Timewaster's Guide Archive

I actually didn't realize that only 10% of a books sales price is for the printing and distribution of the book. One of brandons links was to an author who blogged on that (I forgot who).

This might be part of the problem. The pereception is there is no cost to the publisher for a next ebook. People (including me) did not realize the up front cost of editing, design, cover, marketing, etc...

I don't get the gimmick of buying an e-book. They seem like an utter waste of money at this point. $400 for a pdf viewer? To be fair Barnes and Noble's reader got AWFUL reviews in the New York Times. They basically said it was garbage. They said it frequently took 3 seconds to turn a page.

That being said, in 5 years there will be e-readers for $80 and they will have more features. Or there will be iPads that are actually worth buying.  Generally it takes about 5 years for these new gadgets to work themselves out. We see which ones actually stick around and the ones that do tend to get a lot better and cheaper. The current e-books seem like an utter waste of money. People just want the latest gadget. I am a professional programmer and I don't even fall for this stuff. I am a total geek for technology too.

Layoff Sarah Palin. Hillary Clinton got $4-5 million advance. All she did was marry the right guy. Sarah Palin has a built in right wing audience built in. That being said I have no interest in her book.

What petition? How would it hurt Brandon.

Writers can make distribution their business by leaving a publisher is does not do a good job.

so authors used to get more money up fron then they do now? Why did they get more up front? I would think that only a small % of releases are big hits, many do ok, and then a significant number bomb out or have low sales. A book can be good quality and still not sell well.

Are there just more books published now?

so this guy eidon got a 6 book deal having NEVER published before with $100,000/book up front or $600,000? I can see that kind of money or more if you are famous and writing a first book (see Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton), but what fan base does this guy have?

I would also think that alot of selling a new author is the author's willingness and ability to market themselves on top of the publisher.

I get the impression now that first time authors generally get 1 book deals with maybe a $10k advance. This way the publisher can find out if the guy can sell books. Then once they prove themselves they more. I am sure Robert Jordan got big advances for his books after they became hits. I would bet that Stephen King probably gets upward of $1 million advance/book.

This is a little off topic. Thanks to the person who pointed me to John Scalzi's blog. I really like it. I noticed that an author friend of his had to have emergency heart surgery and does not have medical insurance. So are you guys out in the cold when it comes to insurance and have to buy individual plans? Is there anyway you can get a plan through your publisher? Or the SFWA negotiates a group plan?

Getting insurance on your own is a problem. Companies do not  like to insure individuals and if you have anything wrong with you at all you end up in the HIPAA category (roughly $1,000/month, covers only emergencies and has a huge deductible).

I am asking in case I want to write some day....

did he get a 6 book deal? It looks like he published 6 books in the series then it got cancelled. How big of an advance could he have gotten as a first time author? I heard terry goodkind got one of the biggest for a first time fantasy author due to a bidding war. However, I doubt it was more than $100,000. I can't see a publisher throwing 6 figures at first time authors. Even if a book is good it does not mean it will sell.

I am listening to Writing Excuses on how to deal with external influences. Brandon said there was some author who had a huge fantasy failure because he only read Tolkein.

Who was it and what was the book? He didn't say.