# Author Earnings Report (UPDATE 10-20 w/KU)--Fill Out the Survey!



## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Remember me saying no one would do this story?

We did it ourselves.

http://authorearnings.com/

UPDATE: http://authorearnings.com/what-writers-leave-on-the-table/

UPDATE: 50K data - http://authorearnings.com/reports/the-50k-report/

UPDATE 2-25: B&N Data - http://authorearnings.com/the-bn-report/

UPDATE 7-16: July Quarterly Report (and DRM + Genre) http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/

UPDATE 10-20: October 2014 Quarterly Report (and our first look at Kindle Unlimited) http://authorearnings.com/report/october-2014-author-earnings-report-2/

_added link to update in OP for new readers. --Betsy_


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## fallswriter (Sep 11, 2012)

That's amazing. Thank you!


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## Dee Ernst (Jan 10, 2011)

Holy crap! Brilliant.


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## Gunspringer (Feb 4, 2014)

Thanks!

Browsed the charts first and from looking at those, and only those, it looks interesting enough to read too.


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## missmyrah (Jun 6, 2013)

Awesome! Thanks.


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## Not Here Anymore (May 16, 2012)

Thanks for sharing this.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Ummm...this is pretty much earth shaking.  What you've done is wonderful, informative, and I'm betting it will have huge ramifications on our industry.

Just fantastic.


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

Wow... that was eye-opening seeing it all at once.


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2014)

good idea - good luck with it - have responded.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Wow. That's great. Where on earth do you find the time?


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## Shalini Boland (Nov 29, 2010)

Thanks for doing this! The report makes brilliant reading. I skimmed it for now - hovering over the author/publisher revenue chart with my mouth hanging open - but I'm looking forward to reading it properly.

ETA - I took the survey


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## T.K. (Mar 8, 2011)

Hugh, this is awesome! I will take my time reading through all of it. A simple thank you hardly seems like enough for all this work, but thank you!


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## Ronny K (Aug 2, 2011)

You little minx!


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## jamiegrey (Oct 1, 2013)

This is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much, Hugh for taking the time to pull this together. I have a feeling this is going to change everything!


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## RichardWolanski (Jan 20, 2014)

Read your "Report" page. 

It was really eye opening stuff and I'm interested in seeing what the data will look like once more authors take the survey.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hugh,

the site looks like an author service site to me--you're requesting data and generating reports that people can sign up for. So, I'll give you the "author services" welcome, along with the rules. 

Welcome! [br][br]You're welcome to promote your website here in the Writers' Café, but we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service will be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days. If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks![br][br]Also, active members (10 or more posts on our forum, active in the last 60 days) may have a listing in the Yellow Pages for Authors. [br][br]Betsy [br]KBoards Moderator


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Interesting about the revenue cut going to the Big 5.  I pretty much knew that, but it's stunning to see it on the graph.


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## jacklusted (Nov 29, 2012)

Now THAT's a proper authors survey.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Great stuff Hugh! Didn't you just get back from an SK Tour? How do you get so much done in so little time--you are a dynamo!

Wait. Do you have a clone?


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Fantastic work! A must read for authors everywhere!


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## Adam Poe (Apr 2, 2012)

That is a lot of information!  I will continue reading it later today, bookmarking for now.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Extremely encouraging for all Indie authors. Very cool for you to do this.


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## spike Pedersen (Feb 2, 2014)

Thanks Hugh! I like where this is going.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

jacklusted said:


> Now THAT's a proper authors survey.


It's all from readers of Writer's Digest.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

Published: 2/12/2014

It's from the future!


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## Randall Boleyn (Mar 8, 2012)

Whoa, Hugh, maybe you need to find a hobby! What a launch— can't wait to see the fallout that will spew around your report. I signed the petition and it's really cool having such a thoughtful and wise advocate for all writers.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

OK, I'm totally going to exploit this data. IDK what for yet, since my head is exploding, but I will.

But I have a question: Hugh, when do you find time to do all this? My god, man, are you superhuman?


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

SBJones said:


> Published: 2/12/2014
> 
> It's from the future!


 
It certainly is. Mark the date on your calendar, this one's a game changer.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Awesome site and report! Just took the survey, and love that you can view all the survey replies and comments…..very cool! Thank you for doing this.


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## FictionalWriter (Aug 4, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> It's all from readers of Writer's Digest.


 I imagine it is. Great job, Hugh.


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## LG Castillo (Jun 28, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Remember me saying no one would do this story?
> 
> I did it myself.
> 
> http://authorearnings.com/


I love that you gave us access to the raw data! gonna play around with SPSS and the data later today.


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## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

This will really get folks discussing self-publishing in a whole new way.

Wow.


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## thomaskcarpenter (May 17, 2011)

Reading this makes me feel like a f**king ninja mammal with big, sharp knives for claws--quick, nimble, and built for the long haul.  



Yay, us!

Again, you rock, sir!


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## Rachel Aukes (Oct 13, 2013)

Mind. Blown. 

This is incredible, Hugh. Absolutely incredible!


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Thanks for putting this together! I pinned it so I can go back to it when I have time to read it.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

It's broke  You all went over at the same time and broke it!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Amazing data. Thank you for providing it.

In the time it took me to read the report, looks like the site's hanging. Must be a few people trying to access it.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

So . . . my server crashed. Working on it. Craziness.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

That sound you just heard?

That was the sound of "the gatekeepers" crapping their pants all at the same time.


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## MatthewBallard (May 21, 2013)

I think smoke must be curling up from Hugh's server as the horde descends. Thanks Hugh. You're a pioneer.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I'm still reading, but that is amazing information!


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Headline:  Hugh Howey's server suffers DOS attack due to extreme interest


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Fascinating data!  Totally original too. Could set the cat among the pigeons when the traditional publishers get hold of it.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

This is awesome, dude.

Do you have a rough idea of how much of the overall ebook fiction market is covered by romance/thrillers/SF&F? Just curious as to how much of the overall ecosystem we've infested.  EDIT: Oh duh, you cover that. And the answer is "most of it." Completely nuts.


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## Thisiswhywecan&#039;thavenicethings (May 3, 2013)

That's some kicka$$ stuff right there!


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> So . . . my server crashed. Working on it. Craziness.


I was just going to say, looks like the new site is very, very popular.  I haven't been able to download the report yet, but the buzz sounds fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the bull by the horns in putting a site like this together. Awesome!


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Interesting speculation as to why the ratings are higher for the indie books versus the trad books. I was just thinking about my own expectations about something I pay more for.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Bit gutted to see my 10% estimate for audio books well off. At 4%, it probably means I need to double the time to break even. So 20 months instead of 10. Oh well, it's not like there isn't time


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## Al Dente (Sep 3, 2012)

I checked the site out earlier, but now I can't access it. Anyone else having issues? Too much traffic too quickly, perhaps?  


EDIT: Looks like it's back up again!


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Took the survey as best I could


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Ha. Sorry we crashed your server, Hugh. The awesome couldn't be contained by the internet, apparently. Hope you get it back up.

That site is amazing. Thank you so much for finally putting together REAL data!


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)




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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Finally finished reading it. Sorry for the crashing your server thing. 

All I can say is: Wow!!!!


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## PatriceFitz (Jan 8, 2011)

Truly groundbreaking, Hugh.  Sorry we broke the internet too!

I got in there quick before it crashed, but looks like it's up again.

I knew you had something up your sleeve when we spoke before your trip.  Heck, all you did in the last few days was fly to Taiwan, own their bestseller list, and fly back.  With your idle hours on the plane you...

CHANGED THE WORLD.  

Nicely done.  

P.S.  That is a kind of scary baby.  Unless it's yours, Monique.  And then she's super-cute.


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## Al Dente (Sep 3, 2012)

I just took the survey.


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## kwest (Mar 16, 2013)

That's...insane. I read the whole thing and oh my God. I love that was I born at this time and self-publishing came along. I'm one of those few that has never actually submitted to an agent and I can't imagine doing things any other way. Self-pubbing is so much better (to me). Thanks so much for this report!


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

The server didn't crash from hits... Miss Ward, Miss Casey, Miss Hart and a few other romance authors entered their sales numbers and the poor computer's head exploded.

Nice job, sir!


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

PatriceFitz said:


> P.S. That is a kind of scary baby. Unless it's yours, Monique. And then she's super-cute.


LMAO. Not mine. Just captured the wtfery I'm sure some are feeling at this awesome data.


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## _Sheila_ (Jan 4, 2011)

Thanks for the information.

Took the survey.

Sheila


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

G'ah. I tear myself away from Kboards for an hour or so and something big happens.

Yay, just managed to get the page on my screen (*wanders away for a read*)


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Monique said:


>


That's how I look when the wife asks if I wanna go up to the big room.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

Aha! So this is what you've been doing on your plane trip!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Joe Konrath offers his commentary:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/02/me-hugh-howey-and-legacy-john-on.html

Good reading.


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## John Daulton (Feb 28, 2012)

Great piece. Shared it on FB.


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

There's no delicate way for me to describe the massive data-boner you've just given me. I don't intend that to be offensive of upsetting, but wow, being able to download this raw data feels like stumbling across a metric ton of ambergris washed up on a beach. In Arizona.

I was trying to start writing a new book after finishing my last book yesterday, but I was feeling a little worn out. This has helped revitalize me, thank you, sir!

EDIT: I changed my mind. It's useless with all the anonymity in it. I had hoped to run some of my own data monkey queries against it but with no means of tying entries together, it's sufficiently broken to be useless for that.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

markecooper said:


> Bit gutted to see my 10% estimate for audio books well off. At 4%, it probably means I need to double the time to break even. So 20 months instead of 10. Oh well, it's not like there isn't time


IF it hasn't been said already, you need to think in terms of total # books available audible versus other formats. You're "competing" in a smaller pool with audiobooks. I forget which KB member it is, but his leading format is audiobooks. You never know if you're going to be "that" author and taking up a big chunk of what goes into the 4%.


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## atthekeyboard (Oct 31, 2013)

..


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## Kitty French (Dec 3, 2012)

Has it crashed? Cannot see the awesomeness. Will keep trying.


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## Jnassise (Mar 22, 2010)

Can't. Get. In.    Aaarrggggghhhhhh!!!!!

Okay, I feel better now.  Waiting for the server to recover...


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Read every word. Riveting.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Can't access it yet. Loading...loading...loading...

in cyberspace this is some heavy stuff.

I hope the title is *Non-Fiction: Author Earnings*

subtitle: the stuff that just won't be swept under the publishing rug anymore.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I am now waiting for the screams of pain and denial from the usual suspects.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Jason Halstead said:


> EDIT: I changed my mind. It's useless with all the anonymity in it. I had hoped to run some of my own data monkey queries against it but with no means of tying entries together, it's sufficiently broken to be useless for that.


We didn't want to out individuals. But anyone with a pencil and a lot of time can do the same thing. 

B&N will be next. And our 50,000 title report is in progress.


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## Jacqueline_Sweet (Jan 10, 2014)

This is just fascinating. 

Thank you so much for reporting this story, Hugh.


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)




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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Still down  Looks like I'll have to read J. Konrath's response before I get to read the report. I joined the twitter site though. http://www.twitter.com/authorearnings


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## mrain4th (May 19, 2013)

Thanks, Hugh, this is Huge!  Your dedication to the whole indie movement is inspiring.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Because you're just that awesome!
Can't wait for the site to be back up so I can read it.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> B&N will be next. And our 50,000 title report is in progress.


*happy dance*

I can't wait for the 50k report. I mean, you can have a handful of titles in the 40-50k range and still be paying your rent, so that will be really cool to see the data on.


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

The more I think about it, the more flawed it may be due to the sample size of data. Take me, a guy who pulled in 75k last year off of royalties from self pubbing, yet it's been 10 or 11 months since I've had a book inside of the top 7000. On Jan 28 - 29 I had a few that were in the 8k - 11k range and also in the top 10 on a few genre sub-lists, but I don't think they were included in this study.

So if I look and say, "Holy @#$$, I'm one of the 343 indie pubbed people in the 50k - 99k bracket," I'm probably wrong. I don't think my books or sales made it into the data sample, which means there are a lot of other people out there like me that are doing well.

Now I'm not ungrateful at all. I think this is one of the best things to be exposed since...well...color photography was invented (that was an exposure joke...okay, a bad one. Let's move on). I just think it needs a lot more detail and digging. How many authors are there on Amazon? How many books are available? A sample is great, but it's just a sample. The real answers lie in the entire population.


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Read the report, took the survey and signed the petition. Shared it on Facebook and Twitter.


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## Wo3lf (Jan 30, 2013)

Oh, man, dude. You did it again. Thanks! We shall have to devise some kind of award for your massive contribution to the writing profession. Seriously.


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## David J Normoyle (Jun 22, 2012)

Mind boggling how much of the market indie authors have taken in such a short amount of time. Amazing report.


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Can't get on it.   Too many people flocking to have a look. I'll try again later.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Doomed Muse said:


> *happy dance*
> 
> I can't wait for the 50k report. I mean, you can have a handful of titles in the 40-50k range and still be paying your rent, so that will be really cool to see the data on.


I agree. I seldom had something in the 7k and better range since my release schedule dropped terribly last year, but I had a very good income for 2013 and 2014 is on track to at least equal 2013.


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

Wow, Hugh. Just wow. And thank you.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Amazing data. Thank you for doing this. Somewhere... Big 5 executives are weeping.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Kudos to your Data Ninja as well, Hugh! Whoever they are, thank you.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Very well done. Let the games begin...


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Did I not get the secret password to view this?  The link doesn't work for me.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Thank you soooo much Hugh!!! I'm doing my masters dissertation on Indie publishing and ebooks and this touches upon some topics I need (plus you give links to other sources I will need).
This is soooo on time!



Hugh, you might have some issues with traffic, the website isn't loading because of the surge of people trying to get on it...


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> Hugh, you might have some issues with traffic, the website isn't loading because of the surge of people trying to get on it...


Experienced the same thing too.

But this is a great service to the publishing industry.

One wonders how The Man ever has time to write.


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## SpringfieldMH (Feb 2, 2013)

Joe Konrath has posted a copy, with commentary, at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/02/me-hugh-howey-and-legacy-john-on.html


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## pwtucker (Feb 12, 2011)

If there were an annual "Friends of Self-Publishing" award, I think Hugh would be a shoe-in for 2014. Even though it's only Feb.

Thanks Hugh! I've only read the Konrath version, but I'm psyched to see the report in all its glory!


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Jason Halstead said:


> The more I think about it, the more flawed it may be due to the sample size of data. Take me, a guy who pulled in 75k last year off of royalties from self pubbing, yet it's been 10 or 11 months since I've had a book inside of the top 7000. On Jan 28 - 29 I had a few that were in the 8k - 11k range and also in the top 10 on a few genre sub-lists, but I don't think they were included in this study.
> 
> So if I look and say, "Holy @#$$, I'm one of the 343 indie pubbed people in the 50k - 99k bracket," I'm probably wrong. I don't think my books or sales made it into the data sample, which means there are a lot of other people out there like me that are doing well.
> 
> Now I'm not ungrateful at all. I think this is one of the best things to be exposed since...well...color photography was invented (that was an exposure joke...okay, a bad one. Let's move on). I just think it needs a lot more detail and digging. How many authors are there on Amazon? How many books are available? A sample is great, but it's just a sample. The real answers lie in the entire population.


This. There is still so much real money (five figure money) that won't make it on this report so how many thousands of authors like me and Jason are still not being counted?


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## bellaandre (Dec 10, 2010)

Well done, Hugh.  Loved the report. Thanks for taking the time and energy to put it together. You are, as always, awesome.

I didn't see a spot to put in my #s and $s this morning, though, so as soon as the server is back up I'll head back in and do just that. Maybe we can blow up another server, LOL. 

Bella


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> This. There is still so much real money (five figure money) that won't make it on this report so how many thousands of authors like me and Jason are still not being counted?


We're running a report on the top 50,000 books right now. Maybe give us a little time? We're trying to change an industry, here. 

ETA: I forgot to tally all my 1-star reviews before we went live! Argh. Better go do it now, I suppose...


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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

I will go back and have a proper read when it's loading again. I filled in the survey though!

Want some more hosting, Hugh?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

The feeling of looking at this ... it must what a journalist feels when her Freedom of Information Act filing finally goes through, and the government papers arrive, and they blow the lid off the story. Not only is she right, she's ten times righter than she'd imagined. She looks out her window, sees the Capitol dome in the distance, and wonders whose heads are going to roll. 

Hugh. Thank you.


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## MissyM (Jun 21, 2013)

I'm still trying to get it to come up yet, but I got to look at JA Konrath's post and just want to add my voice to the chorus of "Thank yous." As someone just starting out, this is great information!


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> That sound you just heard?
> 
> That was the sound of "the gatekeepers" crapping their pants all at the same time.


I just startled the cats laughing at this.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> We're running a report on the top 50,000 books right now. Maybe give us a little time? We're trying to change an industry, here.
> 
> ETA: I forgot to tally all my 1-star reviews before we went live! Argh. Better go do it now, I suppose...


First, you completely destroy a world. Then move out of fiction to destroy myths in the publishing world, you are like a death star...

Just plowing an indie highway through the publishing world...


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> I just startled the cats laughing at this.


I'm betting the gate keepers have known this for a long time. I don't want this to devolve into another one of THOSE threads, so I'll keep the rest on my comments about that to myself.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> The feeling of looking at this ... it must what a journalist feels when her Freedom of Information Act filing finally goes through, and the government papers arrive, and they blow the lid off the story. Not only is she right, she's ten times righter than she'd imagined. She looks out her window, sees the Capitol dome in the distance, and wonders whose heads are going to role.
> 
> Hugh. Thank you.


Or do the government assassins reach her first?


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

SpringfieldMH said:


> Joe Konrath has posted a copy, with commentary, at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/02/me-hugh-howey-and-legacy-john-on.html


 

I can remember THE day when my dreams of being traditionally published were squashed. That was the most devastated I've ever in my life felt.

It turned out to be *the best* thing that ever happened to me career-wise. This report confirms that and makes me happy to know so many authors out there are able to realize their dreams because of e-books and self-publishing.

Numbers are so powerful. Thanks, Hugh. (And Joe K. for sharing.)


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

vrabinec said:


> I'm betting the gate keepers have known this for a long time. I don't want this to devolve into another one of THOSE threads, so I'll keep the rest on my comments about that to myself.


Totally agree with you there. It wasn't the content that caused me to spew coffee onto my screen, but the imagery the comment evoked.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> Or do the government assassins reach her first?


Heh. If they show up, I'll tell 'em Hugh did it.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

I don't think the gatekeepers do know this. Most of the industry pros seem to be shocked at how much money indie authors can make. They know how much they make off of authors,  but they don't know how much we are really making. How can they if they don't have access to our numbers or have run a study like this?


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## Lefty (Apr 7, 2011)

Great job, Hugh.


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## ToniD (May 3, 2011)

That report is a Category 5 hurricane.

Thanks Hugh.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

That's a very interesting and useful post, Hugh. Can I ask a couple of questions? Apologies if I've missed this elsewhere. Are YA/MG books that are also sf/f being categorized as genre? How about historical novels? Are those genre or counted as literature.


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## ElaStein (Feb 8, 2014)

For some reason, the link isn't working for me


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## K. D. (Jun 6, 2013)

Thanks for the great reveal. You'll need 2 - 20 mirror sites ..


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## williamvw (Mar 12, 2012)

Unbelievable and all too believable. Thank you so much, Hugh. This is the most inspirational thing I've seen in a long time. It's probably even more inspirational in its native form and not on JK's site. ;-)


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

VictoriaS said:


> For some reason, the link isn't working for me


Yeah, I don't know if the server is overwhelmed but I can't get on either. 3:30 PM CST 2/11


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

MichaelWallace said:


> That's a very interesting and useful post, Hugh. Can I ask a couple of questions? Apologies if I've missed this elsewhere. Are YA/MG books that are also sf/f being categorized as genre? How about historical novels? Are those genre or counted as literature.


No, but we're expanding for the next report. Here's a glimpse, with YA, horror, and other genres added to the three from the first report:


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> Remember me saying no one would do this story?
> 
> I did it myself.
> 
> http://authorearnings.com/


The link doesn't work for me. It won't open. Yet, it appears to open for everyone else.


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## KellyHarper (Jul 29, 2012)

I took a quick peek at it earlier and was very surprised/pleased with what I saw.

I think the server is overwhelmed now, as I can no longer pull it up.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joliedupre said:


> The link doesn't work for me. It won't open. Yet, it appears to open for everyone else.


My (ehem!) agent said she couldn't open it in Safari. It might be your browser.


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2014)

MichaelWallace said:


> My (ehem!) agent said she couldn't open it in Safari. It might be your browser.


Thanks! I'll try a different browser.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Joliedupre said:


> The link doesn't work for me. It won't open. Yet, it appears to open for everyone else.


I read it on Konrath's site. K says authorearnings is switching servers.


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## PatriceFitz (Jan 8, 2011)

Hugh, love that secret glimpse into a pie chart that includes more categories of books. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything.

Seriously, don't rush yourself, man. We're an impatient bunch, eh? Today indie world changed, and we want to know what will happen _tomorrow_. And we want it *now!* 

Hey, some of us write about the future so we think we're already there... 

As to those who can't see it--it keeps crashing. It's not a conspiracy against you. Well, maybe _you..._


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> No, but we're expanding for the next report. Here's a glimpse, with YA, horror, and other genres added to the three from the first report:


So things like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, The Serpent's Shadow, etc., all get squeezed into that tiny 3%? Are you sure they're not being scooped up in the sf/f category instead? That would make more sense to me.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Joliedupre said:


> The link doesn't work for me. It won't open. Yet, it appears to open for everyone else.


I'm reading it on Konrath's site.

Son of a snowflake, this is indeed a Cat 5. In fact, by the time you're done it's gonna break the hurricane scale. Huge THANKS to you, Hugh, and to your data person. And to Joe for mirroring the report in his own snarky way.


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

MichaelWallace said:


> My (ehem!) agent said she couldn't open it in Safari. It might be your browser.


I opened it in Safari shortly after Hugh posted it, so the problem is an overwhelmed server. Your agent may be better off psychologically if she doesn't see this at all!


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## KellyHarper (Jul 29, 2012)

Wait... does this mean Hugh isn't working on his next novel?...

This definitely discounts my outlook towards the whole survey....just saying....


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

Wow. This is so awesome. I finally grabbed the report through the download link at the bottom of Konrath's page. I'm glad he could re-post it, and will be looking forward to reading the original. 

I would like to buy you a beer, Hugh.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

MichaelWallace said:


> So things like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, The Serpent's Shadow, etc., all get squeezed into that tiny 3%? Are you sure they're not being scooped up in the sf/f category instead? That would make more sense to me.


YA is lumped with genre. Children's books are children's books. Picture books and the like. Adults read YA.

-Hugh


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Hugh Howey said:


> We're running a report on the top 50,000 books right now. Maybe give us a little time? We're trying to change an industry, here.
> 
> ETA: I forgot to tally all my 1-star reviews before we went live! Argh. Better go do it now, I suppose...


Rofl. 
Impressive work. Thank you for doing this.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

Wish I could get it to open!!!


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Drew Gideon said:


> ...
> 
> I can't wait until the B&N crawl is done and we can see if the data holds true there, as well....


I was under the impression that, just as Big 5 can buy store placement in B&N physical stores, they can buy prominence on the B&N website, too. That would favor statistics being skewed on B&N in favor of Big 5. So if the data runs a similar course on B&N as it did on Amazon, then HOLY COW.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> YA is lumped with genre. Children's books are children's books. Picture books and the like. Adults read YA.
> 
> -Hugh


Ah, got it. Thanks. I was thinking in terms of how Publisher's Marketplace organizes their categories, but that's a pretty outdated system, as per your comment about YA readers.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

For those not reading the entire thread, looks like the site is back up at full thrusters.


