and didn’t go through a Lulu type company. Print a few thousand books at once and it would be more like $3-5 a book. Your profit margin would be much higher, but you’d have to pay around $10K up front to print — that’s how these self-pub companies get business. For you, it would make more sense to financially invest in yourself. You can always sell the books forever. If you believe in your product, you can afford to get a bunch printed at once instead of using the print on demand idea.
However, whether self-publishing or getting signed to a major book publisher, you cannot expect to make any money at all that you would be able to support yourself on. The book publishing industry is brutal, knowing it first-hand. Only if you sell millions like the Da Vinci Code can you make a living. It’s a shame, but there are a lot more writers and books on the market these days. However, clever writers who self-publish can make a little money if they’re smart about it. Hope this helps some.
I actually did one completely unrelated to my current work years ago, so I know the routine. It was through iUniverse. Went perfectly smoothly, but their price is now way too high to use.
Not worth it to me.
I don’t expect that, so don’t worry.
What I really want to know out of all this is: how much would you pay for an approximately 100+ page book on a subject you were interested in, from an author you had at least passing familiarity with and who has a website where you can check out their work?
The other thing I meant to bring into this discussion is that Amazon recently bought the Booksurge company, a POD self-publisher, which means they are anticipating/riding an important publishing market shift
I routinely pay $20-30 for conspiracy books that are usually quite bad.
Never underestimate your worth.
Sorry to ignore your question again: I’d pay up to $10 or maybe $15 for a relatively short book. That’s why I recommended saving money by paying printing yourself. I’ve seen that model be relatively successful on a few occasions.
Possibly it’s just me, but I feel you might be better off doing three books of around 200 pages each rather than 6 of 100 pages… although perhaps it would depend upon the subject and how much substance you thought you could put into it.
thanks james, that 100 page thing is just an estimate, really. im just trying to kick the idea around right now
Interesting to read your thought process on this topic. I’m a fan of independent publishing for some–not all–kinds of books, but then again I am a Lulu partisan. It’s worth noting that according to R.R. Bowker, the average retail price for a trade paperback is up to $15.95–I think you should use that as your benchmark regardless of how many pages the book is. You can sell the ebook version (ugh, I know) for much less just to give people more options.
Using Lulu for fulfillment and skipping Amazon/retail distribution makes perfect sense for authors like you who have developed your own audiences on the web. Unlike authors operating in a non-web-centric marketing environment, you can control where you send your customers to buy the book. This is the model used by all of the successful independent publishers on Lulu, I should add, although there are those who (like the relative of one of the prior posters) buy a bunch of copies of their own book and then schlep them around from event to event selling them in person. That can work, but it’s very time consuming.
Ahh you’re familiar with iUniverse. I was going to bring it up as checked it out some time ago. I came across the book The Occult Art of War, by “Seth,” through my browsing of Amazon. I ordered it at my local neighbourhood bookstore, as I usually do, and it was self-published via iUniverse. Thing is, the book isn’t that good. All this self-publishing may be just ego satiation, for the most part.
Though that comment has nothing to do with Tim. For this stuff, I would maybe check out the sales of Disinformation’s books. They really pushed a few of them, and I got their Book of Lies: Guide to Magick, which was useless to me but perhaps not others.
It could also be the context by which you push it out there. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the context of the occult a lot. If you might be able to approach a different market or crowd? Just a thought. Writing one more occult book would be preaching to the choir, in effect, cuz are these “pop culture occult” books really drawing anyone new? In what fashion? Why would they be?
If the context is already ruined or saturated, the greatest thing you may be able to achieve is approaching the same content but from a different angle. This freshens it up, creates controversy sometimes, and offers appeal to a market that may not have been introduced to such ideas before.
I see something like Tool and they drew many people to mysticism through their music. Same with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and hell even some metal bands really draw youth to peculiar schools of practice and apparently Satanism or something akin.
I guess you just need to consider whether a) you are doing it for yourself; b) what will you gain from doing this; c) who is your readership and are they interested in it; d) what makes it different from the competition; e) how easy is it to find/ access/ purchase; f) will people talk about it; et al.
That is also the marketer in me just blathering on, however.
That’s great advice Fell, I appreciate it. I might have some more ideas to bounce off you, as I know you’ve thought a lot about this.
I’d be more than happy to help whenever you require me.