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## Sally C (Mar 31, 2011)

Wow, Hugh, that's fantastic!


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## ElaStein (Feb 8, 2014)

I was able to get it to load. So much helpful info, thank you!!

It would have been helpful (at least for me) if the "small publisher" was differentiated from an ePublisher - since ePubs typically will pay you 40%-50% (rather than the 25% mentioned in the report for regular publishers), and you get the benefit of editor feedback, cover, ISBN number, help with advertising, etc. 

I've written a couple things and am working on polishing up the 3rd, and it's hard to decide whether to submit to ePubs or just self-publish (the genre is erotic romance, if that makes a difference).


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## Σ (Jul 27, 2013)

I did something like this last year, but didn't think to analyze the data in that way, and I was doing it for a different subset.

*Hugh*, if you or your coauthor want an extra coding hand, let me know


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## bmcox (Nov 21, 2012)

Fantastic. Thanks so much, Hugh.


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## CelinaGrace (Nov 20, 2013)

I just did a happy dance reading this. It's such an incredible time to be a writer. I feel so LUCKY.

This is fantastic, Hugh. Thank you.


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## Joseph Turkot (Nov 9, 2012)

Finally got in for my first cursory glance, and I'll reading it all carefully tonight before bed. Great work Hugh. Glad you're on our side.


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

Awesome data, thanks Hugh and your clever friend. Some of those figures are mind-blowing. I was taken aback by the ebookrint ratio for genre books. Wow. Just wow. I can't wait to see what other data will be mined.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

I've read the report off Joe's blog, but have retained virtually nothing because my mind kept going WOW!   WOW!   OH, WOW!!      I'm going to go take a Valium and try it again.


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## Lia Cooper (Jan 28, 2014)

fantastic data--thanks for sharing it!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Remember me saying no one would do this story?
> 
> I did it myself.
> 
> http://authorearnings.com/


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

Wow!! Fascinating, not to mention desperately needed data.
Kudos to Hugh and his computer guru. This first report is gold! I can't wait to see what additional things we find out from this program.
Thank you Hugh!

Also- even as busy as Hugh is with the unveiling of his project this morning, he's still agreed to join us for a special edition of the the Self-Publishing Roundtable tomorrow night to talk about the information he and his computer guru have uncovered.

Join us on at the Self-Publishing Roundtable tomorrow night, Feb 12th, at 8:30 pm EST, for a special edition covering this report. http://selfpublishingroundtable.com/


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## JohnHindmarsh (Jun 3, 2011)

Hugh - Excellent stuff. It's going to be an interesting week as the discussions build.


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## OliviaF (Feb 3, 2013)

Diana & Lacey said:


> Finally! Data to support what we already knew through talking with other indies. I know a lot of trad-pubbed writers who still don't believe that self-pubbing is the way to go. Time to show them this report.


Exactly my thoughts! The anecdotal has become evidence based!

I feel so lucky to be a part of this self-publishing and indie journey :-D

And as others have said, thank you Hugh for making this available!


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

THank you for making this available. I read it today and it was fascinating!


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## Nathaniel Burns (Nov 1, 2013)

Wow! This is awesome. Thank you, Hugh.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

Well, that was an insane reading. Thanks to Hugh and Mystery Man!


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> Fascinating data! Totally original too. Could set the cat among the pigeons when the traditional publishers get hold of it.


I'm hoping someone here will post links to industry reactions. I wouldn't know where to begin looking.

Thanks, Hugh. This must've been a herculean task.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Jan 12, 2014)

To echo what's been said, thanks--a lot--for providing this data. You and your data guru are kicking some ass.


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## heidi_g (Nov 14, 2013)

The site was all back up when I clicked on the link. Wow! It's so comprehensive! I don't know, like many here, I suspected these trends. But wow, what elegant proof. Facts. Awesome!


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> We're running a report on the top 50,000 books right now. Maybe give us a little time? We're trying to change an industry, here.
> 
> ETA: I forgot to tally all my 1-star reviews before we went live! Argh. Better go do it now, I suppose...


Ah, so you are "Da Man," well then...carry on!


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## Writer1000 (Jul 28, 2013)

Wow. Thanks, Hugh!


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Thanks from me too, Hugh (and friend). I not only appreciate this particular report but have for a long time appreciated your efforts to get the world to understand how many of us who aren't outliers are still leading better lives because of the indie revolution.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

I'm going to say WOW and thanks before I even read it. (Kept trying to access the page but couldn't  ) It's okay though because now I have my bedtime reading.

Indie blessing be upon you, Hugh! 

I vote for Hugh for president of...well anything really.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Now that the site seems to be up and folks have had a chance to read Joe's post, what parts of this report struck you all the most? I mean, beyond "Hugh rocks" which is foundational.

Here are a few things that I took away from it. I think the last one on my list is where I actually gasped.

- Clearly the big traditional publishers have been vastly under-serving genre markets.

- Amazon's top-selling books are more than 85% electronic editions.

- Big 5 publishers account for only 28% of the top-selling genre e-books (in units).

- But in terms of $ (vs unit) sales, Big 5 make more than 50% of the cash in genre e-book sales.

- In spite of that, the amount of cash *going to authors* based on estimated royalty rates, skews almost 50% to independently published authors (self-pub, small press, etc.). Big 5 takes 50% of the total cash sales, but only make up 25% of the money actually reaching writers.


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## hardnutt (Nov 19, 2010)

Deeply impressed, Hugh. Thanks for all your hard work. Let's see the usual suspects deride us now!


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## Scott Daniel (Feb 1, 2011)

With apologies to Henry Cavill, Hugh really should be cast as Superman. Seriously? Who stands for Truth and Justice more than Mr. Howey?


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Lot of really great stuff here. I can't wait until this weekend when I can spend a little time looking over everything after the Lego Movie (priorities  ).


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

That was discussed over on the Passive Voice: http://www.thepassivevoice.com/02/2014/new-author-earnings-report/


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Great data, Hugh, and great job in presenting it.  It gives even publishing-wienies like me (pub-wienies?) hope.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Maggie Dana said:


> I'm hoping someone here will post links to industry reactions. I wouldn't know where to begin looking.
> 
> Thanks, Hugh. This must've been a herculean task.


Reaction will probably be something along the lines of...


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## OliviaF (Feb 3, 2013)

Alan Petersen said:


> Reaction will probably be something along the lines of...


Yes! Perfect! I almost spit my drink out at my computer screen lol


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

jnfr said:


> Now that the site seems to be up and folks have had a chance to read Joe's post, what parts of this report struck you all the most? I mean, beyond "Hugh rocks" which is foundational.
> 
> Here are a few things that I took away from it. I think the last one on my list is where I actually gasped.
> 
> ...


The one that really made my eyes pop was that audiobooks are selling the same number of units as _all _print editions (at least for the sample selected, which was, I believe the overall top 2500 for that graph.


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## teresahill (Jan 22, 2014)

Hugh,
    Do we have any idea what percentage of the book market Amazon has or even online sales constitute, versus physical stores?
    Just curious.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

It feels kind of like a workers' paradise. 

Some people will inevitably worry that Amazon will change the royalty percentage - but with self-published works the 70% isn't going to the author alone. it's also going to the publisher. And it looks like self-publishers are highly efficient in figuring out - and deploying - best practices for marketing books successfully. 

I'd be interested to know which group Amazon profits more from - trad pubs or self pubs.


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## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

OH MY GOD, YES! 
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES.

Sent from my SM-T210R using Tapatalk


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

Eupalinos said:


> Hey, Hugh, great job!
> 
> I don't know if I'm reading the table below the right way, but does it say an author can make a living with two e-books?


Eupalinos, while the data don't rule out that possibility, that would be a stretch from this data. Remember, this is a brief snapshot in time. The yearly incomes were extrapolated. A single book's rank is likely to fall over time without the constant support of new releases by that author, preferably in the same series or at least the same genre. There are outliers, of course, but they are... er... outliers.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

LKRigel said:


> It feels kind of like a workers' paradise.
> 
> Some people will inevitably worry that Amazon will change the royalty percentage - but with self-published works the 70% isn't going to the author alone. it's also going to the publisher. And it looks like self-publishers are highly efficient in figuring out - and deploying - best practices for marketing books successfully.
> 
> I'd be interested to know which group Amazon profits more from - trad pubs or self pubs.


It you look at the chart labeled 'Daily Revenue to Author, Publisher and Amazon' you see that Amazon makes very slightly more from trab pubs, but only slightly. They certainly wouldn't want to take a chance on messing up that large an income stream.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

Thank you doesn't even begin to express my gratitude for this information. Being an analyst I will enjoy rereading the charts and looking at the raw data. You and your mystery man are most awesome!


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## Kathy Clark Author (Dec 18, 2012)

When you're putting the final touches on and planning the release of your 31st book, the first 23 being traditionally published, this report was a shot of adrenaline.

*CLEAR!*

*Subsequent comments were very unclear,. If I've offended anyone because I'm overly enthusiastic and appreciate of Hugh's hard work I'm sorry. This is truly inspiring. Drilling into the data itself reveals even more in this treasure mountain. *


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, attacks on another site here are neither welcome nor appropriate.  Let's keep our eyes on Hugh's report.

Betsy

Sent from my Fire HDX7


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Wait... you mean you're not going to charge us $295 for the report? 

Hugh, this is so freaking awesome. You truly are _L'enfant terrible_ that's just blowing everything up, taking the indie culture of transparency to the max, and I couldn't possibly love you more for it. You've taken the talent and resources you have and used it to do something we all collectively wanted, that we all will benefit from, but that we couldn't manage on our own. Not many people could (or would) do this for others - you, quite simply, rock.

Can't wait for the 50,000 report. THANK YOU for including Children's in the future (and I would love to see YA broken from genre if possible, or just a note that it's included would work). I'm still recovering from the awesomeness, but I plan to dig into that excel spreadsheet soon and see what I can glean. But you can be sure that I'll be sharing this again and again.

*Thank you for turning the anecdotes into hard data.*


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Just wow! This is astounding and momentous! *Awe!*

*Thank you*, Hugh, for taking on a monumental task, and grandiose thanks to your secret programming guy! 

One thing I would like to address is this (quoting the report):
*
"It's interesting to me that the self-published works in this sample have a higher average rating than the e-books from major publishers. There are several reasons why this might be..."*

Here is my two-part theory to explain this, and it is not particularly outlandish.

1) Major publishers send out a whole bunch of ARCs in advance of release, in general more than indies do, and this stimulates more reviews in general, widening the pool of reviews overall.

2) Major publishers tend to have more other non-ebook editions out there, compared to indies. Paper print editions are almost always present with the majors, while with indies the paper print editions do not necessarily exist, and there is a common instance of ebook-only releases, more so than with the Big 5. And since Amazon counts and consolidates reviews from all editions under one common umbrella, again, there is a wider review pool.

What this comes down to is that* with a much larger review pool, there is a statistical tendency to normalize and average out to a lower number*, since the more people review, the more likelihood there is that there will be more one-stars, and positive outliers in general will be averaged in.

It's sort of like, the more colors you mix into paint, the more it starts to resemble a bland boring gray.

So that's my theory -- the review pool is simply more varied and larger, so the tendency is for a lower mean and average. Hence, the appearance of lower reviews in general.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Vera Nazarian said:


> Just wow! This is astounding and momentous! *Awe!*
> 
> *Thank you*, Hugh, for taking on a monumental task, and grandiose thanks to your secret programming guy!
> 
> ...


You know, I have observed the *more reviews=lower rating* effect. The question then becomes, do trad-pub books have more reviews, even when ranking in the top 7000 with indies? This might be the first question I need to dive in and datamine that spreadsheet for!


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

Awesome information -- a treasure trove. Thank you, Hugh and much gratitude and thanks to your mystery data-mining friend. I've seen these trends at an elementary level with the tracking of my own work, but to see it trend across the spectrum is astounding all on its own. Thank you for putting it all together. Cheers to you both!!


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> You know, I have observed the *more reviews=lower rating* effect. The question then becomes, do trad-pub books have more reviews, even when ranking in the top 7000 with indies? This might be the first question I need to dive in and datamine that spreadsheet for!


Susan, 
Here's something I threw together earlier today that partially addresses your question:


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> You know, I have observed the *more reviews=lower rating* effect. The question then becomes, do trad-pub books have more reviews, even when ranking in the top 7000 with indies? This might be the first question I need to dive in and datamine that spreadsheet for!


Yup, that's exactly my thought.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Endi, I could follow that easier if you labeled your axes.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Endi Webb said:


> Susan,
> Here's something I threw together earlier today that partially addresses your question:


Thank you! 

This supports my theory very nicely -- inverse relationship between stars average and number of reviews!


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Endi Webb said:


> Susan,
> Here's something I threw together earlier today that partially addresses your question:


Cool! But... I think you're confounding the fact that trad-pubs are priced higher (and also have more reviews) and indies are priced lower (and also have less reviews) with whether the number of reviews affects the number of stars. (could also be because you're averaging)

The way I'm looking at it is directly STARS vs. NUMBER OF REVIEWS for ALL THE BOOKS. (Note: if there was a direct correlation of MORE REVIEWS=LESS STARS, you would see a strong linear correlation in this graph. You don't.)

And my plot shows a clear shift to higher ratings (for indies), at all levels of #reviews.










Averages: (note: I only looked at books with >100 reviews, to cull out any objections about "friends and family" reviews for indies - or trad-pubs for that matter)
Indie = Avg # reviews (297)	Stars (4.4)

Trad-Pub = Avg # reviews (660) Stars (4.1)

So... trad-pubs DO have higher numbers of reviews, on average, but for a given number of reviews, indies rate higher.

*For example, all the indies with 100-150 reviews? 4.4 stars avg The trad-pubs with 100-150 reviews? 4.1 stars avg*

Reviews Indie Rating Trad-Pub Rating
100-150 4.39 4.13
300-400 4.41 4.13
1000-2000 4.37 4.15

You can pick any buckets you like to put them in, but I think there's *clearly a bias toward higher stars/ratings for indies. *


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

One note-the theory on lower price = higher review average is way interesting, but it seems like it could easily be a case of correlation rather than causation. What if it isn't the price of indie books that leads to higher reviews, but something intrinsic to indie books (which happen to average a much lower price)?

For instance, we seem to be closer to our readership. This might lead to people feeling a closer connection to our books and our selves as authors, leading to better reviews. Or maybe, since we tend to write more in series than trad books-note, this is an assumption on my part, not backed up by data-we self-select more for our readership, winnowing out those who didn't like the first book, meaning later entries wind up with higher averages. Maybe since we publish faster, that leads to more satisfaction from readers who haven't had to wait 1-3+ years between sequels. Could be the recommendation process that puts the best-selling titles in front of readers is more meritocratic than the efforts made by trad houses to put books in front of readers.

Heck, for all we know, self-published books-the ones readers react to well enough to buy in quantity-are just _better_.

I have no idea. It could well be that price is the main cause of the discrepancy. But since self-published books tend to cost much less than traditionally published books, it seems like there are a slew of potential reasons that lower prices may be nothing more than a correlation with higher reviews, and that the main reason our books are rated higher lies in something specific that we do as self-publishers.


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## Quentin Clarkson (Feb 2, 2014)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> You can pick any buckets you like to put them in, but I think there's *clearly a bias toward higher stars/ratings for indies. *


Looking at that plot, I notice that the top section isn't much different, but the bottom is all trad. I doubt it would be possible to get actual data on this, but I suspect that is simply what happens when your marketing includes people who don't like the genre, rather than having any connection to quality, price, or number of reviews.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Quentin Clarkson said:


> Looking at that plot, I notice that the top section isn't much different, but the bottom is all trad. I doubt it would be possible to get actual data on this, but I suspect that is simply what happens when your marketing includes people who don't like the genre, rather than having any connection to quality, price, or number of reviews.


How does trad-publisher marketing include people who don't like the genre, while indies don't do the same? I'm curious, because one of the knocks against having free books is that people out-of-genre try them then rate low because of it. And free books are the province of indies not trad-pubs.

ETA: it does make you wonder who are all these bestselling books with hundreds of reviews but with really low stars (relatively speaking) on the trad-pub side. I can see a book with a large following, maybe the final one in the trilogy, disappointing a lot of readers and getting low stars, but still selling well. Maybe? But why aren't we seeing that on the indie side?


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> Cool! But... I think you're confounding the fact that trad-pubs are priced higher (and also have more reviews) and indies are priced lower (and also have less reviews) with whether the number of reviews affects the number of stars. (could also be because you're averaging)


Yeah, I totally agree. Mine was more of a quick and dirty "let's see how reviews correlate with price", and in my head I was using price as a proxy for publishing status, meaning the left side of the graph tended toward "indiehood" and the right toward trad.

And Ed has a good point about the intrinsic nature of Indies just being closer to their audience, and tending to write more in series. I hope future data sets can capture whether a book is in a series or not.

One thing I did notice on my graph though that I had wondered about was the 7.99 price point. I remember hearing somewhere that particular price point was frowned upon because for some reason consumers would equate that price as relatively high compared to it's actual value, and that might show in this data. I dunno--I'll have to go look that one up.


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Heck, for all we know, self-published books-the ones readers react to well enough to buy in quantity-are just _better_.


I think we have a winner.


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## Quentin Clarkson (Feb 2, 2014)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> How does trad-publisher marketing include people who don't like the genre, while indies don't do the same? I'm curious, because one of the knocks against having free books is that people out-of-genre try them then rate low because of it. And free books are the province of indies not trad-pubs.


There is a certain amount of that, but not to the same extent I think. There was a thread a couple of days ago about getting negative reviews after running a bookbub ad, but something like that is really targeted compared to, say, printing your cover image on the back of a bus.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

jnfr said:


> Now that the site seems to be up and folks have had a chance to read Joe's post, what parts of this report struck you all the most? I mean, beyond "Hugh rocks" which is foundational.
> 
> Here are a few things that I took away from it. I think the last one on my list is where I actually gasped.
> 
> ...


Yes, this is my take away from it but also from a personal viewpoint I thank god that i LOVE the genres I write in as a reader (which made me want to write in them) and that they seem to be the popular ones. Also, I am gutted that audio is only 4% right now. I know it IS growing, but I had guessed it was already at 10%. I'm moving into this area this year. So an extra year or two of growth is needed to reach my previous expectation.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> The one that really made my eyes pop was that audiobooks are selling the same number of units as _all _print editions (at least for the sample selected, which was, I believe the overall top 2500 for that graph.


Wow, I didn't catch that!


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Quentin Clarkson said:


> There is a certain amount of that, but not to the same extent I think. There was a thread a couple of days ago about getting negative reviews after running a bookbub ad, but something like that is really targeted compared to, say, printing your cover image on the back of a bus.


There could be something to this. It reminds me of how bookstores/B&N are mostly "push" marketing whereas Amazon is mostly "pull" marketing. "Push" marketing is where bookstores put the titles they want to sell you on the front table (or more accurately, the titles the publisher puts money behind to promote) - the giant ad on the bus and the full-page NYTimes spread are the same. "Pull" marketing is where Amazon puts the title you're mostly likely to want in front of you (via alsobots and targeted emails). Even Bookbub is "pull" in the sense that they're tailoring your email by your preferences. Since indies rely most on "pull" and trad-pubs have access to more "push", that may make a difference.

However...


> Heck, for all we know, self-published books-the ones readers react to well enough to buy in quantity-are just better.


I think this wins the thread.


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

ElHawk said:


> The one that really made my eyes pop was that audiobooks are selling the same number of units as _all _print editions (at least for the sample selected, which was, I believe the overall top 2500 for that graph.


Actually, if you add up all the print editions on the 2500 graph, you get 12%, compared to 2% audio (which is still a lot!). But the top 1000 graph is very striking: 4% audio to 3.5(?)% print.


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## Sarah Stimson (Oct 9, 2013)

Great work Hugh!

A quick comment about the author survey - you should probably make it clear that earnings should reported in US dollars otherwise you'll get £ and AU$ and so on and it will skew the data.


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## Evan of the R. (Oct 15, 2013)

Christa Wick said:


> I was under the impression that, just as Big 5 can buy store placement in B&N physical stores, they can buy prominence on the B&N website, too. That would favor statistics being skewed on B&N in favor of Big 5. So if the data runs a similar course on B&N as it did on Amazon, then HOLY COW.


I just started another thread on this subject, but the New Yorker article on Amazon this week says that big publishers do pay - or at least were paying - to have their titles featured on Amazon's website, too. If so, it would not be unique to B&N.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Great stuff. Thank you for posting it.


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> for all we know, self-published books-the ones readers react to well enough to buy in quantity-are just _better_.


That would be - to put it rather mildly - a pretty surprising explanation, wouldn't it, given that overall, trade published books have been through inevitable and necessary stages of "quality control" to which many self-published books have never been exposed at all?!


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## shel (May 14, 2011)

Hugh, 

Huge thanks to both you and The Data Guru! You both are beyond awesome.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Endi Webb said:


> I think we have a winner.


I mentioned it in the thread on The Passive Voice, but my assumption is this: the Big 5 have a tendency to repeat themselves -- to publish "more of the same" rather than new, unique content in an attempt to milk big cash cows for as long as they can. Indies have a tendency to take risk and innovate with story or structure...or at least to write what they want to write and not just what they think will be as commercial as possible (though obviously saleability is a major consideration for many of us.) Readers may be more generous with their ratings for stuff that feels new to them and may be less kindly toward stuff that feels like over-trodden ground.

It may also be that they feel a stronger connection to indie authors on a personal level, which is fantastic, if it's the case.

Also a possibility: readers expect Big 5 stuff to be "more professional," so they are less forgiving of things like the handful of typos that nearly all books have, etc. However, I doubt it's these last two, since most readers don't know or care who published a book.


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## Christy Dorrity (Mar 21, 2011)

Absolutely mind-blowing Hugh! Bangarang!

Forgive my ignorance, but who are the uncategorized single author publishers? Are they those authors who start a publishing company of their own, but only publish their own titles?


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## Scottish Lass (Oct 10, 2013)

Sarah Stimson said:


> A quick comment about the author survey - you should probably make it clear that earnings should reported in US dollars otherwise you'll get £ and AU$ and so on and it will skew the data.


I assumed that when I filled that in (for my paltry prawn earnings so far) last night. Did a rough conversion from £ to $

However I downloaded the spreadsheet today, had a look at Amazon (UK then .com) bestseller lists and then went back to the report and haven't managed to work out if these are Amazon .COM results, rather than worldwide?

On a different, but related note; Hugh - do you need some data on UK store rankings vs daily sales? I can give you the low end of these figures  and I'm sure some of my compatriots can provide figures for higher up the charts


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

SBJones said:


> Published: 2/12/2014
> 
> It's from the future!


That's what foxed me for a while  
Do you think we can ask Hugh to change the date to the full date: February 12th 2014. I think most of the rest of the world write day/month/year .


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## SeanBlack (May 13, 2010)

It's been picked up by The Bookseller in the UK.

http://thebookseller.com/news/howey-launches-author-earnings-analysis-site.html


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

really...This thread is about Hugh's report and survey.  Posts pushing to stir things up at another site or attacking that site are not appropriate.  Clearly I didn't prune enough from the thread earlier; I'll be rectifying that.

EDIT:  I've gone back and pulled all references to stirring things up at AW.  Future posts about it will also be removed.  Keep this thread on track.

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

I look at it more as helping fellow authors make informed decisions. I have friends on a bunch of message boards, not just the ones mentioned. Sometimes I do post stuff just to amuse myself with the dust up, but this isn't one of those times.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

My need for drama meter is going crazy now.   

Aside from that, I think the popular, bestselling indie books are better in many ways. I think they pay closer attention to what the audience wants. They are more satisfying. You just have to wade through a lot of boring stuff to get to it.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

vrabinec said:


> I look at it more as helping fellow authors make informed decisions. I have friends on a bunch of message boards, not just the ones mentioned. Sometimes I do post stuff just to amuse myself with the dust up, but this isn't one of those times.


Your comment here (now removed) notwithstanding. 

You certainly may post about it and discuss anywhere you like. But posting on another site to provoke and then reporting back here ain't gonna happen. Anymore than we would allow someone from there to come here and stir up trouble.

If you want to discuss it more, PM me, I don't want to disrupt the thread any more.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

zoe tate said:


> That would be - to put it rather mildly - a pretty surprising explanation, wouldn't it, given that overall, trade published books have been through inevitable and necessary stages of "quality control" to which many self-published books have never been exposed at all?!


I'm not saying I necessarily believe it. Just that it's a possible explanation. Anyway, the books in the sample are the top 7000 bestsellers in Amazon, meaning that readers have already subjected them to their own form of quality control. The indie books that survived that process could well be on par, quality-wise, with trad books.

Another potential cause of indie titles being rated higher in this study: permafree titles, which are virtually always the first book in a series-and thus typically lower-rated than the rest of the series-aren't going to be represented in a sample of paid titles. Removing them from consideration means the indie books' average rating will be higher. Meanwhile, trad series virtually never use permafree, to my knowledge, putting them at a bit of a disadvantage.

I doubt it's a big enough factor to account for the entire discrepancy by itself, but it could be contributing.


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## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

We all realize that this is the first cut at this data, a fairly small sampling, and Hugh has been very clear about that. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results of the analysis of the next, much larger, data grab. Maybe that will put the 'bad math' smack talk in its place. It's sure to be just as much an eye-opener.

I'm also really looking forward to seeing the tradpub damage control.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

zoe tate said:


> That would be - to put it rather mildly - a pretty surprising explanation, wouldn't it, given that overall, trade published books have been through inevitable and necessary stages of "quality control" to which many self-published books have never been exposed at all?!


Perhaps the non-edited books are not represented in the top 7,000? Howey said he was working on another run with the top 50,000. That should be interesting.

Alternatively, perhaps there is a level of editing beyond which consumers just don't care.


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## DJ Edwardson (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks so much for sharing this info. Extremely helpful.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

We've seen many cracks in the Legacy dike in the past few years; but after this comes the deluge.

Great work, Hugh. This report completely changes the terms of the debates. It's now up to the publishing industry to come clean with hard numbers to try to refute what you've put forth. Anyone betting that they can, or will?


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## CrissyM (Mar 14, 2012)

Hugh, is there a way to see the results of the survey/petition without taking it again?
I already took it, I don't want to enter false data just to see new results.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

CrissyM said:


> Hugh, is there a way to see the results of the survey/petition without taking it again?
> I already took it, I don't want to enter false data just to see new results.


Good question. Not sure what the answer is. I'll see if there's some way to publicly host the database.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

I was about to ask the same question. It would be great to see the results of the survey.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

Not to be contradictory (Oh, who am I kidding. I was born to be contradictory), as much as I love you, methinks you are a bit blinded by your rose-colored lens.

Your conclusion regarding why indie books have higher ratings doesn't actually jive with human nature.

First, the difference between the average star rating of "indie published" versus "trade published" is hardly noticeable. The nature of the graph makes it look substantial, but the actual difference is maybe 4.35 average for indie versus 4.15 average for trade. That is miniscule.

Second, the difference between the nature of the people who review indie versus trade books. For example, you have a great many folks like me who don't review indie books anymore for various reasons (which I have documented in this forum). But I still review trade books that I get through Amazon Vine and NetGalley and other sources. I am a tough reviewer and tend to rate lower than the average customer reviewer. Amazon itself has done research on this point with their own Vine reviewers and found that, on average, we rate things_ one star lower_ than the non-Vine reviewers. Trade publishers are targeting for potential reviews people who, by their nature, are more inclined to generate more critical reviews. Whereas the normal customer reviewer tends to use "5 stars" for everything they line without a lot of differentiation between a book that is simply "good" and one that is "outstanding."

Third, while you touched on a few things that could artificially inflate the star rating of indies (paid reviews, friends and family, quid pro quo) you didn't mention the thing that artificially DEFLATES trade books. For years, there has been a concerned effort by a small by dedicated group to attack what they saw as high priced books. We forget sometimes that one of the reasons Amazon got rid of tags was that they were being abused (rmember all of the "rip-off" "overpriced" tags? People would leave one star reviews just because a book was priced at $9.99. We often talk about how trade authors allegedly "attack" indies. But the reverse has systematically been true as well.

Fourth, indies actively recruit customer reviewers. Trade publishers generally do not. Indies recruit reviewers from their fans, who are predisposed to give higher ratings. Trade publishers generally focus on media reviews. Customer reviews are not an active marketing endeavor. So with indie reviewers, you are most likely to get reviewers who are fans and trying to help the author. Whereas with trade publishers you are more likely to get reviewers who are simply unattached readers who are interested in discussing the book.

So I think placing the minor difference on price, and then making some absolutely Olympics-worthy leaps of logic regarding publisher profitability, is a bit of a stretch.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Jason Halstead said:


> The more I think about it, the more flawed it may be due to the sample size of data. Take me, a guy who pulled in 75k last year off of royalties from self pubbing, yet it's been 10 or 11 months since I've had a book inside of the top 7000. On Jan 28 - 29 I had a few that were in the 8k - 11k range and also in the top 10 on a few genre sub-lists, but I don't think they were included in this study. ...


The total # of titles sampled was 6915 (at least according to the Title Data tab on the sheet). The LOWEST RANK among the 6915 titles sampled was 752309.  Titles from #6072 sampled to #6915 all had a rank worse than 100,000. So if you were in the GENRES sampled, your books were in there. If I understand the sheet correctly, I would have had either 8 (categorized only within Romance) or 13 (five categorized both as erotica and romance) in there. (Since I have 15 steamy romances stuck in Erotica category only -- I am waiting to see how the numbers run when Hugh and his data guru add the Erotica category.)

Oh, and *HUGH*, as someone who was potentially in there 8-13 times, I totally wouldn't have minded my titles and pen name being listed. I think it may even help legitimize the data.

[ETA - Interestingly, the # of books accounted for on the author tab only adds up to 6883.]


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

Christa Wick said:


> The total # of titles sampled was 6915 (at least according to the Title Data tab on the sheet). The LOWEST RANK among the 6915 titles sampled was 752309.  Titles from #6072 sampled to #6915 all had a rank worse than 100,000. So if you were in the GENRES sampled, your books were in there. If I understand the sheet correctly, I would have had either 8 (categorized only within Romance) or 13 (five categorized both as erotica and romance) in there. (Since I have 15 steamy romances stuck in Erotica category only -- I am waiting to see how the numbers run when Hugh and his data guru add the Erotica category.)


This seems odd to me. If the lowest ranked book in the sample had a rank of 752309, that means that there were 745,394 books ranked above it that were not included in this sample. And yet the claim was made earlier that romance, thrillers, and ssf account for 57% of the top 1000.

I think I answered my question by reading the footnotes:



> 3 Across the top 1,000 bestsellers on the combined lists, these three genres accounted for 57% of titles. The reason for the drop (it was 70% across the top 100) is because many publishers fail to categorize their titles appropriately, not putting them in genre subcategories, but rather leaving them in parent categories. A future report will nail this number more closely and also comment on why publishers lose visibility by not understanding how best to categorize their e-books on Amazon.
> 
> 4 As we go to press, a run on the top 50,000 bestselling titles on Amazon reveals that 69% of daily sales go to genre fiction, 22% are Nonfiction, 5% Fiction & Literature, 3% Children's Books, while Comics and Foreign Language books round out the last percent. So we feel confident that our analysis looks at the vast majority of books sold on the largest bookselling outlet in the world.


Hugh, what was the methodology you used to determine how many print books were sold compared to ebooks? That part made little sense to me, since I thought that the kindle store and the regular bookstore had separate bestseller lists. A book ranked #1 in "books" is not necessarily selling the same as #1 in the kindle store, etc.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Fourth, indies actively recruit customer reviewers. Trade publishers generally do not. Indies recruit reviewers from their fans, who are predisposed to give higher ratings. Trade publishers generally focus on media reviews. Customer reviews are not an active marketing endeavor. So with indie reviewers, you are most likely to get reviewers who are fans and trying to help the author. Whereas with trade publishers you are more likely to get reviewers who are simply unattached readers who are interested in discussing the book.


You do know that practically all self-published authors are TRADE publishers, right?

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

And I'm shocked -- shocked, I say -- that you find disagreement with anything Amazon related. I'm woozy over here in disbelief. 

The data is there. I'm not the smartest person in the room, by far. I look forward to everyone else's analyses.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> 7 Those in the indie author community who fear Amazon might turn its back on them or adjust royalty structures might be comforted to see here that they are more important to Amazon's bottom line than anyone suspected. Also: The 30% Amazon takes to distribute their works is more than the 20% (or less) that the Big Five pays Amazon. Instead of worrying about a reduction of the 70% rate, indie authors might start asking when that number might go up.


My favorite take-away was in the the notes!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Endi Webb said:


> Hugh, what was the methodology you used to determine how many print books were sold compared to ebooks? That part made little sense to me, since I thought that the kindle store and the regular bookstore had separate bestseller lists. A book ranked #1 in "books" is not necessarily selling the same as #1 in the kindle store, etc.


There is an overall bestseller list as well, one that combines print and e-books. I've had different formats of the same book very near to one another on this list, and the daily sales were quite close.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

re: Survey Results. I can see them at this page, but I took the survey. Try looking there, it might work.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Not to be contradictory (Oh, who am I kidding. I was born to be contradictory), as much as I love you, methinks you are a bit blinded by your rose-colored lens.
> 
> Your conclusion regarding why indie books have higher ratings doesn't actually jive with human nature.
> 
> ...


I hate to tell you (alright, no I don't hate it  ), Julie, but there are a lot of Vine reviewers who do review indie works. I haven't seen any proof of your claim that they don't and as my own anecdotal evidence to counter your anecdotal evidence, in the last six weeks I have sent review copies to ten Vine reviewers who requested a copy when I politely asked them if they would review the novel. Of the few others who declined, not one said because I was indie.

Out of its ten reviews, two reviews within the past month of _A King Ensnared_ are from Vine reviewers (one 5 and one 4-star). I can even back up my claim.

So your conclusions are at least as much of a leap as theirs and at least theirs have some data and not just 'I don't review indies so no one else does either and I know someone who agrees with me'.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> You do know that practically all self-published authors are TRADE publishers, right?


I am using the correct_ industry term_ instead of "traditional" publisher. You know what I meant, and I expect better out of you that "nanananananna" silliness to counter an argument.


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> There is an overall bestseller list as well, one that combines print and e-books. I've had different formats of the same book very near to one another on this list, and the daily sales were quite close.


I've scoured the amazon site and just can't find it. I'd ask you, but I don't want to distract you from the revolution with my inability to navigate amz. Does anyone else have a link to this combined bestseller's list?


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I expect better out of you that "nanananananna" silliness to counter an argument.


You do? I don't expect better out of him.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> I hate to tell you (alright, no I don't hate it  ), *****, but there are a lot of Vine reviewers who do review indie works.


At no point did I say Vine reviewers don't review indies. I said Vine reviewers tend to leave lower star ratings on their Vine reviews. However AS a Vine Reviewer yes, I can tell you based on conversations in the Vine forum that many of them won't review indie books because they don't want to damage their reviewer rank. Indies tend to "downvote" perceived negative reviews, which negatively impacts the Vine reviewer's rank. So many of the top reviewers won't review indies because they don't want to risk it.

And since I fail to understand how merely pointing out that there are other things instead of price that could cause less than a .25 difference between indie and trade published books is somehow Anti-Amazon, I'll just leave everyone to bask in the glow of self-congratulation.


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## MH Sargent (Apr 8, 2010)

Hugh, Thanks for this information. You've outdone yourself now.


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

> Anyway, the books in the sample are the top 7000 bestsellers in Amazon, meaning that readers have already subjected them to their own form of quality control. The indie books that survived that process could well be on par, quality-wise, with trad books.


Not true at all. There are at this moment a handful of space opera type books ranked in the three digits (lower than 1,000) which are of an embarrassingly poor quality of writing. Drives me nuts!

Personally I am rooting for Amazon to tighten controls to improve quality. Put up some kind of tougher review process based on grammatical quality, require/charge for editing services where needed - in short, move to a more traditional publishing process and start handing out rejection slips like candy. This is one point I happen to agree with from the rants of ridiculously rich trad-authors. If nothing changes, literature may become an antiquated term.

You know they don't even teach cursive in public schools anymore? Soon we'll all be back to using an X to sign our name.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

jnfr said:


> re: Survey Results. I can see them at this page, but I took the survey. Try looking there, it might work.


That works. Thanks.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Arkan9 said:


> Personally I am rooting for Amazon to tighten controls to improve quality. Put up some kind of tougher review process based on grammatical quality, require/charge for editing services where needed - in short, move to a more traditional publishing process and start handing out rejection slips like candy. This is one point I happen to agree with from the rants of ridiculously rich trad-authors. If nothing changes, literature may become an antiquated term.


So when will Amazon start tightening controls on quality for every other product they sell? The last Xbox game I bought wasn't very good; why didn't Amazon have tighter controls to improve quality of the games they sell? Oops, the last condom I bought off Amazon broke; why didn't Amazon bird's eye the quality on that?

Amazon's not in the business to improve the quality of the products they sell. They're in the business to sell. They leave the quality control to the customers--the readers, through purchases (or lack of purchases) and reviews will tell us what is quality and what isn't.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> At no point did I say Vine reviewers don't review indies. I said Vine reviewers tend to leave lower star ratings on their Vine reviews. However *AS a Vine Reviewer yes, I can tell you based on conversations in the Vine forum that many of them won't review indie books* because they don't want to damage their reviewer rank. Indies tend to "downvote" perceived negative reviews, which negatively impacts the Vine reviewer's rank. So many of the top reviewers won't review indies because they don't want to risk it.
> 
> And since I fail to understand how merely pointing out that there are other things instead of price that could cause less than a .25 difference between indie and trade published books is somehow Anti-Amazon, I'll just leave everyone to bask in the glow of self-congratulation.


You stated (and just re-stated in the bolded) that Vine reviewers won't review indies and by the way, all of the Vine reviewers who said they would review my novels are rather highly ranked. I only ASKED highly ranked reviewers since their reviews give more benefit. And where did I use the term "Anti-Amazon"? I have no clue where that comment comes from.

However, I am happy to bask in the glow of well earned self-congratulations so that's what I'll do (thanks to Hugh).


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

> Amazon's not in the business to improve the quality of the products they sell. They're in the business to sell. They leave the quality control to the customers--the readers, through purchases (or lack of purchases) and reviews will tell us what is quality and what isn't.


Some of the highly-ranked books I am referring to have bad 1 and 2 star reviews at the top of their most helpful reviews bashing the work for poor quality and horrible grammar. Yet the books still sell. I think's it's because the story is more responsible for selling the books than the writing is in the space-opera genre.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm an advocate of the free market -- but not at the cost of of allowing our society to regress to illiteracy. Amazon should recognize the incredibly important role they now play in our society. They've created a porn dungeon and that's a good first step. But there's lots more weeds to pull.

I'm happy for the authors whose unedited poorly-written stories are selling well. What I'm saying is its better for everyone -- especially the readers *(who are the customers)* to force these works into a better formatted quality. If it doesn't pass a quality review force the author to polish it or charge for in-house editing before it can go live.

Viva literacy.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Arkan9 said:


> Some of the highly-ranked books I am referring to have bad 1 and 2 star reviews at the top of their most helpful reviews bashing the work for poor quality and horrible grammar. Yet the books still sell. I think's it's because the story is more responsible for selling the books than the writing is in the space-opera genre.


I'd say that about ANY genre.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Arkan9 said:


> Some of the highly-ranked books I am referring to have bad 1 and 2 star reviews at the top of their most helpful reviews bashing the work for poor quality and horrible grammar. Yet the books still sell. I think's it's because the story is more responsible for selling the books than the writing is in the space-opera genre.
> 
> Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm an advocate of the free market -- but not at the cost of of allowing our society to regress to illiteracy. Amazon should recognize the incredibly important role they now play in our society. They've created a porn dungeon and that's a good first step. But there's lots more weeds to pull.
> 
> ...


So you are saying that Amazon should prevent customers from buying the novels that the customers want to buy because the novels don't meet your standards. Amazon should treat their customers like children who are eating too much candy that will rot their ability to enjoy 'good literature'.

Huh. Well, that's one opinion. However, I would say you're an advocate of the free market only when it meets your approval. 

ETA: Possibly Amazon should also prevent sales of Dylan's _Lay, Lady, La_y since he got the grammar wrong.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> You stated (and just re-stated in the bolded) that Vine reviewers won't review indies


No, what I said was that *MANY* won't. We are writers here. I would think these differentiations would matter. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not deal in absolutes. I take measured, not all-or-nothing, approaches to most things. And my increased frustration on KB is that attempts to be balanced and measured in regard to* anything* are always interpreted as attacks on Amazon (which are ridiculous attacks to level at a person who uses KDP, Createspace, ACX, is a Vine reviewer, AND an active affiliate) or otherwise being anti-indie (which is repulsive and insulting, considering my actual history).


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## redacted (Dec 16, 2013)

Arkan9 said:


> Not true at all. There are at this moment a handful of space opera type books ranked in the three digits (lower than 1,000) which are of an embarrassingly poor quality of writing. Drives me nuts!
> 
> Personally I am rooting for Amazon to tighten controls to improve quality. Put up some kind of tougher review process based on grammatical quality, require/charge for editing services where needed - in short, move to a more traditional publishing process and start handing out rejection slips like candy. This is one point I happen to agree with from the rants of ridiculously rich trad-authors. If nothing changes, literature may become an antiquated term.
> 
> You know they don't even teach cursive in public schools anymore? Soon we'll all be back to using an X to sign our name.


And perhaps you'd like to sit on the Council of Good Books as well? Be in charge of telling everyone what they can and can't read as you see fit? Hmm, interesting.

Failing that, maybe just write books people will want to read? Crazy idea, right?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> No, what I said was that *MANY* won't. We are writers here. I would think these differentiations would matter. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not deal in absolutes. I take measured, not all-or-nothing, approaches to most things. And my increased frustration on KB is that attempts to be balanced and measured in regard to* anything* are always interpreted as attacks on Amazon (which are ridiculous attacks to level at a person who uses KDP, Createspace, ACX, is a Vine reviewer, AND an active affiliate) or otherwise being anti-indie (which is repulsive and insulting, considering my actual history).


*shrug* I have seen no one in this thread interpret anything as an attack on Amazon. And Julie, you may be an indie yourself but that doesn't keep you from being at times very hostile to other indies. At no point did I say or imply that anything you said was anti-Amazon so trying to beat me with that stick just doesn't make any sense. As for Vine reviewers, the ones I know review books that they're interested in and genres that they're interested in and if the book appeals to them, they'll probably review it--whatever they may post on a forum.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Not to be contradictory (Oh, who am I kidding. I was born to be contradictory), as much as I love you, methinks you are a bit blinded by your rose-colored lens.
> 
> Your conclusion regarding why indie books have higher ratings doesn't actually jive with human nature.
> 
> ...


I disagree with you that the difference between a 4.35 and 4.15 is insubstantial. Like the study points out, almost all the books in the sample have at least a 3.0 average, so on a scale of 3.0 to 5.0, a 0.2 difference is bigger than it appears.

But I think you raise a number of valid points about alternate causes of the difference. The basic question here is this. Other than price, are there any other ways in which indie books differ from trad books, not just in content, but also in how they're marketed to and discovered by readers?

I think the answer is a pretty resounding yes, right? That means there are other variables to account for besides price. All we know for sure is that, on Amazon, indie books tend to have higher ratings than trad books. Price is just one potential factor among many possible causes. Not sure the data here lets us conclude anything more definitive than that.

Would be interesting to check the scores of the books in this study over on Goodreads and see if the trend holds in a different venue.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Julie, JRT, move on.  Agree to disagree.

Thanks.

Betsy


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> So you are saying that Amazon should prevent customers from buying the novels that the customers want to buy because the novels don't meet your standards.


This kind of argument, in so many aspects of life (and especially in politics, these days) is inevitably wheeled out as a purported excuse to counter overall improvements in quality.

"It's about choice". "Who gave you the right to prevent people from buying inferior products if that's what they want to do?" "Who decides what's better quality?" And so on and so forth.

It's completely fallacious reasoning.

Anything with the potential to improve _overall_ quality should be welcomed by all those (self-published or trade published or both) who genuinely care about the long-term future of literature and publishing.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Amazon needs to restrict any product with high fructose corn syrup or trans fats in it. There's an obesity epidemic in this country, and I hold them responsible. Look at all the cancer and heart disease running rampant through our society. Look at the sky rocketing costs of health care. We need to preserve our way of life by forcing people to eat organic food!


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

zoe tate said:


> Anything with the potential to improve _overall_ quality should be welcomed by all those (self-published or trade published or both) who genuinely care about the long-term future of literature and publishing..


I don't understand what "overall quality" means in the context of eBooks. Could you define it and provide the metrics that will be needed to measure it?

B.


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

> Could you define it and provide the metrics that will be needed to measure it?


Walk into any print book store and pick up *any* trad-fiction book. There's you metric. It has to be readable without wanting to throw it against the wall because it is a grammatical nightmare.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I'm an advocate of the free market -- but not at the cost of of allowing our society to regress to illiteracy.


One of the great things about the free market is it has rejected this idea.

Perhaps Occams Razor can help with the reviews. Higher ratings mean independents are of a higher quality than traditionally published books.



> Anything with the potential to improve overall quality should be welcomed by all those (self-published or trade published or both) who genuinely care about the long-term future of literature and publishing.


Anything? No. It always depends on what is proposed. Within the framework of the free market, people can publish to whatever standard they choose. Consumers will then choose. If consumers want the standards some authors advocate, then those books will win in the market.

We have to accept that consumers don't care what we want for them. No reason they should. They decide for themselves.

I don't think anyone is smart enough to guide the long term future of literature. And publishing? Who cares? Authors will write, and the books will get to the consumers.



> Walk into any print book store and pick up any trad-fiction book. There's you metric. It has to be readable without wanting to throw it against the wall because it is a grammatical nightmare.


God Bless the free market. Those folks can always walk into bookstore, get stuff they like, and ignore what they don't.

Aint this a great country?


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2014)

If there's any conclusion about book quality that we can draw from this study, it's that the need for gatekeepers has been greatly overblown.

Is the decrease in average star rating from indie to trad-published books statistically significant? Over on TPV, people were saying that it doesn't correlate with price when you break the data down to the various price points--indies are averaging higher stars across all price points, not just the low ones. If the difference is indeed statistically significant, I find that fascinating.

"Quality" is such a subjective, non-quantifiable term, I hesitate to conclude that indie books are of a higher "quality" than trad-published books. However, it may have something to do with the fact that indie published books aren't run through as many edits, or that the authors don't have to compromise their artistic vision or fight with editors/agents/marketing people in order to get their book to print. Certainly, I think that indies tend to take more chances and try out new and different stories, whereas trad publishers are prone to want more of whatever it is that is currently selling.


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## williamvw (Mar 12, 2012)

Arkan9 said:


> Walk into any print book store and pick up *any* trad-fiction book. There's you metric. It has to be readable without wanting to throw it against the wall because it is a grammatical nightmare.


Funny thing is, I had that exact reaction to _50 Shades_, which I finally did throw against the wall somewhere around chapter 7, and not because of the grammar. If only there were some gatekeeper to regulate things like effective plotting or sensible dialog or -- oh, I don't know...characters that didn't make me want to take a nail gun to my head. And yet, millions of people love _50 Shades_, just like some people aren't bothered by bad grammar. Fortunately, for myself, I am that gatekeeper. Having been unsatisfied with the experience, I choose not to buy another of those keenly edited, traditionally published titles. Presumably, other readers are bright enough to make their own similar choices without needing a babysitter. The market always finds ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. Moreover, today's chaff producer just might surprise you with wheat when time, experience, and resources allow -- an opportunity that wouldn't exist if struck from etailers' rosters for the crime of being new and learning the ropes.

The first several pages of this thread were very informative and fascinating. Thanks again, Hugh. No data or analysis is perfect, and I can't wait to see how you grow and refine your project going forward.


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## Lo/Roxie (May 11, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I disagree with you that the difference between a 4.35 and 4.15 is insubstantial. Like the study points out, almost all the books in the sample have at least a 3.0 average, so on a scale of 3.0 to 5.0, a 0.2 difference is bigger than it appears.
> 
> But I think you raise a number of valid points about alternate causes of the difference. The basic question here is this. Other than price, are there any other ways in which indie books differ from trad books, not just in content, but also in how they're marketed to and discovered by readers?
> 
> ...


I just wanted to touch on this because I am both trade/trad and self/indie published. My Roxie pen name is 100% indie/self. My Lo pen name is mostly trade/trad published. My Roxie books have much, MUCH higher ratings than my Lo books--and I can pretty much pinpoint the exact reason why.

NetGalley. Keywords. Categories.

If you take a look at my paranormal romances with Grand Central, they have some pretty awful reviews because the books weren't targeted appropriately. They pushed out lots and lots of ARCs to readers who thought they were getting straight PNR instead of *erotic* paranormal romance. The whole plot of these books centers on the, er, sexy times between the main characters. PNR romances tend to have a couple of yummy hot scenes but a much deeper, more conflicted story arc. These were erotic romance novellas too. Readers thought they were getting longer books instead of 25-35K word novellas so they felt cheated (?) when the story ended at 10 chapters or whatever.

If I had self/indie published these books, I would have targeted readers who wanted erotic paranormals and who enjoyed shorter reads. I would have put the length in the blurb and loaded my keywords and copy with plenty of clues that these are books filled with deliciously naughty scenes. If you look at the reviews on DSD, you can see that that did not happen. LOL. The books still very sold well but the review average is much, MUCH lower than my Roxie books.

With my Roxie (all indie/self) books, I make sure that readers know they're getting super sexy and gritty romantic suspense. I don't flood NetGalley with ARCs. I only give ARCs to readers who are follow me in some way (FB/Twitter/mailing list) and I'm very clear about length and content.

So. FWIW. Those are my thoughts on one possibility for the review disparity between trade/trad and indie/self books.


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## yomatta (Jun 29, 2012)

Lolita Lopez said:


> I just wanted to touch on this because I am both trade/trad and self/indie published. My Roxie pen name is 100% indie/self. My Lo pen name is mostly trade/trad published. My Roxie books have much, MUCH higher ratings than my Lo books--and I can pretty much pinpoint the exact reason why.
> 
> NetGalley. Keywords. Categories.
> 
> ...


The idea that the difference is due to a failure in the marketing plan makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for sharing your experience.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Rather than destroying literature, I believe the democratization of publishing will save it. I read recently that only 1 our of 5 people will ever read another book after high school or college. The kinds of books they make you read in school, i.e. "literature," do not encourage people to read. 
Isn't it better that there are sources available to people, such as low priced books and sites like Wattpad, that can compete with the noise of modern life. Isn't it better to pull people away from fifty channels of Real Housewives reruns, another round of Candy Crush, or videos of cute kittens, so that they read? 
Isn't reading in an of itself a good mental exercise? Doesn't reading foster brain growth? What exactly are we saving when we say we want to save literature?
The rules of the English language are still there, classic story structure isn't going anywhere. Those things aren't going to change because people enjoy reading unedited books that happen to entertain them. 
I believe that over time, the technical quality of indie books will increase. The authors themselves will take a greater interest in learning the rules. Editors and proofreaders will become more readily available. 
Instituting gatekeepers in our brave new world, won't help literature, it will just tell readers there's something too special about reading to include them. Like being forced to analyse Shakespeare in high school.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Ah, I knew it would take no time at all to derail this thread almost entirely. 

Hugh, thank you for this. I appreciate all of the hard work you and the coder have put in. Hopefully this will begin to foster the kind of discussion that self-pub authors have been wanting (especially Konrath, lol) to have with publishers. 

I can only assume if it happens it will be less contentious than this thread. But knowing humans, probably not.


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## MitchHogan (May 17, 2013)

So Amazon are charging traditional publishers 20% to sell their ebooks, and indie authors 30%? That's got to stop.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

MitchHogan said:


> So Amazon are charging traditional publishers 20% to sell their ebooks, and indie authors 30%? That's got to stop.


Actually, KB'r Evan Rail sent me this link today: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/17/140217fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all

If the article is correct, KDP users are getting a better deal in many respects than trade publishers. (The caveat being we aren't allowed to buy the opportunities on Amazon that trade publishers can. But trade publishers pay dearly for that according to the article.)


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

WHDean said:


> So the guy with a background in critical appraisal is asking for metrics of quality&#8230;on this thread?


True. Metrics of "overall quality" interest me.



WHDean said:


> That must mean you're satisfied that the metrics and methodology in this study are scientifically sound.


False. However, I do find Hugh's study fascinating.

B.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I'll be honest, I'm very fond of Hugh because he did me a very pleasant turn a while back, but when I saw this at first I was "yeah right, someone's algorithm is way off." It just didn't seem possible that ebooks dominated things that much. However, when I went and looked at the bestseller info, it was the first time I noticed that DAMN, it is all the kindle edition that's selling. It really was an eye opener. On the other hand, I still wonder if the Amazon rankings aren't cooked in some way. The numbers just seem to insane.

OTOH, I predicted a long time ago, before I started write, that the ebook would replace the mass market paperback and that seems to be what's happening at least as far as Amazon sales are concerned. Mass market was always where genre fiction reigned supreme.


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## 25803 (Oct 24, 2010)

My thanks to Hugh and to all who participated and made this report possible.

My jaw dropped so hard, I now have TMJ 

It's wonderful having your report, Hugh  Thank you again!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

AngryGames said:


> Ah, I knew it would take no time at all to derail this thread almost entirely.
> 
> Hugh, thank you for this. I appreciate all of the hard work you and the coder have put in. Hopefully this will begin to foster the kind of discussion that self-pub authors have been wanting (especially Konrath, lol) to have with publishers.
> 
> I can only assume if it happens it will be less contentious than this thread. But knowing humans, probably not.


Contentious? This thread is a walk in the park compared to what we will see over the next few months. The HuffPost, Salon, and Guardian are not gong to sit on their hands. Something just splashed into the punch bowl.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> You do know that practically all self-published authors are TRADE publishers, right?
> 
> I do not think that word means what you think it means.
> 
> ...


Julie's point about the difference between the average star ratings being (probably) insignificant is a pretty sound point. I think the take-away with that bit of data isn't that indie books rate slightly higher on average but rather that indie books in the top 7000 rate _essentially as high_ as traditional books in the top 7000. What will be really interesting, I think, is to bear the closeness of the ratings in mind as you start to drill down, and see at what point the ratings begin to diverge. Top 50,000? Top 100,000? It will be interesting to see where the break in reader enjoyment happens, and what we can learn about how ratings impact sales. I mean, I think when you're talking about the top 7000 they all have pretty good ratings anyhow or they probably wouldn't be selling so well.

I'm really excited to see how further working with the crawler refines our understanding of ratings-to-sales.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

C'mon, folks, really?  You pulled me away from video of the sinkhole in the National Corvette Museum.  Stop poking each other.

Betsy


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Contentious? This thread is a walk in the park compared to what we will see over the next few months. The HuffPost, Salon, and Guardian are not gong to sit on their hands. Something just splashed into the punch bowl.


A given. And 99.9999999% of KB'ers can predict that every contentious link will be ferretted out and posted here 

The earnings report is a fascinating insight


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Christa Wick said:


> Actually, KB'r Evan Rail sent me this link today: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/17/140217fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all


The headlining graphic comes with the following caption:



> In the era of the Kindle, a book costs the same price as a sandwich. Dennis Johnson, an independent publisher, says that "Amazon has successfully fostered the idea that a book is a thing of minimal value-it's a widget."


The problem with this mindset is that book prices, and therefore their perceived intrinsic value, has for well over a century been arbitrarily set by trade publishers based mainly on actual costs of manufacturing, distribution, and promotion. It has derived little, if at all, from the value to the creator. Yet the idea that a $10 book is only half as valuable as a $20 book, yet twice as valuable as a $5 book, stubbornly persists, despite the fact that ebooks, particularly independently published ebooks, render traditional costs largely irrelevant. Books are not fungible, and ebooks _create_ value the more units are sold, so an argument can be made that lower price actually builds value.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> C'mon, folks, really? You pulled me away from video of the sinkhole in the National Corvette Museum. Stop poking each other.
> 
> Betsy


Was I poking? I swear I didn't intend to for once.  I do think it's a totally fascinating data point...I just think there are a number of ways to interpret it at this point, and we'll refine our understanding of it as it's worked with more, and applied through more layers of the study. It's _really _cool. All of this is massively game-changing, and we'll come to understand exactly how to use it to further change the game the more it's handled and the more data we share.

I love stuff like this. I love real numbers. It's the best way to understand the truth of a situation, to look at all the possible data and pick it up and turn it all around like a Rubik's Cube. I feel like high-fiving the universe since this came out.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

B. Justin Shier said:


> True. Metrics of "overall quality" interest me.
> 
> False. However, I do find Hugh's study fascinating.
> 
> B.


I appreciate your candor. If my remark came across as "snarky"-apparently it did to Betsy-I apologize. I was a little disappointed in your response. We have what purports to be an analysis of great importance to indies and you with a background in this type of analysis. Yet you chose to challenge the scientific rigor of someone's mention of quality instead of weighing in on the scientific rigor of the analysis.

_Actually, it did to me and to the people who reported it. --Betsy_


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

If this is gonna turn into an egghead discussion on statistics and probability, I'm outa here.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I disagree with you that the difference between a 4.35 and 4.15 is insubstantial. Like the study points out, almost all the books in the sample have at least a 3.0 average, so on a scale of 3.0 to 5.0, a 0.2 difference is bigger than it appears.
> 
> But I think you raise a number of valid points about alternate causes of the difference. The basic question here is this. Other than price, are there any other ways in which indie books differ from trad books, not just in content, but also in how they're marketed to and discovered by readers?
> 
> ...


My t-test analysis says the *difference between the two groups of ratings (4.4 average for indies, 4.1 average for trad-pubs) is statistically significant with 95% confidence.* (T-value is 14.713047. The P-Value is < 0.00001. The result is significant at p < 0.05. <<- for you math geeks)

Knowing the difference is significant tells us something real is happening. WHY it's happening is completely open to speculation, and I doubt we'll ever have anything like data to prove any particular hypothesis.

However, as an indie author,* my takeaway is this: people really like indie books. *They don't just tolerate them. In fact, their enthusiasm (for whatever reason) is even higher for indie books than comparable trad-pub books in a statistically significant way.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

vrabinec said:


> If this is gonna turn into an egghead discussion on statistics and probability, I'm outa here.


Ha! I think we posted simultaneously. Sorry, Vrabinec. #goesbackinGeekDungeon


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Susan Kaye Quinn, I think I love you.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> My t-test analysis says the *difference between the two groups of ratings (4.4 average for indies, 4.1 average for trad-pubs) is statistically significant with 95% confidence.* (T-value is 14.713047. The P-Value is < 0.00001. The result is significant at p < 0.05. <<- for you math geeks)
> 
> Knowing the difference is significant tells us something real is happening. WHY it's happening is completely open to speculation, and I doubt we'll ever have anything like data to prove any particular hypothesis.
> 
> However, as an indie author,* my takeaway is this: people really like indie books. *They don't just tolerate them. In fact, their enthusiasm (for whatever reason) is even higher for indie books than comparable trad-pub books in a statistically significant way.


Thanks for putting in the work on that. And you're right, that is a pretty significant conclusion we can draw from this.


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## SpringfieldMH (Feb 2, 2013)

Good interview with Hugh Howey and DataGuy regarding all this on Self Publishing Roundtable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gaey6a0zgA


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

SpringfieldMH said:


> Good interview with Hugh Howey and DataGuy regarding all this on Self Publishing Roundtable
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gaey6a0zgA


Thanks for posting that. Listening to it now. Sounds like the next report will be made available on Thursday. Should be a fun way to spend a snow day.


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2014)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> My t-test analysis says the *difference between the two groups of ratings (4.4 average for indies, 4.1 average for trad-pubs) is statistically significant with 95% confidence.* (T-value is 14.713047. The P-Value is < 0.00001. The result is significant at p < 0.05. <<- for you math geeks)
> 
> Knowing the difference is significant tells us something real is happening. WHY it's happening is completely open to speculation, and I doubt we'll ever have anything like data to prove any particular hypothesis.
> 
> However, as an indie author,* my takeaway is this: people really like indie books. *They don't just tolerate them. In fact, their enthusiasm (for whatever reason) is even higher for indie books than comparable trad-pub books in a statistically significant way.


So it is statistically significant. Fascinating.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Hugh, your survey asked:

If traditionally published, which of the following are you satisfied with?

The only thing I was really impressed with, and could use as an Indie, was the writing of the blurb  . There is a reason why trad publishers employ blurb writers


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## trublue (Jul 7, 2012)

Thank you for the hard work and info


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

SpringfieldMH said:


> Good interview with Hugh Howey and DataGuy regarding all this on Self Publishing Roundtable
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gaey6a0zgA


After talking to Hugh today, I'm even more excited about what we might learn as time passes. Great starting resource. Really appreciate Hugh taking the time to answer our questions on ths show.


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

Christa Wick said:


> The total # of titles sampled was 6915 (at least according to the Title Data tab on the sheet). The LOWEST RANK among the 6915 titles sampled was 752309.  Titles from #6072 sampled to #6915 all had a rank worse than 100,000. So if you were in the GENRES sampled, your books were in there. If I understand the sheet correctly, I would have had either 8 (categorized only within Romance) or 13 (five categorized both as erotica and romance) in there. (Since I have 15 steamy romances stuck in Erotica category only -- I am waiting to see how the numbers run when Hugh and his data guru add the Erotica category.)


I missed that - thank you very much for pointing that out, Christa! And yes, all my stuff falls within the genres sampled. But it would be nice to know if my books were included or not - since the data is publicly available (with a lot of work or a crawler). Like you, I'd much rather see it without being anonimized as it was.

But hey, I had nothing before, so I'd like more, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

I think it's important to keep in mind that, even if the statistics demonstrate a significant difference in review ratings, we have no idea what it means. We can't even assume the reviews are coming from the same population of readers, which any conclusion regarding comparability must be predicated upon. (In fact, the opposite is likely true with only partially overlapping customer bases). I know we'd all like to understand the how and why of what we're seeing, but the limitations of the data prevent us from knowing the answers to these questions. I really think we're comparing apples and oranges, or maybe tangerines and oranges, at least as far as who's reading what is concerned.

*One takeaway from all this, as others before me have said, is that indie books and authors can absolutely compete in the same market space*, much to the chagrin of the gatekeepers (or, if I may be so bold, indies have opened up the market space by tapping into a segment which traditional publishing never did well in). The high degree of equivalence in the market behavior between traditional and indie supports this, even if we don't really understand how or why.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Has anyone posted/created a "cliff notes" version of the report? It's a lot to take in. I've read it 3 times and I'm still processing.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

http://authorearnings.com/what-writers-leave-on-the-table/

Today's updated tidbit. Really interesting to see the graphs so starkly laying things out. So sorry, tradpub.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hey, Jim--

we asked Hugh to have one thread for AuthorEarnings.com, as we do for other author service websites, and so I'm going to go ahead and merge this with Hugh's existing thread, thanks.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Whoops, ok. Sorry about that. Rock on.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> I'll be honest, I'm very fond of Hugh because he did me a very pleasant turn a while back, but when I saw this at first I was "yeah right, someone's algorithm is way off." It just didn't seem possible that ebooks dominated things that much. However, when I went and looked at the bestseller info, it was the first time I noticed that d*mn, it is all the kindle edition that's selling. It really was an eye opener. On the other hand, I still wonder if the Amazon rankings aren't cooked in some way. The numbers just seem to insane.
> 
> OTOH, I predicted a long time ago, before I started write, that the ebook would replace the mass market paperback and that seems to be what's happening at least as far as Amazon sales are concerned. Mass market was always where genre fiction reigned supreme.


This. 1,000% this. It doesn't matter how you crunch the numbers. What the data grab shows -- and all that is important -- is what's on the bestseller lists. It's almost entire e-books. And of those e-books, there are more indies than all of the Big 5 combined.

No amount of hysterics will wave that away. What they better start doing is trad-publish better books. Stat!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Susan Kaye Quinn said:


> (T-value is 14.713047. The P-Value is < 0.00001. The result is significant at p < 0.05. <<- for you math geeks)


Hmmm. I'm convinced! Thanks for the correction and the information, Susan! That is pretty darn cool.



> Knowing the difference is significant tells us something real is happening. WHY it's happening is completely open to speculation, and I doubt we'll ever have anything like data to prove any particular hypothesis.


My pet hypothesis is that indies offer more variety. This is starkly apparent in my genre (historical fiction, non-romance) where traditional publishers, even the small presses, tend to stick very closely to trends in era and setting (for the sake of mitigating risk, I assume) with a small handful of eras and settings coming into prominence for a few years and the huge variety of other historical subjects being left in the dust. (We've just come down off a Tudor trend, the Borgias are trending strongly, and ancient Egypt looks to be on the rise.) Lack of variety is very apparent in tradpubbed historical fiction, and it's something readers have been complaining about for years and years. My suspicion is that indies like me who have enjoyed success in historical fiction have largely arrived there due to offering some variety to readers. I wonder if that's an anecdote that plays out across other genres, too.

Keep in mind that non-romance historical fiction fits into that little "Fiction & Literature" slice of the pie. It's tiny compared to the "genre" wedge. I can't find that graph now, the one that compared sales of nonfiction, genre, fiction, and something else. But the take-away message is that historical fiction is a small world, so what accounts for the popularity of indies there may not account in a larger world like romance or thrillers.

In any case, there's no way to gather useful hard-number data on something as subjective as "Why do you like indie literature?" So even though it's technically pointless to muse on it, it might be the result of the hard data that I find the most fascinating and motivating! 



> However, as an indie author,* my takeaway is this: people really like indie books. *They don't just tolerate them. In fact, their enthusiasm (for whatever reason) is even higher for indie books than comparable trad-pub books in a statistically significant way.


Heck yeah! *WOOOOOOOOOO!*


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

As a reader...my .02 worth.

I probably read about 50-50 indie vs trad-pubbed books.  Sometimes it's more indie, but that's probably about the average.  (Reading some trad-pubbed non-fiction this month.)  And the reason that there are so many indie books in my reading list isn't because I find indie books better, but because I find them cheaper.  I'm not saying the ones I choose to buy and read are worse, either.  Some of the indie books are as good or better than the average trad-pubbed books I read, some are worse.  Some of the trad-pubbed books I read are as good or better than the average indie-pubbed books I read, some are worse.  Most of them are just good books and I don't think about who published them.  I like to read, and the price points for indie books mean I can read more books of more different types.

Just one data point from a reader.

Betsy


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

That's awesome, Betsy. Great point. The "We don't have enough variety!" thing is so common among HF readers that I tend to focus on it to the exclusion of other considerations. (Seriously, if I had a penny for every discussion thread that starts with "ANOTHER Tudor book...?"  ) Although, the data Susan clarified is showing that readers _rate _ indie books higher, not just that they buy more. So I think the mystery rolls on, and will forever.



JimJohnson said:


> http://authorearnings.com/what-writers-leave-on-the-table/
> 
> Today's updated tidbit. Really interesting to see the graphs so starkly laying things out. So sorry, tradpub.


Sorrynotsorry. 

I'm just starting to cruise through the new report (thanks for posting it, Jim) and this already jumped out at me:



> A couple things to keep in mind: A lot of the print sales on the right of the graph above are occurring on Amazon *(more occur there than any other single source)*.


This is exactly what I've been assuming all along, but it's nice to see that somebody actually compared Bookscan and Amazon data on this to confirm that in fact Amazon is selling more print books than any other source of print books. And thus, the objection most people are going to raise over the coming days, that these studies (mostly) only look at Amazon and not all the sales happening in print stores, is not a very strong objection at all. The largest bookstore on Earth is the largest bookstore on Earth, no matter how you try to cut it up.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

I bounced around some blog discussions of this yesterday and it's interesting how much critique is revolving around the review thing, which I think is the least mind-boggling bit. But that's what catches people's attention.

The one thing I would like to see explained a bit more as you go on, Hugh, that seems to confuse people is how you're deriving number of sales from Amazon ranking, and how you can refine those numbers over time. I know from reading these boards that KB writers have shared info over past few years about how ranks correlate with unit sales, but I think it could be made clearer for folks who haven't been following along.

Of course, the relationship there is always going to be fuzzy to some degree, and people will use that fuzziness to try and discredit your work. But that's because what they want is to discredit the work, and they use whatever's at hand to do that.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I think it's important to keep in mind that, even if the statistics demonstrate a significant difference in review ratings, we have no idea what it means. We can't even assume the reviews are coming from the same population of readers, which any conclusion regarding comparability must be predicated upon.


We can't assume any two books are being reviewed by the same population of readers.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

It would be very interesting to understand, within the genre slice of the pie, how much of it is romance. Reason being (and my hunch) that many romance authors are indie, because trad pub really just doesn't buy them anything, as most of the volume is in $3-$4 ebooks (and thereby skewing the conclusions some). Reason that might be significant is because the data might be telling us that if you're an indie romance author, you'd do better to stay indie, but if you're an indie thriller author, you might be better off doing a trad deal.

My gut says that you're better off being indie if you're pubbing sci-fi or romance/NA, and undecided if thrillers. I'd love to be able to understand that better, for a host of reasons, not the least of which is pure self-interest.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> It would be very interesting to understand, within the genre slice of the pie, how much of it is romance. Reason being (and my hunch) that many romance authors are indie, because trad pub really just doesn't buy them anything, as most of the volume is in $3-$4 ebooks (and thereby skewing the conclusions some). Reason that might be significant is because the data might be telling us that if you're an indie romance author, you'd do better to stay indie, but if you're an indie thriller author, you might be better off doing a trad deal.


Ooh...really good point, Russell. That could give an entire new vista to explore with this tool.

God, this is so cool. It's Christmas in July.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

When I download the data, I am expecting 7,000 records. Im getting about 4,500 records.

So 1) I don't understand the 7,000 vs 4,500, or 2) Im doing something else wrong.

Any ideas?


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## Not Here Anymore (May 16, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I like to read, and the price points for indie books mean I can read more books of more different types.
> 
> Betsy


This is true for me, too. You just get more bang for your buck with indie books. I also try more new authors because of the low price point.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> It would be very interesting to understand, within the genre slice of the pie, how much of it is romance. Reason being (and my hunch) that many romance authors are indie, because trad pub really just doesn't buy them anything, as most of the volume is in $3-$4 ebooks (and thereby skewing the conclusions some). Reason that might be significant is because the data might be telling us that if you're an indie romance author, you'd do better to stay indie, but if you're an indie thriller author, you might be better off doing a trad deal.
> 
> My gut says that you're better off being indie if you're pubbing sci-fi or romance/NA, and undecided if thrillers. I'd love to be able to understand that better, for a host of reasons, not the least of which is pure self-interest.


I can tell you that, at any given time, about 40% of the top 250 is romance. It would be a mistake to assume that trend holds true through all ranks. But if we make that assumption anyway!, and the report shows that 70% of ebook sales go to genre fiction, then romance (at 40% of the entire pie) comes out to more than half of that. To the tune of 57%, by the iffy and dirty numbers I'm using here.

If they've got numbers on all the genres included, they've probably got a much more accurate figure, though.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

You all should go read today's update that Hugh Jim linked above. This one is really going to get people screaming.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

This one? (Thanks to JimJohnson for posting this.)



JimJohnson said:


> http://authorearnings.com/what-writers-leave-on-the-table/
> 
> Today's updated tidbit. Really interesting to see the graphs so starkly laying things out. So sorry, tradpub.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Thanks for the correction, Betsy. Yeah, that one. (thanks Jim!)


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> But if we make that assumption anyway!, and the report shows that 70% of ebook sales go to genre fiction, then romance (at 40% of the entire pie) comes out to more than half of that. To the tune of 57%, by the iffy and dirty numbers I'm using here.


So happy to be jumping into the romance pool this year.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> This one? (Thanks to JimJohnson for posting this.)


@ Jim--Thanks Jim--more goodies. http://authorearnings.com/what-writers-leave-on-the-table/

@ JR Henderson--Actually in Hollywood the art house movies scene never was big here in the US, excluding NYC and some college towns. The BIG thing that hit Hollywood was Easy Rider (indie) a huge boxoffice hit and that really opened the doors for indie movies and guys like Lucas. Brought on indie, non-studio movies and the era of spec-scripts. We are more into Easy Rider territory than art house movies.

@Betsy: You are absolutely right about price being a big factor. I went bookshopping yesterday and it took all of 10 minutes from home. I got the DotD Silk Road for $1.99 (big pub), a indie thriller for .99 and a promo Free. I spent $3 for 3 books or $1 each. I remember when I would haunt bookstores spend maybe 1-2 hours, buy 3 books and spend...$75. I may write, but I'm a reader first and this is great for readers.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

jnfr said:


> The one thing I would like to see explained a bit more as you go on, Hugh, that seems to confuse people is how you're deriving number of sales from Amazon ranking, and how you can refine those numbers over time. I know from reading these boards that KB writers have shared info over past few years about how ranks correlate with unit sales, but I think it could be made clearer for folks who haven't been following along.
> 
> Of course, the relationship there is always going to be fuzzy to some degree, and people will use that fuzziness to try and discredit your work. But that's because what they want is to discredit the work, and they use whatever's at hand to do that.


It's equally fuzzy for everyone. That is: Plug in whatever numbers you like for the ranking/sales ratio. Indies are going to come out on top. Their distribution on the bestseller lists is what it is. Their preponderance on the bestseller lists is what it is. You can take a web browser and a pencil and confirm this.

People will want to wave that away and pretend it isn't real simply because they need to in order to hold on to their view of reality. I get that. I understand that. Doesn't change anything. Indies are absolutely killing it, as a group. And by "killing it," I mean that they are totally sucking and barely making any money at all -- except compared to traditionally published authors, who are doing even worse.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

I just want to be sure I understand (preferably without doing any maths  ) - as long as you're applying the same formula across the board, it doesn't matter what your sales-to-rank formula is, because the ratios remain the same. Is that about it?

Of course we'll never know exactly, but you're saying we don't have to know.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

jnfr said:


> I just want to be sure I understand (preferably without doing any maths  ) - as long as you're applying the same formula across the board, it doesn't matter what your sales-to-rank formula is, because the ratios remain the same. Is that about it?
> 
> Of course we'll never know exactly, but you're saying we don't have to know.


Exactly. If publishers went through all of Amazon's bestseller lists and made tick marks for every e-book and ever self-published title, they would see a very scary picture emerge.

They don't want to look at it. They really need to.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Literary Agent Joshua Bilmes has responded on his blog: http://brilligblogger.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-missionary-impulse.html

The gist? He's not a fan of the report and thinks it has some serious problems. Everyone die of shock in 3...2...1...

So the industry responses are starting to roll in. Wee.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Doomed Muse said:


> Literary Agent Joshua Bilmes has responded on his blog: http://brilligblogger.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-missionary-impulse.html
> 
> The gist? He's not a fan of the report and thinks it has some serious problems. Everyone die of shock in 3...2...1...
> 
> So the industry responses are starting to roll in. Wee.


At the risk of calling the hounds out on me, perhaps it might be wise to consider what this (anonymous) agent has to say and maybe temper our enthusiasm a bit. I personally hope Brillig is wrong, but that's because I'm personally invested in the assumption that Hugh's conclusions are right. But it's easy to get worked into a froth when the numbers seem to favor our position. This is an emotionally charged subject. The reality of the situation is, at least in my mind, more likely to be somewhere between Hugh's assessment and Brillig's condemnation.


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## Daniel Knight (Jul 2, 2013)

Hugh,

Do you plan on collecting this data on a daily basis in the days/weeks/months ahead? Not sure how much more difficult it would make compiling all the data but it would go a long way to countering the argument I knew a bunch of critics would latch onto (as Shatzkin did in his latest post) - that this is just data for a single day being projected out to a full year.

Of course even if you had the whole year, I suppose some of them might just say - well that was only 2014. 2015 could be completely different.

Another thing I keep seeing repeated by the critics is that the first report only covers Amazon - and they keep saying that this is a small part of the total picture. These are the same critics that keep saying that Amazon is controlling the whole industry and eating up all the competitors. I guess it depends on the day of the week.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I'm new to  KB and may have screwed up my first post, but wanted to respond to the discussion about why indie books might be better.  I sold 22 books to 5 major US Publishers, and with the exception of one publisher, every single one of the others mucked in my books to the point where I quit writing. The most egregious was a big proposal I sold (big as in size, not dollars!). I had editors fighting for the book, even in the same publishing house. The winning editor (I'd gone with her based on another couple authors' experiences) immediately came back with:  delete chapters 2 to 7, change motivation, and can't do this and this and this. My response: Then what do I write? You've just killed my story. Editor's response: I don't know. you're a writer. You'll think of something.

Well, I had to pay the bills, so I tried, I really tried, to accept some changes and rescue my story. I'm ashamed now that I didn't just tell them to go take a flying leap, but I had bills to pay and a mortgage to make.  The proof was in the reviews: reviewers sensed there was supposed to be another book in there and responded to that, and invariably knocked everything the editor had demanded be changed.

Other books were shortened (we've cut our page length), rejected (that's not selling right now....and then another publisher takes a chance on something similar and it goes like gangbusters), etc.

I think the poster who said indies are writing from the heart....and therefore reaching readers...has got it right. The one publisher who always edited MY book, not changed my book to equal something they thought the wanted, had several newbie authors hit the NYT because, as my editor said, if the authors are writing it, the readers probably want it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Anne Avery said:


> I'm new to KB and may have screwed up my first post, but wanted to respond to the discussion about why indie books might be better. I sold 22 books to 5 major US Publishers, and with the exception of one publisher, every single one of the others mucked in my books to the point where I quit writing. The most egregious was a big proposal I sold (big as in size, not dollars!). I had editors fighting for the book, even in the same publishing house. The winning editor (I'd gone with her based on another couple authors' experiences) immediately came back with: delete chapters 2 to 7, change motivation, and can't do this and this and this. My response: Then what do I write? You've just killed my story. Editor's response: I don't know. you're a writer. You'll think of something.
> 
> Well, I had to pay the bills, so I tried, I really tried, to accept some changes and rescue my story. I'm ashamed now that I didn't just tell them to go take a flying leap, but I had bills to pay and a mortgage to make. The proof was in the reviews: reviewers sensed there was supposed to be another book in there and responded to that, and invariably knocked everything the editor had demanded be changed.
> 
> ...


Welcome to KB, Anne. I'm sorry to hear about these dreadful experiences. I think what you're describing would have driven me away from writing, too. I hope you find self-publishing 100% less agonizing.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Doomed Muse said:


> Literary Agent Joshua Bilmes has responded on his blog: http://brilligblogger.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-missionary-impulse.html
> 
> The gist? He's not a fan of the report and thinks it has some serious problems. Everyone die of shock in 3...2...1...
> 
> So the industry responses are starting to roll in. Wee.


Interesting response in that article. I'm sure plenty more will jump on that bandwagon.


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## Wo3lf (Jan 30, 2013)

"_I think the poster who said indies are writing from the heart....and therefore reaching readers...has got it right._"

Wham!!


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## JaroldWilliams (Jan 9, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> Remember me saying no one would do this story?
> 
> I did it myself.
> 
> ...


Thank you for all you do for the indie community, Hugh.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> At the risk of calling the hounds out on me, perhaps it might be wise to consider what this (anonymous) agent has to say and maybe temper our enthusiasm a bit. I personally hope Brillig is wrong, but that's because I'm personally invested in the assumption that Hugh's conclusions are right. But it's easy to get worked into a froth when the numbers seem to favor our position. This is an emotionally charged subject. The reality of the situation is, at least in my mind, more likely to be somewhere between Hugh's assessment and Brillig's condemnation.


Imagine the progress if a position in the middle is the new norm. The next finding that shows self-publishing to be a viable career choice will be met with a yawn. Have we come that far in a few years?


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

I'm still trying to take in all this info. We were already aware the indie community is strong and that ebook sales are significant. At last, there is proof of what we knew. Yes, I know, refinement is needed, but the _guts_ of the info are there.

Hugh, thank you for your work on this project. You and your data guru deserve a round of applause. I'll be following future reports, and I know the audience will be crowded.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

My apologies if this has already been posted. I didn't see it, but big thread!

Dana Beth Weinberg who did the PW survey has responded to Hugh's report. And what a shocker, she refutes it. Kboards also gets a mention for our outrage over her study. And she does remind us that she is very smart, so what do we know. 



> Not everyone has the kind of training and expertise I bring to this type of research with my doctorate and years of research and teaching.


http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/analyzing-the-author-earnings-data-using-basic-analytics/


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> My apologies if this has already been posted. I didn't see it, but big thread!
> 
> Dana Beth Weinberg who did the PW survey has responded to Hugh's report. And what a shocker, she refutes it. Kboards also gets a mention for our outrage over her study. And she does remind us that she is very smart, so what do we know.
> 
> http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/analyzing-the-author-earnings-data-using-basic-analytics/


I think that PG on Passive Voice summed Ms Weinberg's $295 self-selected report here:

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/02/2014/analyzing-the-author-earnings-data-using-basic-analytics/#comments


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> At the risk of calling the hounds out on me, perhaps it might be wise to consider what this (anonymous) agent has to say and maybe temper our enthusiasm a bit. I personally hope Brillig is wrong, but that's because I'm personally invested in the assumption that Hugh's conclusions are right. But it's easy to get worked into a froth when the numbers seem to favor our position. This is an emotionally charged subject. The reality of the situation is, at least in my mind, more likely to be somewhere between Hugh's assessment and Brillig's condemnation.


The data is accurate. There will be many interpretations. But the public distribution of the raw data narrows the range of plausible explanations of the market.

God Bless numbers, for we count on their accuracy..


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> My apologies if this has already been posted. I didn't see it, but big thread!
> 
> Dana Beth Weinberg who did the PW survey has responded to Hugh's report. And what a shocker, she refutes it. Kboards also gets a mention for our outrage over her study. And she does remind us that she is very smart, so what do we know.
> 
> http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/analyzing-the-author-earnings-data-using-basic-analytics/


What she says is what anyone with a background in science is going to say about it. She was even fairly diplomatic too.

But-and this is the important but-Hugh does seem to have the data mining software you'd need to do a scientific study. I'd even suggest he could demonstrate a lot of what he wants to demonstrate (by which I mean that no one could dispute the findings). Based on what she's said, I wouldn't be surprised if Weinberg got behind it, assuming no one goes over there and starts screeching at her.

Of course, people would have to be open to constructive criticism without flying into hysterics for the tools Hugh has and his approach to be made rigorous. That's going to be difficult in this climate without some kind of intervention.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

People with backgrounds in science wouldn't rely on self-selected samples.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Of course there will be criticisms, which is good and proper and part of the research process (OMG research outside the ivory towers of academia! Is such a thing allowed?). But this is by far the most detailed investigation into digital publishing completed thus far and the raw data paints a general picture that is very difficult to refute. It doesn't really matter whether self published or legacy published authors sell more or make more money or have more fans. 

What this study demonstrates beyond any doubt is that people can sell books outside the legacy publishing industry. I would love to know how many of those SP authors turning a dollar on Amazon had their work rejected by legacy publishing houses. These SP authors are people whose work may never have seen the light of day had it not been for KDP allowing them to circumvent the gatekeepers.

So, yeah, the numbers aren't perfect. And, yeah, it's probably skewed a bit towards SP, possibly even more than a bit. But it doesn't make a blind bit of difference because we finally have statistical evidence that SP is as viable as legacy publishing for an author, and that for many writers it's the only way to go. We also have a clear indication that the reading public don't give a hoot about how a book gets into the public sphere.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

It's on the front page. Am I allowed to post this? Spammy? Abusing my desire to help my fellow authors? Feel free to cattle-prod me and delete this thread, Betsy!

http://authorearnings.com/

Already close to 700 respondents. Amazing results. Which you can see right here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhgCvnHrc78PdGIySnBGcHktZDJKTm1xOFl6Sjh1cmc&usp=sharing

Feel free to download the full data set and crunch the numbers, tell us the results. Or sell the results for a load of cash!

Spread the word on this. Surveys only work if everyone participates.


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## Jude Hardin (Feb 5, 2011)

Hugh, in the survey should we count Amazon imprints as "traditionally published"?


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

I filled it out.. can't wait to see how this turns out too!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Jude Hardin said:


> Hugh, in the survey should we count Amazon imprints as "traditionally published"?


Hey Jude, we are going to add "small publisher" and "Amazon" to the options. Doing it right now.



Brenna said:


> Hugh: Do we answer about last year's earnings even if we haven't received a royalty check yet? I didn't do the survey because of that... Should I wait til next year's survey?


If you know your earnings, I would put them in.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I did it. Thanks for the reminder--didn't see the survey when I read your fascinating results.


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## Jude Hardin (Feb 5, 2011)

Done. Thanks, Hugh!


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2014)

Finished.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

I didn't fill OUT the survey. I'm a Brit, so I filled it IN...LOL.

Having been self-publishing for less than a year, my data is not hugely interesting, but I see you ask for earnings data through from year one, so that will be very interesting, and likely inspiring, when it is all collated to see the average progression in terms of earnings as authors get more books out with a longer tail.

Having read through all these threads, and especially your fascinating interview yesterday, I wished I had kept a notepad beside me to note down the many main conclusions you reach and main recommendations you make, in the form of bullet points. Hopefully, you'll find time to do that at some stage when all the data is in.

Although I can't imagine where you find the time, energy and motivation to do all this great work as well as writing and promoting your own books.

(Bloody overachievers!)


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Need some "all of the above" selections on some of these, Hugh.  For example, I buy premades, I commission art/covers, and I also make my own a lot. So...


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

Done.


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## MatthewAlanThyer (Jan 13, 2014)

Thanks Hugh, filled it out and signed up for the news letter. I've been noticing a rash of somewhat hateful, and prejudiced responses to your post about sales. A lot of people are going to dissect the numbers. Pick at them and push them around in an attempt to make them conform to their world view.

Before we all get sucked into that singularity of melancholy I'm going to quote you from your introduction to From the Indie Side.

"Just think about how many other adventures await, how many unknown authors are out there, fully independent, bending the rules while creating something extraordinary and new."

Yeah Hugh, I keep that in mind with every word I write. I love telling stories. Writing has been one of the single best things I've ever tried to do as an adult. Sure, I'm doing it all on my own. Sure I'll make mistakes, but if I waited on agents or publishers like this guy to elevate my voice I'd remain silent until I die.

That is binary, and difficult to debate. Poke and pick all you want people.

(Honestly, I'd love to see a buy Indie campaign. If trad publishers are going to draw lines like that, let them ride their institutional inertia right off a cliff.)


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I filled it out.

I'm wondering when the stat monkeys are going to consider non-Amazon sales, because I think this is where a very big story is yet to be told.


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2014)

I'm at LTUE right now, a sci-fi/fantasy convention held in Utah every February. It's a fairly local con, but pretty big too (this year, we've got Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson as the guests of honor), and it brings together a lot of authors from around the inter-mountain west, traditionally published and otherwise.

I was in the green room today, and someone brought up the author earning's report. IMMEDIATELY, everyone was talking about it. To my surprise, almost everyone had read it--there was only one or two people who didn't know what it was. Most of the writers in the room were traditionally published midlisters who may have dabbled in self-publishing but hadn't really made the leap yet. You know, the kind of people who don't know what "permafree" means, or the fact that you can get Amazon to price match to free. In any case, ALL of these writers said that they want to self-publish at least something, and many said that their book contracts were onerous and they wanted to get out of them.

This was the first time that I've ever heard anything from these boards discussed among my local writer friends, and frankly it shocked me. At other panels, people were openly advising people to self-publish first and not let an agent or editor tell them what they could or couldn't write. Back in the green room, the conversation shifted to gamer girl culture and Doctor Who, and one of the writers said as an aside: "if I were self-published, I could include a conversation like this between my characters without worrying that my editor would tell me to throw it out."

The tide of public opinion is shifting, and the author earnings report has definitely made waves. Big waves. HUGE waves.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Glancing at the results, who's the one who put in $400k of earnings from tradpub, 36K from self-pub and is going to self-pub next work? I'm guessing there's some skewed results in the mix, but I guess that's inevitable when you have an open survey.


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

It's been cool to watch this bomb drop. While he gives credit to the coder (and rightly so) it was always going to take someone like Hugh to step forward and say it before anybody would really listen. When he comes armed with a ton of hard data it makes an even bigger impact. 

My editor has a private FB group where her authors all chat and talk smack and it's been discussed there as well.


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## Gennita Low (Dec 13, 2012)

Am I the only one who can't open the google docs file (it just hangs and nothing shows on the screen) AND don't know which program to use to open the one in the first post link?

Yes? 

Thought so. Ah well.


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## Michael Kingswood (Feb 18, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> My apologies if this has already been posted. I didn't see it, but big thread!
> 
> Dana Beth Weinberg who did the PW survey has responded to Hugh's report. And what a shocker, she refutes it. Kboards also gets a mention for our outrage over her study. And she does remind us that she is very smart, so what do we know.
> 
> http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/analyzing-the-author-earnings-data-using-basic-analytics/


If her computation of the medians, means, and standard deviations of those groups is accurate (and having not computed them myself I have no reason to believe otherwise), then she seems to make a valid point.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I'm at LTUE right now, a sci-fi/fantasy convention held in Utah every February. It's a fairly local con, but pretty big too (this year, we've got Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson as the guests of honor), and it brings together a lot of authors from around the inter-mountain west, traditionally published and otherwise.
> 
> I was in the green room today, and someone brought up the author earning's report. IMMEDIATELY, everyone was talking about it. To my surprise, almost everyone had read it--there was only one or two people who didn't know what it was. Most of the writers in the room were traditionally published midlisters who may have dabbled in self-publishing but hadn't really made the leap yet. You know, the kind of people who don't know what "permafree" means, or the fact that you can get Amazon to price match to free. In any case, ALL of these writers said that they want to self-publish at least something, and many said that their book contracts were onerous and they wanted to get out of them.
> 
> ...


Hugh waves!

Thanks for posting this! It was fun to read. Congratulations on becoming enough of an insider to get into the green room. I didn't know about that at the one con I attended. I had to buy my own lunch and dinner all three days! Actually, that worked out well because it was a good chance to mingle with readers casually. 

I remember this one big dude was wearing a sword on his back and it got stuck in the door to the room where they were selling the pizza slices (Pizza the Hut). I commented that if this were a video game, then this would be the level I got stuck on for an hour, trying to get my guy through the door. Everyone thought that was a great idea for a game, LOL!

Enjoy the rest of the con, and let us know what else people are saying!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pretty amazing, Joe. Keep us posted.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

I would love to be a fly on the wall at Boskone this weekend (except for the massive storm and all). You know it's going to be a major topic of conversation and/or argument.


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## CrissyM (Mar 14, 2012)

Did this yesterday right before the interview. It's a fantastic survey. Simple, direct. Will work best the more people answer it.


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## CrissyM (Mar 14, 2012)

I would like to suggest... If someone could widen the collumn that asks "Is there anything else about your publishing experience that you'd like to share" that would make it easier to read.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I filled it out!

Be sure to read Joe V's post about how all the authors are discussing the Author Earnings site at a con! It was really fun to read. 

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,178642.0.html

_That thread has now been merged with this one, thanks! --Betsy_


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Michael Kingswood said:


> If her computation of the medians, means, and standard deviations of those groups is accurate (and having not computed them myself I have no reason to believe otherwise), then she seems to make a valid point.


It's not that her computations are incorrect, it's the subjective spin she gives to her numbers. According to Ms Weinberg:

_Certainly, there are more indie than Big Five authors earning above minimum wage in this daily snapshot (486 vs. 302), but to know the probability of hitting the right place on the list, we would need to know the distribution of publisher types across all of the ebooks in the selected genres._

Of the 1160 indie authors in the sample, 486 made minimum wage or more which is about 41.9%.
Of the 882 trad published authors in the survey, 302 made minimum wage or more which is about 34.3%.

It isn't too much of a leap to assume that the proportions would remain constant across the genres sampled, a higher proportion of indie publishers earn the minimum wage selling books on Amazon. Of course, her take is:

_What we do know for sure is that there are more indie authors than Big Five authors. Since fewer authors make it through the Big Five gatekeeping process to begin with, it's entirely possible that my overall probability of hitting a higher point on the list is far better if I squeeze through the Big Five gate at the outset._


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## Michaelploof (Feb 14, 2014)

Got the link through one of Russell Blake's posts. I think that we have all been wondering this for a long time. Thanks a lot!!


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2014)

Brenna said:


> I already did this! To be fair, though, the NY editors who wanted my book did love that part so she's probably wrong about them wanting her to throw that out. Just takes the right sort of geeky editor!
> 
> Back to the subject of the OP, though, that's exciting!! I've been to that con before when I was in college. It's a great gathering!


Yeah, I found that hard to believe, but when I asked her if her publisher would really tell her to cut that, she said that they probably would. My impression from the conversation was that something similar had happened to her in the past.

LTUE is one of my favorite cons.  They've got tons and tons of people on panels, including a bunch of my local self-published friends (not to mention me!). Also, I heard there's a writer's conference in Provo this June specifically for indies. Looks pretty interesting.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Done. I had a good chuckle at the response to this by Dana.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

Actually that's one of the things I like about the report - it's making waves. Publishing is a perception industry and if the perception becomes that trade publishing isn't providing enough incentive to the authors to entice them away from indie publishing, that'sgot to be a good thing. At the least it'll give those seeking trade publishing deals a bargaining tool for better contracts. And maybe it'll help to calm down some of the acrimony that many seeking or having trade publishing deals have for the indies.

One of the things I'd like to do if I ever have the time is to make a list of all those trade published authors who've repeatedly said they will never self publish and watch them eat their words in due course.

Cheers, Greg.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Done.

One thing I'd like to see in a survey like this is the average weekly or monthly hours spent on writing and writing related activities.  Eg. if a writer is making $1000 a week, that would mean very different things if they are devoting 10 hours a week to it compared to someone writing full time.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Wow. That's crazy to hear. Thanks for sharing this.

When the stigma is completely broken, authors will decide freely, unencumbered from self-loathing. Once that happens, and the serious writers (like those here at KBoards) are a bigger chunk of the people publishing, it will be a rolling snowball that picks up steam. The quality of SP books will continue to go up. Readers will continue to be thrilled. Literature will grow as a hobby (for readers) and a profession (for writers).

Great things are coming. Each and every one of you is making this happen. Don't lose sight of that. Every single happy reader you win over is causing this. A blog post and a report would do nothing without the readers and the brave SP writers. When other artists start to benefit, they'll have you to thank.


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## Evan of the R. (Oct 15, 2013)

Unreal. Looks like out of ~700 responses, almost 200 report making a full-time living from writing.

(Edited for simplicity.)


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## theaatkinson (Sep 22, 2010)

Done. Happy to do it, although the satisfied question made me think long and hard.


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

Sanderson himself had learned a lot about Self-Publishing and was openly recommending his students at BYU look at the option in his lectures last year. They were being put up online at Write About Dragons.

He was very supportive of the idea and seemed to almost be considering it for some of his smaller works. There is a change. These authors are thinking about it more, so they should. 

I certainly would be happy to see someone like Sanderson or another big fantasy trad author go hybrid.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Sanderson is venturing out into selfpublishing already: http://fantasy-faction.com/2012/brandon-sandersons-self-publishing


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2014)

I'm confused. We're conducting a self-selecting survey to demonstrate that the other side's self-selecting survey is wrong?


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I'm confused. We're conducting a self-selecting survey to demonstrate that the other side's self-selecting survey is wrong?


The power of anecdotes is even greater when we have the non-anecdotal data to back it up (top 7000 now, top 50,000 coming soon, who knows what mischief Hugh will brew after that...).


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

Put in my deets, boss.

I kind of messed up; I actually have 31 books published, not 25. It turns out I can't count. I added it up; my average income from books was only $10,000 last year -- but that said, this year is doing a lot better, so who knows what'll happen.

Still, I ran some statistics for self-pubs only (I didn't include the indie side of things).

Average self-published income:	58178.1540876945
Average number of books published:	9.18246110325318

Ouch, man. I gotta pick up my game this year for sure.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Just filled this out now.  Have had my head in the sand the past week or so with revisions, figured it was time to come up for air and see how the world had changed.  

Awesome stuff, Hugh!  You (and everyone else who took this) rock!


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## Rachel Aukes (Oct 13, 2013)

I filled out both the survey and the petition. You're doing great things for independent authors, Hugh!


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## minxmalone (Oct 28, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> When the stigma is completely broken, authors will decide freely, unencumbered from self-loathing.


THIS. Absolutely this.

I hate that the naysayers want to paint it as people trying to push self-publishing on everyone. That's not what it's about and personally I don't give a crap what other people do. As long as my books are doing well and I'm making a living, I'm happy.

However, if you're going to do or not do something, at least make your decision without the overt bias. At least know exactly what it is that you're turning away from. This just seems like common sense. And you can only get that info from people who are actually self-publishing. Not from traditional industry people who have no idea what they're talking about. They know about their business, not ours.

It sucks but all the whining lately has just made a lot of high-selling indies start talking on closed forums. Luckily I'm on some of them but I miss being able to eavesdrop on all of you that I don't know that well.

_** so if you have a closed forum please invite me. m'kaythxbye_


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

I'm going to merge this with Hugh's Author Earnings Report discussion thread.  Thanks for understanding.

Betsy


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I'm confused. We're conducting a self-selecting survey to demonstrate that the other side's self-selecting survey is wrong?


No. The data from Amazon is what refutes the other side.

The self-selected survey is simply a series of anecdotes. The problems happen when that data is used as a representative sample of the larger population.

For example, suppose one said the self-selected sample is an accurate reflection of the larger independent author population. And suppose one then said 14% of the sample make $X per year, and that means 14% of all independent authors make $X per year. That would be an unreliable conclusion since the sample is self-selected.

As it stands, it is just 700 interesting profiles of writers who chose to submit. Problems only occur when one tries to use the self-selected sample to represent everyone else.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I'm at LTUE right now, a sci-fi/fantasy convention held in Utah every February. It's a fairly local con, but pretty big too (this year, we've got Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson as the guests of honor), and it brings together a lot of authors from around the inter-mountain west, traditionally published and otherwise.
> 
> I was in the green room today, and someone brought up the author earning's report. IMMEDIATELY, everyone was talking about it. To my surprise, almost everyone had read it--there was only one or two people who didn't know what it was. Most of the writers in the room were traditionally published midlisters who may have dabbled in self-publishing but hadn't really made the leap yet. You know, the kind of people who don't know what "permafree" means, or the fact that you can get Amazon to price match to free. In any case, ALL of these writers said that they want to self-publish at least something, and many said that their book contracts were onerous and they wanted to get out of them.
> 
> ...


As soon as I saw the report, I started tweeting it and posting it. I knew this would be a huge game changer for all my mid-list traditionally published friends. Some just can't believe my W2s when I show them. (I think they think I was exaggerating).

My hubby asked what I was doing, and I tried to explain how important and groundbreaking (finally some proof in the form of real numbers!) this info was, possibly the start of a paradigm shift in the way publishers will look at self publishers and our books.
I honestly don't hold out much hope for agents, because they have a vested interest in their old business model, so they'll try and rationalize the numbers away until their W2s are in heart failure range, and then I expect many to start migrating to opening or buying small presses themselves.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Here's the simplest math possible:

Assume the data on market share is correct and trade has 70% and self published authors have 30%.

Our 70% royalty times our 30% market share yields us more take home pay than their 25% royalty times their 70% market share.

Demonstration:

Assume the total market is $100, trade gets $70, and self published get $30.

.25 x $70 = $17.50

.70 x $30 = $21.00



However, a flaw in the trade published logic is that all the authors merely submitting and being rejected were included in their survey, so they must be included among their numbers. This brings their average down way below minimum wage.


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## Jos Van Brussel (Feb 13, 2013)

Read the report three times and I think I'm getting the gist (math was never my strong suit). What I got out of it is that self-publishing now represent about a third of Amazon's top 7000 genre books, and that they make more money from their books than traditionally published writers. What Prof Weinberg says is probably also true: if you look at all self-publishers, and not just at the ones in Amazon's top 7000, only a small percentage actually makes any money. So she's right and Hugh's right. The thing is, if I'm going to make this self-publishing work for me, I really don't need her rather depressing point of view. I'd rather drink some of Hugh's kool-aid .


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I think that leadership by example is key in these sorts of paradigm shifts. Stats are fine, but the authors who are represented in the stats are the real story. Sure, most self-pubbed authors won't make any real money. Neither will most trad pubbed authors. What else is new? It's really tough to make it. That's hardly news. What's interesting is the effect the 70% royalty has on author (not publisher) income. It's really a slam dunk unless you can sell four times more books as a trad pub, which is certainly conceivable in some genres, but not at all realistic in others.

This is interesting to me because I'm still convinced that certain genres are far better served self-pubbing. I'd love to see a breakout of the genre according to Romance, Thrillers, etc. As I've said before, it may well be that no romance author or sci-fi author should be thinking trad, but if you want your books sold in airports, like thriller authors do, that trad is still viable. That's just a guess, and I'd love to collapse the waveform and actually know whether that's the case. It would certainly be useful information to those weighing their choices.


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## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

Corey Doctorow has a write up and opinion of the Author Earnings on BoingBoing: http://boingboing.net/2014/02/13/self-published-ebooks-the-sur.html#more-287195


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Very rough guess at the genres by percentage. First is their percentage of sales of the overall Kindle eBooks store:

Romance: 40%
Mystery/Suspense/Thrillers: 20%
Fantasy: 6.33%
Science Fiction: 5%

Heh! I used a completely different (and crummier) methodology than Hugh and his partner, but that comes to 71.5%, just a tiny bit higher than Hugh's study (which is probably more accurate; my method is double-counting some books in multiple categories). Okay, here is those genres' respective (rough, approximate) share within that 71.5% of the pool:

Romance: 56%
M/S/T: 28%
Fantasy: 9%
Sci-Fi: 7%

I don't know how many of the authors in each genre are trad pubbed and how many are self-pubbed. That's way more labor-intensive than what I just did. But it's a stab at half of the equation.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

One thing someone brought up on Reddit caught my mind as interesting. They suggested that advances skew the data. That, obviously, only happens if the advance is never earned out. Is the assumption in the trades really that authors will never earn out?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> One thing someone brought up on Reddit caught my mind as interesting. They suggested that advances skew the data. That, obviously, only happens if the advance is never earned out. Is the assumption in the trades really that authors will never earn out?


As far as I know most books don't.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Ed: OK, but I guess what I'm saying is that it would be good to know whether the results are uniform across the genres, or whether the larger number is skewed substantially by, say, Romance self-pubbed authors earning far more than their trad pub counterparts, and Thriller authors less, but netted, lending the appearance that all self-pubbed authors are better off.


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## NothingToSeeHere... (Jul 26, 2013)

I do not consent to the new TOS, and do not give my consent by posting and maintaining my membership here.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

MariePinkerton said:


> Here's a (not surprisingly) pretty biased commentary on the report from Publishers Lunch:
> 
> http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2014/02/discussion-author-earnings-part-1/


Took them longer than I thought it would to start up the biased commentary.

Wowee, look at all those scare-quotes! You know, Hugh Howey and his "data," and his desire to help authors understand "the real story."

_"As a business, I think publishing can do a lot better in telling a clearer and more transparent story about the billions of dollars that are paid out to authors every year, both as royalties and as nonrefundable wagers on future projects and investment in the research, writing and development of important stories to be told."_

HAH - okay, please do tell us more transparently about the billions of dollars you pay to like five authors on the entire planet and the rest get peanuts. We're listening.

_"The primary reason we do not have deep data and transparency about ebook sales, in both units and dollars, is because of Amazon. They keep their data private for competitive advantage in the marketplace, plain and simple."_

Yes, we know. It's always Amazon's fault. Always. Never mind the fact that a collective of indie authors have been "transparently" sharing their daily sales and comparing ranks, and have figured out a lot of that data Amazon is keeping "hidden." If publishers were smart, they could have done exactly the same thing we all did, and then Amazon wouldn't be such an opaque mystery to them.

_"(BTW, if Amazon were to disclose their data in a Bookscan-style system, the other major players would happily participate.)"_

A)	What motivation do they have to do so? They already are the biggest bookseller on the planet. They don't care what you think about their data.
B)	What other major players?

_"If you want real answers, and real data, "so that up-and-coming authors can make better-informed decisions" as Howey puts it, you need to pressure Amazon to provide it."_

No need. We figured it out just fine on our own.

_"In this digital age, we don't see why authors should have to be in the dark about real sales&#8230;"_

And behold, we no longer are. Now we see that we can make 5.6 times the money by getting rid of you fellas, and further, we see that Amazon makes virtually the same amount of money per book whether it's indie or from you, so we don't need to be worried that they'll suddenly change their tactics to favor you. Nice attempt to spin this as Amazon being evil once again, but the numbers prove otherwise.

_"And in the meantime, maybe the entities with big resources (and data scientists and web crawlers) should start producing some of their own reports to give authors another perspective."_

Yes, please. I wait with baited breath. Can't wait to see "what the data really shows." We'll have William Ockham and Racer X on speed-dial the moment you publish your "report."


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I feel I need to point out that the survey, while looking at only the top 7,000 books, is leading the publishers and naysayers into missing part of the story. Many of the authors who _are_ part of the 7,000 books, have more than one book out. Some have 10, 20, 30+. Many of those books may only be earning a few thousand dollars a year and not be anywhere close to the top 7,000. 20 books at an average of 2k each, would put that author's income at 40k just from his/hers "loser" books.

The playing field has changed that the *books*, as individual money makers, are no longer the complete story. Author's income is no longer dependent on one break out book, but is more dependent on a dedicated, even if small fan base, reading all the books by an author.

With 20 books, to make 2k each, you only need 100 true fans that year. That's it.

*This is the game changer.* This is why people down on the lists can do quite well.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

They had to take some time for gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

MariePinkerton said:


> Here's a (not surprisingly) pretty biased commentary on the report from Publishers Lunch:
> 
> http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2014/02/discussion-author-earnings-part-1/


People can spin it however they like, but the data is there and it shows what it shows.

What I hope this does is inspire other retailers like Apple and Kobo to get off their backsides. It also makes the new all-you-can-read sub plans by Oyster and Scribd look like they could be real winners.

Time to let the pundits argue and the experts make wild assertions based on flimsy evidence and a healthy dose of subjectivity. I'm off to do some writin'


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> Ed: OK, but I guess what I'm saying is that it would be good to know whether the results are uniform across the genres, or whether the larger number is skewed substantially by, say, Romance self-pubbed authors earning far more than their trad pub counterparts, and Thriller authors less, but netted, lending the appearance that all self-pubbed authors are better off.


Critical issue right here. We know from Kevin McLaughlin's research that price sensitivity varies across Amazon genre bestseller lists. In the more price sensitive markets, indie authors are going to have a stronger inherent advantage. Eeach author needs to drill down into their particular sector and make their own determinations. Fortunately, such data is becoming freely available. It used to take a long time to collect.

B.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> I feel to point out that the survey, while looking at only the top 7,000 books, is missing part of the story. Many of the authors who are part of the 7,000 books, have more than one book out. Some have 10, 20, 30+. Many of those may only be earning a few thousand dollars a year and not be anywhere close to the top 7,000. 20 books at an average of 2k each, would put that author's income at 40k just from his/hers "loser" books.


True. I think we'll get a greater sense of this truth as they begin to work with numbers beyond the top 7,000. That was just the first report, and just a starting point. I'm really excited to see what comes to light!


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Okay, Russell.. here's my count of the top 100 books in romance, sci-fi, and mystery/thriller/suspense. Notes on methodology afterward.

*ROMANCE*

Self-published: 49%
Small/medium: 11%
Amazon (Montlake): 9%
Big 5/Harlequin: 30%

*SCIENCE FICTION*

Self-published: 56%
Small/medium: 9%
Amazon (47N): 5%
Big 5 (plus Baen): 30%

*MYSTERY/THRILLER/SUSPENSE*

Self-published: 11%
Small/medium: 5%
Amazon: 16%
Big 5: 68%

*FANTASY*
Self-published: 49%
Small/medium: 7%
Amazon: 7%
Big 5: 37%

Notes:

This is a different methodology from Hugh's-I'm only looking at pure quantity of titles, by publisher, in the top 100. Not at sales totals like the Author Earnings report is doing. Also, his sample is much, much bigger. By restricting myself to the top 100 bestsellers in each genre, I may easily be skewing things.

Also, you'll note I don't have an "uncategorized single author" category. In cases where it wasn't immediately obvious, I did some light research and assigned those to self-published, or small/medium. There are a few that have appeared to be author collectives or the like (Phoenix's Steel Magnolia Press had a title there, for instance), and I assigned those to small/medium. Most of the single authors went to self-published, though.. so if anything, Hugh's report is probably underestimating the self-published total(!).

Speaking of, I'm putting this together as a complement to Hugh's findings, btw, not a correction or anything; I'm doing things different in some big ways, so it's not a great direct comparison anyway. I need to get some more words written, but I'll try to compare the other genres soon and see how they stack up vs. romance.

Edit: Okay, added SF. I lumped Baen in with the Big 5 because they're big in SF, but if you prefer to categorize them as small/medium, shuffle a few out of Big 5 and a few into that category. Also, this includes three Big 5 epic fantasy novels (GRRM and Terry Brooks), which they _love_ categorizing as science fiction, for some reason.

I also noticed at least three titles in Amazon Publishing and Big 5 that were formerly self-published.

Added mysteries/thrillers/suspense. Wow. That's.. a big difference. The top 100 M/T/S only covers the top #500 in the Kindle store, so there's a lot of room for indies to do well after that. But by and large, the bestsellers are totally trad-dominated. Amazon's stronger there, too, although that's not all the Thomas & Mercer imprint-it includes 4 Montlake, 1 Kindle Single, 1 AmazonEncore, and 1 Lake Union Press.

Okay, added fantasy. Fairly similar to romance, except the Big 5 do better at the expense of small/medium/Amazon. Also, to the surprise of none, series really clean up in fantasy. ;P


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Katie Elle said:


> One thing someone brought up on Reddit caught my mind as interesting. They suggested that advances skew the data. That, obviously, only happens if the advance is never earned out. Is the assumption in the trades really that authors will never earn out?


Its reasonable to consider advances since they affect cash flow, and the timing of casdh flow affects present value. But that analysis would also dermand we consider the timing of the subsequent royalty payments. Amazon pays an average of 75 days after a sale. Publishers have a substantially longer lag.

But we should remember nobody gets advances in the slush pile.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> With 20 books, to make 2k each, you only need 100 true fans that year. That's it.
> 
> *This is the game changer.* This is why people down on the lists can do quite well.


See I think this is the real truth in the data and why I am trying to push up my writing schedule. I am shooting for 10k words a week so I can start playing in the same league as the rest of you. I have 100+ readers, EASY. But with only 1 book a year... its not working out as well as it could.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Okay, I added sci-fi numbers. Pretty much the same as romance, except there were a handful fewer titles in small/medium/Amazon publishers and a few more self-published.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

This is all over my Facebook feed, too!

http://io9.com/uh-so-this-is-really-impressive-except-that-no-one-rea-1521714881/+Spaceart

As usual, the comments are more telling than the article, for example:

"Uh, so this is really impressive except that no one really knows where the numbers come from, who compiled them or what they mean? Howey himself admits that much of the evidence is "anecdotal." In fact, he says that he ultimately "had to rely on my own sales data and nothing more." So there you are..." -Ron Miller


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Romance: 56%
> M/S/T: 28%
> Fantasy: 9%
> Sci-Fi: 7%


Yay! Once again I shot right for the bottom of the pool! Go team SciFi!


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> Yay! Once again I shot right for the bottom of the pool! Go team SciFi!


*team handshake!*


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Thanks, Ed. I'll take a look at Action/Adventure and see how many indies I see in the top 100 for comparison. If it's roughly 50%, then that's a piece of it, however not a complete piece - it would depend on their overall ranking, compared to the overall ranking of the trad pubs, in the genre, and then compared to the romance authors. That is to say, 50% being indie and the rest trad pubbed in some way doesn't actually tell us whether it's the good 50% of the 100, or the not so good. That's a huge variable.

Here's my thinking: If the top 100 books on Amazon are 70% romance, and roughly half are indies, we'd need to look at the distribution within that genre, 10 or 20 at a time. If the #1-#6 are trad pub, and then numbers 7 through 9 are indie, and then another six are trad pub, four more indie, and so on, with indies claiming a larger chunk of the list at a less favorable ranking, we'd have to adjust for the difference in sales between, say, #1 and #3, which I'd bet is substantial. In other words, to get a true picture of the actual dollars in that genre for that sample size, we'd need to estimate the rough number of sales per slot, and the positioning of each author type. That might tell us that 80% of the money in Romance is being made by indies, based on our guesses of their positions on the list, rather than the 50% a cursory look might reveal.

The same thing would then be needed to be done for Thrillers or Action/Adventure, with the title's overall Amazon ranking taken into account along with its position on the genre list.

I don't have a background in data, so I'm not exactly sure how to parse all that.

The question is really, of $20 million (for example) earned by the top sellers on Amazon for those two days, how much of it was earned by trad pubbed top sellers in each of the genres (Thrillers, Romance, Sci Fi, etc.) and how much was earned by self-pubbed?

Then the parameters could be widened to the top $100 million, and we could see whether the distribution changes markedly.

I'm not sure how to get the answer to those questions, because just a percentage breakdown by genre doesn't tell us the true value of a title's ranking within the genre.

My head is starting to hurt just thinking about all this...


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Okay, added Mystery/Thriller/Suspense. That's.. a complete inversion of romance and sci-fi, haha. You guys got some work to do!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> Yay! Once again I shot right for the bottom of the pool! Go team SciFi!


Hey, you're doing better than the historical fiction writers are! We're not even in the survey!


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> Here's my thinking: If the top 100 books on Amazon are 70% romance, and roughly half are indies, we'd need to look at the distribution within that genre, 10 or 20 at a time. If the #1-#6 are trad pub, and then numbers 7 through 9 are indie, and then another six are trad pub, four more indie, and so on, with indies claiming a larger chunk of the list at a less favorable ranking, we'd have to adjust for the difference in sales between, say, #1 and #3, which I'd bet is substantial. In other words, to get a true picture of the actual dollars in that genre for that sample size, we'd need to estimate the rough number of sales per slot, and the positioning of each author type. That might tell us that 80% of the money in Romance is being made by indies, based on our guesses of their positions on the list, rather than the 50% a cursory look might reveal.
> 
> I'm not sure how to get the answer to those questions, because just a percentage breakdown by genre doesn't tell us the true value of a title's ranking within the genre.


Russell, I think that's something the raw data is being used to extrapolate. My understanding from the first post is that they are using Theresa Ragan's chart of how many sales it takes to hit a rank to extrapolate how many sales per book and then multiplying that number by the list price.

As a ballpark, OK. As a deep analysis, a day's snapshot isn't going to come as close to the actuals as one would hope from the raw numbers being used.

A couple of caveats:

1. It takes fewer sales to sustain at a rank than to hit it. Maybe 10-20% fewer in the beginning. As the weight of history builds, it takes even fewer - perhaps up to 40% fewer. So you can arbitrarily assign 1000 sales to a book with a #100 rank, but if a book has been riding right around #100 for a month or more, it could take only 600-700 sales to sustain that rank.

2. When the data capture is taken makes a difference. KDD books from the day before and some of the books with BB ads the day before likely hit the Top 100 on the back of a 99c - $1.99 price. But if the book has just been changed to its regular list price, the spider is reporting 1000-7000 sales for that title *at list price*, not the price it actually made those sales at.

I also have a bit of an issue with some of the assumptions being made and with what seems to be a straight dump and plug-and-play of the data rather than a more careful analysis of it to screen out biases and discrepancies. For instance, the Kindle First titles - those 4 books each month that Prime members can download for free and whose freeloads are counted as sales in the BS list - are being figured in at list price despite thousands of those "sales" being free. For a less-biased analysis, these books should be removed from the dataset and caveated out. There are likely other anomalies that need to be hand-screened as well.

I'm not dissing the data! I love me some raw numbers. I'm just cautioning that the analysis (and the accompanying editorial) is all cursory at best and as the data is analyzed and exploited over time, a clearer picture will appear. It may well support the party line and we can all rejoice - but it's presumptuous to jump to those conclusions just yet... IMO.


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## jimbro (Jan 10, 2014)

_*ALL*_ surveys are flawed. All datasets are imperfect. The critics are right about that.
But this is still lightyears ahead of what we had before, which was basically nothing. And, as Hugh noted,_* this is just the start*_. Thanks again, Hugh.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

So for a thriller author, Trad pub might be the way to go.

Romance and Sci-Fi, not so much.

With the caveat that it depends.

Thanks Ed.

Very valid points, Phoenix. Saliently stated, as always.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Or maybe there's a market inefficiency begging to be exploited by canny self-published thriller authors!

Then again, it seems like there's lots of quality indie mysteries and thrillers out there, written by people with plenty of marketing savvy. The percentages on that one are a head-scratcher. Trad and Amazon's imprints do look more appealing in this context. Might dive into subgenres later and see if it's the same thing, or if self-published thrillers fare any better in the midlist.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Great stuff, Ed!


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## yomatta (Jun 29, 2012)

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the Rocking Self Publishing Podcast's latest episode is an interview with Holly Lisle and discusses the topic of transitioning from a trad pub to a self pub writer. Quite an interesting interview, and appropriately timed.

Surely it was recorded a while (weeks) ago, and yet she discusses many of the same topics that have been thrown around in this thread and elsewhere on the interwebz.

http://rockingselfpublishing.com


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Ed: Thanks again. Yes, but that basically mirrors what my gut was telling me, namely that the thriller market is a lot tougher for an indie, mainly due to the audience, which tends to be harder on the material than other genres might be. My hunch was that the thriller audience is willing to pay more than, say, romance, because the reading habit is different. It's not the book a day reader we'd see in romance (I love them, BTW). Perhaps trad manages that market better, reaches them with a better product, and thus still dominates it. Or perhaps it's that that genre is a lot more brand loyal, and thus we see much greater presence of trad authors. Or some combination.

Dunno. But it is interesting that my intuition into that genre being a completely different balance seems to be accurate. I'd bet that we see all the big names dominating it (Patterson, Cussler, Thor, Flynn, Grisham, Connelly, etc.), and so anyone who's got good penetration up against them is somewhat of an outlier.

It also could be that those types of novels take longer to write, or plot, and thus the increased production that typifies the more successful in the other genres is limited. 

I actually believe it's all of the above. Which I also might be completely wrong about.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

ElHawk said:


> Hey, you're doing better than the historical fiction writers are! We're not even in the survey!


Maybe its time you bridge the genre! Didn't aliens build the pyramids?


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Russell, I think that's something the raw data is being used to extrapolate. My understanding from the first post is that they are using Theresa Ragan's chart of how many sales it takes to hit a rank to extrapolate how many sales per book and then multiplying that number by the list price.
> 
> As a ballpark, OK. As a deep analysis, a day's snapshot isn't going to come as close to the actuals as one would hope from the raw numbers being used.


Thanks for posting, Phoenix, now we're getting somewhere:



> ...caveats:
> 
> 1. It takes fewer sales to sustain at a rank than to hit it. Maybe 10-20% fewer in the beginning. As the weight of history builds, it takes even fewer - perhaps up to 40% fewer. So you can arbitrarily assign 1000 sales to a book with a #100 rank, but if a book has been riding right around #100 for a month or more, it could take only 600-700 sales to sustain that rank.


I'd add that it's not obvious how the power law was incorporated into the interpretation of the data. We know books sell this way, so we can't extrapolate from sales-rank correlation data from the middle of the curve to anywhere higher up on the curve, beyond, of course, saying higher ranks sold more books. Amazon let slip last year (?) that one in four of all books sold was 50 Shades. That makes inferences from rank to sales outside known areas on the curve highly dubious.



> 2. When the data capture is taken makes a difference. KDD books from the day before and some of the books with BB ads the day before likely hit the Top 100 on the back of a 99c - $1.99 price. But if the book has just been changed to its regular list price, the spider is reporting 1000-7000 sales for that title *at list price*, not the price it actually made those sales at.
> 
> I also have a bit of an issue with some of the assumptions being made and with what seems to be a straight dump and plug-and-play of the data rather than a more careful analysis of it to screen out biases and discrepancies. For instance, the Kindle First titles - those 4 books each month that Prime members can download for free and whose freeloads are counted as sales in the BS list - are being figured in at list price despite thousands of those "sales" being free. For a less-biased analysis, these books should be removed from the dataset and caveated out. There are likely other anomalies that need to be hand-screened as well.


It's also possible that books have different trajectories as a result of low pricing, a phenomenon that isn't captured in the snapshot. Indies price books low to gain visibility, for example, then raise the price when the rank goes up. But many of these books could drop as fast as they rose, leading to a kind of flash in the pan phenomena where a whole lot of books in that snapshot were rising and falling quickly, while others were following smoother paths-call the sharp-peaked trajectory "flash books" and the slow one "sticky books." Some indie books are (obviously) sticky books, and some will be sticky in virtue of being part of a series with a loss leader. Since no trads books use the price bump, they're comparatively sticky too. We can't tell from a snapshot how many indie books are flash books and how many sticky. It's enormously important to know too: if flash books are 99 cents for most of the time, their returns will very low.

Put another way, we can't tell from a one-day snapshot whether we're seeing hundreds people making thousands of dollars from sticky books or thousands of people making hundreds of dollars from flash books. You just have to track books over time to control for this.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

You know, another phenom that could be hitting indie thriller authors that occurs to me is that they might not rank in the Top 100 nearly as often as Romance, because rarely is an indie thriller a sensational seller - in my experience it's been more of a steady state thing. To whit, I've only had titles in the Top 100 maybe four times, but I'm making a more than comfy living off my backlist - putting me in the outlier area on income. But I've never had a breakout. Part of that is the business philosophy I adopted when I looked at the best way to create a sustainable business out of this: to have a boatload of books that sell 10-20 a day, steadily, with one or two hitting in the 50 a day. That would be solidly mid-list, except for my production speed, which has had a cumulative effect. But I'm not going to be giving Grisham or Brown a run for their sales dollar from my indie stuff, which is fine with me.

The point is that it's possible to make a lot of money as an indie who has never had a big hit that winds up charting in the Top 20 for a month. I find that extremely heartening, because it really is more about slowly building a readership than hoping for a lightning strike.

Having said that, I'll be doing a romance series this summer, and I'm hoping for a lightning strike there. I have good reason to believe it could go well - my co-author is blowing up the charts right now with romance, the concept is just different enough to be easily differentiated, and the combination of our two audiences could be a big number. Guess I'll get to find out soon enough.

But thinking out loud, it also helps me feel better about looking at a potential trad deal for my new action/adventure series. There's every reason to believe it could sell 4X or more what I could do as an indie if my other hunch (most are bought in airports) proves accurate, which makes it more intriguing as the net income could be larger on the trad pub side at the end of the day. Whereas for someone like Holly or Courtney, I'd laugh at any deal I'd be offered, because there's no real thing that trad pub could do to sell a ton more books due to the buying habits in the genre: mostly ebook.

As with all things, there's far more nuance to all this than first meets the eye.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> We can't tell from a snapshot how many indie books are flash books and how many sticky.


Correct. However, if the flash idea is correct, then independents are sharing those spots among themselves. There could be X independents with flash characteristics, and X-Y of them are in the subject list each day.

So, while a given book may not stick, the independent position would stick.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> ...But thinking out loud, it also helps me feel better about looking at a potential trad deal for my new action/adventure series. There's every reason to believe it could sell 4X or more what I could do as an indie....Whereas for someone like Holly or Courtney, I'd laugh at any deal I'd be offered, because there's no real thing that trad pub could do to sell a ton more books due to the buying habits in the genre: mostly ebook.


And I think that was one of the driving factors of Hugh and Data Guy doing this -- letting authors make informed decisions. Some informed decisions will lead to accepting a trade publisher deal, others to self-publishing a title. The negative comments elsewhere seem to think there was an "indie-only" agenda to this study/report. Do what is right for you as an individual author.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Correct. However, if the flash idea is correct, then independents are sharing those spots among themselves. There could be X independents with flash characteristics, and X-Y of them are in the subject list each day.
> 
> So, while a given book may not stick, the independent position would stick.


Exactly. I think the criticism of the study as a one-day snapshot is very much overstated. There's room for refinement, obviously, as with all such work, but I think the basis of this is very sturdy.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Good points Phoenix, it is ballpark--but the best ballpark I've seen. 

@ Ed more interesting stuff. I too am boggled by the 11% Thriller slot. I think it's off--somehow? But I have no real info to say it's off. Could be a more mature market devoted to big pub authors only? No shortage of good Indie Thrillers.

@ Blake--I used to be an avid Thriller reader and I think we tend to get attached to our Thriller authors--I know I did until I grew bored of them. But back then I NEEDED to have the latest Lee Child, Brad Thor, Silva etc and these authors have years of fans. They also get the big pub media push. I am guessing it is an older market too than SF & F.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Exactly. I think the criticism of the study as a one-day snapshot is very much overstated. There's room for refinement, obviously, as with all such work, but I think the basis of this is very sturdy.


They begin calling the presidential election with only 2% reported, as I recall!


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Correct. However, if the flash idea is correct, then independents are sharing those spots among themselves. There could be X independents with flash characteristics, and X-Y of them are in the subject list each day.
> 
> So, while a given book may not stick, the independent position would stick.


If you're saying that the high-ranking indie books show that indies can penetrate the high ranks, I agree that it shows that much. But if a lot of those spots are taken by different people with free/low priced books and/or by some people yo-yoing up and down in the ranks with free/low-priced books, then those people are making a lot less money than the snapshot suggests. That's why I say you need to track books (and authors) over time to get a real trad/indie comparison. I should note that it seems to me like Hugh et al. have the software to do that, so I hope they do.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

I'll be interested in seeing the distribution of indie/publisher titles in the thriller/mystery/action categories as the reports expand to include the top 10,000 - 15,000 Amazon titles. It could be that the big-name trad thriller authors are bunched up at the very top 100 - 200, but that in the rankings from #1,000 - #10,000 we find growing percentages of indie thriller titles and authors. 

It is, as Russell Blake suggests, possible to make a comfortable living as a indie thriller author if you have several titles in those ranking ranges. And that, I think, is one of the many places where Hugh's critics are stubbornly refusing to face facts. A trad-published midlister with a half-dozen ebook titles ranked around #3,000 - #5000 is unlikely to be self-supporting. At 70% or even 35% royalties, an indie author can be. Many indies can be self-supporting on sales levels and rankings that might discourage trad-published authors enough to stop writing altogether.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

WHDean said:


> If you're saying that the high-ranking indie books show that indies can penetrate the high ranks, I agree that it shows that much.


No. I didn't say that.



> But if a lot of those spots are taken by different people with free/low priced books and/or by some people yo-yoing up and down in the ranks with free/low-priced books, then those people are making a lot less money than the snapshot suggests.


Free books aren't in the sample.

I agree an author sticking in a best seller list makes more than one bouncing in and out. We can make a similar statement about individual traditional authors hitting the best seller list then fading. There are lots of things that can happen outside the limits of this data set.



> That's why I say you need to track books (and authors) over time to get a real trad/indie comparison. I should note that it seems to me like Hugh et al. have the software to do that, so I hope they do.


I agree. But I'm not sure what a real comparison is. Any sample has certain characteristics. This one is a single day. The larger the single day sample, the greater the probability it mirrors what would be seen in longer term samples. Alternatively, when we have more individual day samples over a defined period, we can use them to quite accurately describe the full period.

If more raw data is coming, it will be great fun to watch how hundreds of people independently use it to provide various analyses of the market.

Aint this great country?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

VydorScope said:


> Maybe its time you bridge the genre! Didn't aliens build the pyramids?


It would be nice if it worked that way. 

But pretty much forever, publishers have been telling us that if you're not Mantel, Penman or Cornwell to get lost, so it is hard for a HF author to do worse than in traditional. We are one of those genres that they basically consider dead. The nice thing is that it leaves a niche for indies to fill.

Not a huge one like romance but a niche nonetheless.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> You know, another phenom that could be hitting indie thriller authors that occurs to me is that they might not rank in the Top 100 nearly as often as Romance, because rarely is an indie thriller a sensational seller - in my experience it's been more of a steady state thing. To whit, I've only had titles in the Top 100 maybe four times, but I'm making a more than comfy living off my backlist - putting me in the outlier area on income.


There may not be as many thrillers as romances ranking in the Top 100, but BookBub seems to throw at least one thriller a day up there - and the bigger names seem to hit higher than the romances. I'm not sure I've seen a BB-backed thriller that *didn't* hit in the Top 100. Even my standalone, no-name thriller has hit in the Top 100 paid twice.

Subgenres probably play a role as well. BookBub offers romance authors several different avenues to the Top 100: contemporary, historical, PNR, new adult, romantic suspense, and inspirational. That's 6 slots, plus the KDD title. Add in the books from the previous day's promos that are falling out of the Top 100 (but aren't out yet), and transient romance right there accounts for 10% of the Top 100.

Until recently, BookBub pretty much offered only 2 avenues for the thriller writer: mystery and thriller. They've recently added supernatural suspense, which may be a gray category for classifying for folk looking at the data. Are they being classified as fantasy, horror or thriller? What about historical thrillers? They may well be lumped under historical rather than thriller, whereas a historical romance is generally immediately recognized as romance and not as likely to find itself listed as an historical. Is it possible there's simply more genre confusion in the thriller cat?

So, with 2 BB slots plus the KDD title and 1 or 2 books left over from the previous day's promos, there are only 3 or 4 thrillers that have been pushed into the Top 100 each day compared to 10 on the romance side.

Add in the BB Bestseller book, which can be any category, and depending on day of capture, the numbers may skew even more markedly in favor of romance.

Anecdotally, I will say that romance box sets have been, in general, easier to market to a higher rank, so I absolutely don't discount other factors at work than simply marketing slot availability. Not too long ago I counted number of thriller boxes in the Top 100 of even the more granular thriller cats, and came up with - well, yours, mine and another I was managing. That was it. Different buying behaviors. Perhaps thriller buyers don't browse the lists the same way that romance readers do. If so, is that something that can be overcome somehow?



Terrence OBrien said:


> Free books aren't in the sample.


Actually, Terrence, a very small but potent subset of free books ARE in the sample. There are 4 new Amazon Publishing releases offered to Prime members each month. These are not borrows. These are books Prime members can download and keep for free. These books have generally maintained high ranks in the Top 100 during the full month they're on offer on the strength of at least a couple of thousand free downloads per day that are counted toward the bestseller rankings. The sample data sets include these books and attribute their full list prices ($3.99 - 4.99) to them. At minimum, it's likely $25,000 in gross revenue being counted in the daily sales total that isn't actually transacting. It could be easily as high as $80,000 per day.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Actually, Terrence, a very small but potent subset of free books ARE in the sample. There are 4 new Amazon Publishing releases offered to Prime members each month. These are not borrows. These are books Prime members can download and keep for free. These books have generally maintained high ranks in the Top 100 during the full month they're on offer on the strength of at least a couple of thousand free downloads per day that are counted toward the bestseller rankings. The sample data sets include these books and attribute their full list prices ($3.99 - 4.99) to them. At minimum, it's likely $25,000 in gross revenue being counted in the daily sales total that isn't actually transacting. It could be easily as high as $80,000 per


I know exactly the program you're talking about. I grab one go of the four every month. Strange thing is, those are the only free books i have ever downloaded.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

I was in the 2,000-8,000 range for thrillers for about six months at $2.99. Starting in late November I began to fall and I haven't been up there much since, but it's was a nice run, and I could see the impact it would have had on my life if I had 3-5 books bouncing around there versus just one. The highest I ever got was in the 660s and that just for about a nano-second. Book Bub won't pick me up, so I did two paid promos and I had two 99cent sales and that kept me up there for 6+ months.

I like what Liliana Hart has said several times that a nice cadre of steady little earners does more for the bottom line than blasting into the Top 100, but than quickly fading out. So that's my approach now. 3-5 books bouncing around the 2,000-10,000 range. I just write too darn slow.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2014)

There's a lot of buzz in the hallways at LTUE about self-publishing. I overheard a conversation between some aspiring writers whether to go self or trad, and they're really wrestling with it (these are the kind of people who have followed the query-go-round religiously for years, some even decades). I went around the mass signing and chatted with some fairly well established mid-listers, and when they found out if I was self-published they asked quite openly how I'm selling and whether I'm making a living--and not in a derisive way at all. It's definitely on all the writers' minds.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> There's a lot of buzz in the hallways at LTUE about self-publishing. I overheard a conversation between some aspiring writers whether to go self or trad, and they're really wrestling with it (these are the kind of people who have followed the query-go-round religiously for years, some even decades). I went around the mass signing and chatted with some fairly well established mid-listers, and when they found out if I was self-published they asked quite openly how I'm selling and whether I'm making a living--and not in a derisive way at all. It's definitely on all the writers' minds.


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## Michael Kingswood (Feb 18, 2011)

MariePinkerton said:


> Here's a (not surprisingly) pretty biased commentary on the report from Publishers Lunch:
> 
> http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2014/02/discussion-author-earnings-part-1/


That post is some BS right there.

"If you want transparency, make Amazon tell its sales numbers."

Amazon does - to their suppliers. Who are&#8230;wait for it&#8230;the publishers, big and small. They have to in order to invoice their accounts payable and handle returns for print copies (if they do returns? Seems like they keep a whole lot of books in stock). Why should they disclose those numbers to anyone else besides the IRS?

All this bellyaching about Amazon not opening their books to everyone else is a load of hooey. Just a bunch of "journalists" or "industry experts" who want someone else to do their jobs for them. Go ask the publishers, you twits! But that means making more than one phone call. Poor, poor you. You might have to *gasp* work at your job.

And I really love that bit about how all of us who publish directly through KDP and others are poor mistreated masses who are fed only fabrications and kept from our own sales data. Does this guy (gal?) have any idea how KDP and the other services work Clearly not.

*sigh*

The stupid, it kills me.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Cherise: Why did I watch all of that? Why? Damn you. DAMN YOU!!!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> There's a lot of buzz in the hallways at LTUE about self-publishing. I overheard a conversation between *some aspiring writers whether to go self or trad, and they're really wrestling with it *(these are the kind of people who have followed the query-go-round religiously for years, some even decades). I went around the mass signing and chatted with some fairly well established mid-listers, and when they found out if I was self-published they asked quite openly how I'm selling and whether I'm making a living--and not in a derisive way at all. It's definitely on all the writers' minds.


This was me in 2009. Confused. Terrified. One book published with a small press, another contract in my hand, the feeling that I was making a mistake, and then deciding to strike out on my own. Man, it was tough. And I didn't have a guide. Never heard of Konrath or Hocking.

I'm at the Savannah Book Festival. Two other authors are staying in a B&B with me. Both have hit the NYT list. Both have day jobs. Both are struggling. It's no guarantee either way, but you want to at least have this option open. And I think it's happening. People are considering it. The stigma is going away, because so many of us are saying that we self-publish with pride, with our chests shoved out. And the rest is happening by being open about our income. Not those making 6 or 7 figures, but the people quitting their day jobs without having books in the top 100. Even those paying a bill or two.

It's really crazy to see all this changing so rapidly. Last year felt like milestone after milestone. This year may prove to be even more transformational. Does anyone else just feel crazy-lucky to be here to see all of this? To be in the trenches while an industry we all love so much is undergoing so much change? I do.

ETA: Don't forget to fill out the survey and (if you want) sign the petition. And then share both with every writer you know, however they publish. www.authorearnings.com


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> This was me in 2009. Confused. Terrified. One book published with a small press, another contract in my hand, the feeling that I was making a mistake, and then deciding to strike out on my own. Man, it was tough. And I didn't have a guide. Never heard of Konrath or Hocking.
> 
> I'm at the Savannah Book Festival. Two other authors are staying in a B&B with me. Both have hit the NYT list. Both have day jobs. Both are struggling. It's no guarantee either way, but you want to at least have this option open. And I think it's happening. People are considering it. The stigma is going away, because so many of us are saying that we self-publish with pride, with our chests shoved out. And the rest is happening by being open about our income. Not those making 6 or 7 figures, but the people quitting their day jobs without having books in the top 100. Even those paying a bill or two.
> 
> ...


Lucky doesn't begin to cover how I feel, Hugh. July 2013 my day job went away and I had the terrifying choice of taking it as an opportunity or scrambling after another engineering job where I would be, frankly, competing with better, younger and more up and coming engineers. 32 years in one career and I had my dreams of course of writing full time, but having to actually take the plunge was terrifying. As you said though, I couldn't have had a better time for it to happen.


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## Lloyd MacRae (Nov 18, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> This is interesting to me because I'm still convinced that certain genres are far better served self-pubbing. I'd love to see a breakout of the genre according to Romance, Thrillers, etc. As I've said before, it may well be that no romance author or sci-fi author should be thinking trad, but if you want your books sold in airports, like thriller authors do, that trad is still viable. That's just a guess, and I'd love to collapse the waveform and actually know whether that's the case. It would certainly be useful information to those weighing their choices.


You may well be right. And it's a possibility that the readers of Thrillers/Mystery etc may not be using Amazon or online sources for their reading material as much as a genre like Romance. The following is from a Sisters in Crime survey for mystery and thriller readers. I think this survey was mentioned on the forum before and it goes back to 2010 but I think a lot is still relevant.

*68% are women*
35% live in the south
48% are suburban dwellers
26% are 65 or older

Demographics:
• For all genres, not just mystery, women continue to buy the majority of books, but men's share of books is higher in dollars than in units.
*• Baby boomers and matures (people over 45) purchase over half of all books bought.
• In the "mystery-detective" category, women and older buyers are even more highly represented.*

• Mystery buyers tend to be
o Mostly female - 7 out of 10 are women
o More mature- nearly 7 out of 10 are over 45

Mystery Reading Behavior Overall:
• 68% of mysteries are purchased by women.
• Over half the mysteries purchased are sold to people over the age of 55.
• 19% of all readers acquire mysteries at libraries.
• 11% of all mysteries are sold through book clubs such as Mystery Guild.
• 39% of all mysteries are purchased in stores.
• 35% of mysteries are purchased by people who live in the South.
• 77% of mysteries are purchased by households with no children at home.
• 48% of mysteries are purchased by readers who live in suburban areas.
• E-book sales are growing fast. In 2009, 1.7% of books sold were e-books. In Q2 of 2010, 7% of books sold were e-books.
• Readers under 40 look for dark, suspenseful stories.
• Readers under 40 don't see mysteries as distinct from other genres as older readers do.
*• Readers over 60 are more loyal to the author or character than younger readers.*
• Readers enjoy mysteries to solve the puzzle. They also love surprises, thrills, and suspense.
• Name recognition still influences readers to buy popular authors.
• Readers are attracted by appealing book covers.
• Readers want a preview of story elements before they buy.

This is the link to the pdf

http://www.sistersincrime.org/associations/10614/files/ConsumerBuyingBookReport.pdf

I'd love to see a further breakout of the stats/pricing etc for the thrillers/mystery/action adventure on Amazon hint hint 

Lloyd


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## Ancient Lawyer (Jul 1, 2013)

Thank you for providing this resource, Hugh. I have added my results to the survey.


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

minxmalone said:


> It sucks but all the whining lately has just made a lot of high-selling indies start talking on closed forums. Luckily I'm on some of them but I miss being able to eavesdrop on all of you that I don't know that well.
> 
> _** so if you have a closed forum please invite me. m'kaythxbye_


+1, pretty please.


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Having said that, I'll be doing a romance series this summer, and I'm hoping for a lightning strike there.


I have to say, I find this intriguing. I hope you make an announcement when this goes live.
--Maia


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

Alan Petersen said:


> Dana Beth Weinberg who did the PW survey has responded to Hugh's report. And what a shocker, she refutes it. Kboards also gets a mention for our outrage over her study. And she does remind us that she is very smart, so what do we know.
> http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/analyzing-the-author-earnings-data-using-basic-analytics/


Well, whatever her credentials may be, her logic is completely flawed. What on earth do hourly wages have to do with author earnings? The whole point of writing for a living is to make money from a long-term investment model, not an hourly model. Whether you write fast or slow, you pour hours into producing a product *one time*, then sell it over and over again.

I'm a case in point. During the entire 2012, I did no writing, and yet the income from the two books I'd put out in 2010 and 2011 stayed pretty steady. Those little deposits from Amazon, B&N, etc., kept showing up in my bank account every month, allowing me to, as Hugh likes to say, pay some bills. I suppose Dana would count me among the poor pathetic minimum wage earners at that point, making less than $58/day from my writing, except I did no additional work to earn that money. Last summer & fall, I glued my butt back into the chair and got two more books out. That butt-in-chair time was my investment, and I'm only now beginning to see the income from it. Hopefully, it will last for years to come.

I suppose any of us could sit down and figure out a dollars-per-hour calculation for our writing, but why would we?

P.S. Another hearty thanks to Hugh, et al. for all their hard work on "Author Earnings". I love me some numbers!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Maria Romana said:


> Well, whatever her credentials may be, her logic is completely flawed. What on earth do hourly wages have to do with author earnings? The whole point of writing for a living is to make money from a long-term investment model, not an hourly model. Whether you write fast or slow, you pour hours into producing a product *one time*, then sell it over and over again.


I've seen others point this out as well. Even some people without advanced degrees.

Keep in mind that the primary people attacking our data are those who I offended by pointing out how horrible their survey was. The one they were charging $300 for. The one that compares the top 1% of trad books to the entirety of self-pubbed books. Then I come along with my partner and offer data for free and ask people to take our raw numbers and disagree with us, show us something better, teach us. Rather than do that or go out and improve their survey, they circle the wagons and lash out. I found the responses quite sad this past week. It makes me think their position is even less tenable than I had assumed.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2014)

Another quick report from LTUE: many mid-list authors are repeating the word "hybrid" like it's a mantra. I've heard or overheard it at least maybe once an hour or so. On panels, they are talking about how much they wish they had their rights, and warning the audience to be very careful with rights reversion clauses and the like.


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Of course they are dementing it. If they applauded it they'd be homeless on the street. I look at my over 1000 sales already in Febuary and at my 70% and I say: whatever.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> I've seen others point this out as well. Even some people without advanced degrees.
> 
> Keep in mind that the primary people attacking our data are those who I offended by pointing out how horrible their survey was. The one they were charging $300 for. The one that compares the top 1% of trad books to the entirety of self-pubbed books. Then I come along with my partner and offer data for free and ask people to take our raw numbers and disagree with us, show us something better, teach us. Rather than do that or go out and improve their survey, they circle the wagons and lash out. I found the responses quite sad this past week. It makes me think their position is even less tenable than I had assumed.


It was always going to happen because there are far too many vested interests that need writers to think that they can only succeed using the traditional publishing model. I don't know what Ms Weinberg's connection is, but there was defintely a disconnect between her numbers and her commentary.

First, she talks about authors needing to earn a living, and she suggests that even though there were more indies earning minimum wage, this was because there were more indies in the sample. A simple ration exposes this as crud. 43% of indies in the sample made minimum wage, while only 35% of Big 5 authors made minimum wage.

Second, she argues that, as a professor, she wanted more than minimum wage and that the best way to do that was by going with the big 5, which her own numbers show as crud. The median wage for indies earning more than minimum wage is $79K and for big 5, it's $58K. This means that more than half of indies earning minimum wage earn more than $79K, which is $20K higher than the half way point of the big 5.

Third, the standard deviation of the big 5 authors earning more than minimum wage is 25% higher than that for indies, which means that there is a greater variation in big 5 authors earnings ie indie authors earn closer to $79K than big 5 authors earn to $58K. Therefore, there is a greater number of big 5 authors at the lower end (closer to $22K) and higher end ($2mil) than indie authors.

So, yeah, keep doing what you're doing Mr Howey because authors need the information, and it's kind of fun to see how far vested interests can spin it.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Fourth, the trade published survey includes many many writers who haven't even been published yet and are stuck in the query go round. They only get included when it's convenient to include them, but they need to be accounted for.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2014)

Self-publishing definitely doesn't have a stigma anymore, at least at this convention. Lots of panels are on self-publishing, lots of panelists (including me) are self-published, lots of books in the dealers' room and at the mass signing are self-published, etc. People are still wrestling with whether and how to self-publish, but the stigma is completely gone.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Hugh:

I want to say thank you to both you and data guy. I did write a thank you before but somehow it disappeared. Maybe I hit the wrong button. Anyway thanks for all of this information. I watched you on the podcast also and know how much time and effort this is taking. 

I appreciate that you're both losing sleep, working very hard and taking time away from your writing. I love the little mystery about data guy. 

Everything you're doing is very encouraging for indies.

Thanks so much.

Ann


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> I've seen others point this out as well. Even some people without advanced degrees.
> 
> Keep in mind that the primary people attacking our data are those who I offended by pointing out how horrible their survey was. The one they were charging $300 for. The one that compares the top 1% of trad books to the entirety of self-pubbed books. Then I come along with my partner and offer data for free and ask people to take our raw numbers and disagree with us, show us something better, teach us. Rather than do that or go out and improve their survey, they circle the wagons and lash out. I found the responses quite sad this past week. It makes me think their position is even less tenable than I had assumed.


Perhaps its a case of free data devaluing research?


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Joe: Love the reports from the front lines, man.

Herc: Wow. Jeez. Where was that rebuttal when I needed it? 

P.A.: Thank you. I've been doing a lot of second-guessing lately, wondering if I should've published this anonymously, if it would've been taken seriously, if it would've saved any headache, if it stands to even help anyone, and comments like this help me think we're doing the right thing.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Hugh Howey said:


> P.A.: Thank you. I've been doing a lot of second-guessing lately, wondering if I should've published this anonymously, if it would've been taken seriously, if it would've saved any headache, if it stands to even help anyone, and comments like this help me think we're doing the right thing.


If you did it anonymously it would not have been taken any where near as seriously. Your name lends it credence. But it might have saved you the headache of dealing with people.


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

Hugh Howey said:


> ...comments like this help me think we're doing the right thing.


You're doing the right thing, Hugh. And it's very, very appreciated.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

MorganKegan said:


> Corey Doctorow has a write up and opinion of the Author Earnings on BoingBoing: http://boingboing.net/2014/02/13/self-published-ebooks-the-sur.html#more-287195


As usual, Doctorow raises some very good points. I think one of the positive things we're likely to see come out of the Big 5 as a result of AuthorEarnings (or maybe out of some of the larger small-presses) is a deliberate shrinking of their overhead costs so that they can free up their resources to offer much better deals to authors. I don't think it'll happen quickly, but it will provide some needed competition to Amazon. They have little reason NOT to do so now...or at least they'll come to see the sense of scaling back overhead as more data emerges and becomes more widely distributed among authors.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> Maybe its time you bridge the genre! Didn't aliens build the pyramids?


No time for Sci-Fi, Dr. Jones. I'm bridging into romance this year.  Besides, Pauline Gedge already did the pyramids + aliens thing years ago with Stargate.

In all seriousness, I LOVE sci-fi and I do want to get into it eventually, but all the ideas I've tried to outline into a good novel have turned out to be extremely lame under scrutiny. I need to put some more work into it. One of these days...



blakebooks said:


> You know, another phenom that could be hitting indie thriller authors that occurs to me is that they might not rank in the Top 100 nearly as often as Romance, because rarely is an indie thriller a sensational seller - in my experience it's been more of a steady state thing.


I suspect this probably has a lot to do with it, Russell. The things you were musing on in a previous post struck a chord with me, but on a much smaller scale, obviously.  Historical fiction readers tend to be very critical, a famously tough audience to please. They also tend to buy books at higher average prices than some of the other genres, and they're fiercely loyal to their favorite brands. Almost never does a historical fiction title (that's not also a romance) hit the Top 100, and it typically doesn't stick around there for long. But I know a lot of HF authors, myself included, who make really steady income. I think the habits of a genre's average readers may play a lot into this data. It'll be interesting to see what more we can find out when the samples get larger.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

ElHawk said:


> No time for Sci-Fi, Dr. Jones. I'm bridging into romance this year.


Hmm - alien love triangle in 2000 b.c. mesopotamia! Sounds about right... or maybe Genghis Khan is the love child of some alien and a human female... we can make this work still...


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

VydorScope said:


> If you did it anonymously it would not have been taken any where near as seriously. Your name lends it credence. But it might have saved you the headache of dealing with people.


This is exactly right. It would have saved you a lot of headaches but by doing it as you did, it's better for all the rest of us.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> P.A.: Thank you. I've been doing a lot of second-guessing lately, wondering if I should've published this anonymously, if it would've been taken seriously, if it would've saved any headache, if it stands to even help anyone, and comments like this help me think we're doing the right thing.


Definitely the right thing!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> It's really crazy to see all this changing so rapidly. Last year felt like milestone after milestone. This year may prove to be even more transformational. Does anyone else just feel crazy-lucky to be here to see all of this? To be in the trenches while an industry we all love so much is undergoing so much change? I do.


Um...yeah, man. In a huge way. I was at my nephew's birthday party today (Greek Mythology themed, complete with a Labyrinth made of Rice Krispy treats...sigh...my nephew is a budding historical fiction nerd) and I couldn't stop blathering to my family about how freaking exciting this all is right now. My mom said she's glad she finally gets to see me this excited about my books, instead of moping about how much agents and querying and publishers suck.

Good times all around.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> I've been doing a lot of second-guessing lately, wondering if I should've published this anonymously, if it would've been taken seriously, if it would've saved any headache, if it stands to even help anyone, and comments like this help me think we're doing the right thing.


Oh you love it and we love you for it.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Self-publishing definitely doesn't have a stigma anymore, at least at this convention. Lots of panels are on self-publishing, lots of panelists (including me) are self-published, lots of books in the dealers' room and at the mass signing are self-published, etc. People are still wrestling with whether and how to self-publish, but the stigma is completely gone.


That's so awesome. Thanks for the updates, Joe!


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> It was always going to happen because there are far too many vested interests that need writers to think that they can only succeed using the traditional publishing model. I don't know what Ms Weinberg's connection is, but there was defintely a disconnect between her numbers and her commentary.
> 
> So, yeah, keep doing what you're doing Mr Howey because authors need the information, and it's kind of fun to see how far vested interests can spin it.


Throughout human history inefficient methods become replaced by by more efficient methods continually, especially when there is more money to be made by the new efficient methods. Those vested in the old methods will fight it tooth and nail until they finally see it is futile to fight a better idea. In time it becomes obvious even to the blind man.

The road of human history is littered with discarded inefficient methods that were replaced by better ones. For the last century publishers have had a near monopoly and had a good run at controlling the market. Now they either have to be clever and adapt or become a very limited factor in the fiction market. Their good old days will soon be gone.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

> or maybe Genghis Khan is the love child of some alien and a human female...


That might explain a lot...

Just wanted to throw in a few words of support to Hugh. I have no doubt that you're dealing with some flack because your name is attached to the report, but your name also gives it power. Like it or not, you're the dude in the spotlight, and if something like this comes from you, people have no choice but to take notice. An awkward position to be in for a guy who doesn't seem (to me, anyway) to crave a lot of attention from a wide audience, but I'd rather have you advocating for us than just about anybody else, for a variety of reasons. Thanks. We all owe you cookies.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> P.A.: Thank you. I've been doing a lot of second-guessing lately, wondering if I should've published this anonymously, if it would've been taken seriously, if it would've saved any headache, if it stands to even help anyone, and comments like this help me think we're doing the right thing.


If MIT and Stanford released it they would still be fighting it like crazy. They don't want to hear that their era is ending so they'll fight it no matter where it comes from. It's fear of the unknown. For Pub authors, "The devil that I know is better than the devil I don't know."


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## JohnHindmarsh (Jun 3, 2011)

Hugh - when you open up new ideas or new horizons [or indeed, even a new can of worms], there will be people who jump up and down - a 'not invented by me' syndrome, if you will. I think you and your data guy did a marvelous job, and provided extremely helpful material for indie writes [or self publishers]. Just knowing, for example, how big the indie iceberg is in Amazon is eye-opening.

Keep going. Ignore the slingshots. There are lots of closed minds and no matter how hard you beat at the door, they aint gonna open.

I think those with open minds are looking forward to the more comprehensive data sets.

Go!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

ElHawk said:


> As usual, Doctorow raises some very good points. I think one of the positive things we're likely to see come out of the Big 5 as a result of AuthorEarnings (or maybe out of some of the larger small-presses) is a deliberate shrinking of their overhead costs so that they can free up their resources to offer much better deals to authors. I don't think it'll happen quickly, but it will provide some needed competition to Amazon. They have little reason NOT to do so now...or at least they'll come to see the sense of scaling back overhead as more data emerges and becomes more widely distributed among authors.


Markets facilitate trade. Thats what we observe them doing, and that is a benefit that has been recognized for a long time. Howey deals with market trade. Doctorow deals with market structure.

The structure that Doctorow talks about facilitates the trade that Howey talks about. There is no reason to to say studying either skirts the other. We gain a comprehensive understanding by looking at lots of individual studies, but it rarely comes from a single comprehensive study.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Perhaps its a case of free data devaluing research?


I have to admit this made me chuckle.


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## PatriceFitz (Jan 8, 2011)

Hugh:

You are a hero for doing this.  That's not just me blowing smoke up your... silo.    If you had done it anonymously much less attention would have been paid.  You're well-known, tremendously open and engaged with social media, and you are clearly making a success of self-publishing.  Of course they call you an outlier... if you were making too little they'd call it sour grapes from a failed writer.  

Thank you for sticking your neck out.  The criticism is because they are afraid of the message, not because you are the messenger.  

Fast forward to next year, and people will be debating about some finite detail of the new market, such as raising the 25% trad pub percentage on ebooks to 35% or 40%.  And you will have helped make that difference.

This is a game-changer.  Truly.  The wall is coming down.


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## S. Elliot Brandis (Dec 9, 2013)

PatriceFitz said:


> The wall is coming down.


And their brothel is trapped in the sand.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I'm just going to echo the others saying, thank you so much, Hugh. I self-published sort of in desperation--made the decision right before going into the hospital. One of those things where life throws a curve ball at you that turns out to be the very best thing that could have happened, because I'm not sure I'd have had the courage otherwise, would probably have kept querying and, eventually, got discouraged and maybe even given up entirely.

I'm so glad I was at least able to look at some successes (this was summer 2012), at the wonderful, generous authors who'd shared what they'd done and how they'd done it, so I believed I had a shot, and I had some clue of how to go about it. You'll never know how many other authors like me you've encouraged, these past weeks (and years). You'll never hear all the stories, but they're out there. You've done a good thing, and a thing that only someone of your stature could have done. 

I'm sure you're taking flak for it (Joe Nobody probably has a jacket for that), and I'm sorry. But you've done a good thing.


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

PatriceFitz said:


> Hugh:
> 
> You are a hero for doing this. That's not just me blowing smoke up your... silo.  If you had done it anonymously much less attention would have been paid. You're well-known, tremendously open and engaged with social media, and you are clearly making a success of self-publishing. Of course they call you an outlier... if you were making too little they'd call it sour grapes from a failed writer.
> 
> Thank you for sticking your neck out. The criticism is because they are afraid of the message, not because you are the messenger.


Actually, I think it is somewhat because he's the messenger. The message itself is scary enough, but coming from a highly successful, popular, and much-admired person like Hugh Howey, makes it uber-scary for those who are cringing in the face of the indie apocalypse. If it came from me or some other nobody-author, it could be easily dismissed, but instead, it started fires blazing all over the internet.

Hugh, man, you got the power; don't be afraid to use it!


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Drew Gideon said:


> Hugh, if you read the (ungodly long) article just published over at The New Yorker, it makes things sound incredibly dire for TradPubs. I realize it was designed to be a Zon hit piece, but there's truth in exaggeration - and if only a small bit of what he's saying is true, then "less tenable" is a massive understatement.
> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/17/140217fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all


Jebus. I started that article drinking a glass of water and finished it drinking a bottle of Scotch.

_Book publishers' dependence on Amazon, however unwilling, keeps growing. Amazon constitutes a third of one major house's retail sales on a given week, with the growth chart pointing toward fifty per cent. By contrast, independents represent under ten per cent, and *one New York editor said that only a third of the three thousand brick-and-mortar bookstores still in existence would remain financially healthy if publishers didn't waive certain terms of payment*. Jane Friedman, the former Random House and HarperCollins executive, who now runs a digital publisher called Open Road Integrated Media, told me, "If there wasn't an Amazon today, there probably wouldn't be a book business."_

Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish Ladies...

B.


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## Guest (Feb 16, 2014)

Don't second guess yourself, Hugh. You're doing awesome stuff with this report, and the fact that your name is associated with it is giving it legs like you wouldn't believe--perhaps not with the publishing establishment, but definitely with the writers in the trenches. They may not know who Shatzkin is, but they know who you are. Your signal boost is helping those in the trenches take courage and make the leap.

There were probably around 1,800 people here at LTUE this weekend. Most of them were students at the local universities (BYU/UVU) and/or aspiring writers. The viability of self-publishing was a major undercurrent among both the published authors and the aspiring ones as well. I got a chance to chat with Brandon Sanderson, and he told me that in his class his students are constantly asking him about self-publishing--questions that he doesn't feel qualified to answer.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but the speculative fiction writing community here in Utah definitely recognizes self-publishing as a viable career path now. On all of my panels and in every introduction, I described myself as a "self-published author" and I did not receive a hint of derision from anybody. Three years ago, they would have looked at me as if I had leprosy. Now, they regard us self-publishers as pioneers--and here in Utah, we have a great deal of respect for pioneers.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Drew Gideon said:


> Hugh, if you read the (ungodly long) article just published over at The New Yorker, it makes things sound incredibly dire for TradPubs. I realize it was designed to be a Zon hit piece, but there's truth in exaggeration - and if only a small bit of what he's saying is true, then "less tenable" is a massive understatement.
> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/17/140217fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all


I'm almost half done reading this gigantic article. It is very interesting and well written. It could be a book. Anyhow, this part does frighten me a bit:

"Few customers realize that the results generated by Amazon's search engine are partly determined by promotional fees."

Amazon does charge publishers coop fees, just like Barnes and Noble does, according to this piece. This disturbs me. We indie publishers urgently need Apple, Kobo, Google, etc to become more competition for Amazon in the book market.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Hugh:

I know it's scary even if you're famous. You will get a lot of opposition from both publishers and literary agents. But consider how they have been bleeding money from unfortunate authors for years. Also we as readers could only read what they wanted or allowed us to read. Now writers will publish freely about many important, hitherto forbidden topics, and that in itself may be more important than the money issues. 

Haven't we all been influenced by the written word? It's vital that we retain our freedom to write without fear of reprisal, and this will definitely help with that. You are absolutely doing the right thing.

Ann.


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## David J Normoyle (Jun 22, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I'm almost half done reading this gigantic article. It is very interesting and well written. It could be a book. Anyhow, this part does frighten me a bit:
> 
> "Few customers realize that the results generated by Amazon's search engine are partly determined by promotional fees."
> 
> Amazon does charge publishers coop fees, just like Barnes and Noble does, according to this piece. This disturbs me. We indie publishers urgently need Apple, Kobo, Google, etc to become more competition for Amazon in the book market.


I read that part as well, but that article talked a lot about the history of the relationship between Amazon and publishers. At the time, I think the article was talking about the 2009 relationship. So it may no longer be true.

I just did two quick test searches and didn't see any evidence that the searches are weighted toward trad books.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

This might seem a tiny bit off topic, but it really isn't so bear with me. I just listened to the Rocking Self Publishing Podcast--I've been busy and didn't listen last Friday when it came out. It's the one with Holly Lisle as the guest. If any of you are still considering Trad as a viable alternative to self publishing, or even as a second string to your hybrid bow, you have to listen to this podcast. Holly's horror story I think I would call it.

http://rockingselfpublishing.com/episode-34-traditional-publishing-self-pub-holly-lisle/


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Listening now. Brilliant. The show notes are full of great advice as well.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Listening now. Brilliant. The show notes are full of great advice as well.


I used to love reading Holly's books, back in pre-ebook days I had tons of her paperbacks. I think I may have been a bit of a Baen fanboy back in the day because so many of my favorite stories came out of that publisher. After hearing this, I feel a bit let down by Baen. It's silly and I know it. I never had any interest in publishing back then, but their rep seemed to me a shining light among publishers. I remember Eric Flint posting a chapter excerpt of his writing on Baen's equivalent to our cafe, and Jim Baen himself responding. That led directly to Flint's first book 1632 being published with him. It was a great time. I can't help but feel it was all just smoke now. It's tarnished their rep in my own mind after listening to how Holly went through the ringer.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

markecooper said:


> This might seem a tiny bit off topic, but it really isn't so bear with me. I just listened to the Rocking Self Publishing Podcast--I've been busy and didn't listen last Friday when it came out. It's the one with Holly Lisle as the guest. If any of you are still considering Trad as a viable alternative to self publishing, or even as a second string to your hybrid bow, you have to listen to this podcast. Holly's horror story I think I would call it.
> 
> http://rockingselfpublishing.com/episode-34-traditional-publishing-self-pub-holly-lisle/


I'll listen to that after the one from one of my G+ groups with Hugh 
Holly has been one of the biggest helps for my writing and while I know some of what happened to her, I don't know all. She is awesome for authors of any type though. I haven't read any fiction from her but I LOVE her non-fiction.


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

The above chart is very believable, especially since it's for the three most popular fiction genre. Consider these official figures:

From the Wall Street Journal

*"In 2013, self-published books accounted for 32% of the 100 top selling e-books on Amazon each week, on average."*

From Barnes and Noble Press Releases (April 9 2013)

*"Customer demand for great independent content continues to dramatically increase as 30% of NOOK customers purchase self-published content each month, representing 25% of NOOK Book™ sales every month."*


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## SeanBlack (May 13, 2010)

I am seeing this report being discussed by people who never talk about self publishing. It's had a major impact.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Not sure if anyone linked these yet, even the Guardian is talking about the article:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/13/amazon-publishing-advance-future-ebook-no1

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/14/self-publishing-mainstream-genre-fiction


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

S. Elliot Brandis said:


> And their brothel is trapped in the sand.


Nooo! Somebody dig out the ladies of the night! They're the most fun to write about!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I'm almost half done reading this gigantic article. It is very interesting and well written. It could be a book. Anyhow, this part does frighten me a bit:
> 
> "Few customers realize that the results generated by Amazon's search engine are partly determined by promotional fees."


It may be true, and it may not be true. Do bear in mind two things: 1) Amazon is famously guarded about much of their practice, as the article pointed out several times. 2) the article's author mentioned that he is represented by an agent at a firm that typically caters to book writers, not journalists, so the chances are very high that the person who wrote this article is also a novelist or nonfiction book writer angling to work with publishers. I wouldn't take that comment too seriously, given the source and the lack of citation of any proof, until or unless more and better evidence for its veracity comes along. 

Bear in mind the chart from AuthorEarnings that shows that Amazon makes virtually the same profit from a book whether it's self-published or from a traditional publisher. You can see the actual numbers that support that bit of data, and you can look at the raw data for yourself to verify it. As of right now, the evidence points to Amazon not having any financial reason to differentiate between publishers. As always, Amazon's first concern is the customer's experience, and the data at AuthorEarnings shows that customers are choosing a high percentage of indie books. Amazon has no sound business reason to mess with that.

Take heart.


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## SandraMiller (May 10, 2011)

markecooper said:


> I used to love reading Holly's books, back in pre-ebook days I had tons of her paperbacks. I think I may have been a bit of a Baen fanboy back in the day because so many of my favorite stories came out of that publisher. After hearing this, I feel a bit let down by Baen. It's silly and I know it. I never had any interest in publishing back then, but their rep seemed to me a shining light among publishers. I remember Eric Flint posting a chapter excerpt of his writing on Baen's equivalent to our cafe, and Jim Baen himself responding. That led directly to Flint's first book 1632 being published with him. It was a great time. I can't help but feel it was all just smoke now. It's tarnished their rep in my own mind after listening to how Holly went through the ringer.


Holly's one of my very favorite authors. She knows story, inside and out, knows what makes it work, knows how to take it apart and put it back together again so that it's better than the original. Would it sound crazy if I told you, that although I started self-publishing in 2010, I never really felt completely confident I'd made the right decision until Holly came out and said that she was going to self-pub her new work?

Yeah. It does sound kind of crazy. But I spent a lot of years indoctrinated in the Old Ways (and I have the massive piles of old issues of Writer's Digest to prove it). When someone as prolific, as savvy, and as smart as Holly Lisle came out on the same path that I had tentatively started to travel, well...I finally thought there was a future in this thing, for real.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

A huge thank you to Hugh and data guy. We're all so lucky they teamed up.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

ElHawk said:


> Bear in mind the chart from AuthorEarnings that shows that Amazon makes virtually the same profit from a book whether it's self-published or from a traditional publisher. You can see the actual numbers that support that bit of data, and you can look at the raw data for yourself to verify it. As of right now, the evidence points to Amazon not having any financial reason to differentiate between publishers. As always, Amazon's first concern is the customer's experience, and the data at AuthorEarnings shows that customers are choosing a high percentage of indie books. Amazon has no sound business reason to mess with that.


The fees themselves are a sound business reason -- from my read, it seems at least an additional percent of all of the publisher's profits on Amazon in order to get any special treatment. So you've got the %, PLUS the fees for ad placement on Amazon AND fees for the algorithm boost (if that is indeed still going on).

If Amazon has stopped giving them an algorithm boost (remember, this could be a search algorithm OR it could be an alsobought boost, or an email recommendation algorithm boost or a combination of any of these), that may be why a switch seemed to flip in 2011 in indie sales. That's when I started to see it with other indies and decided to get back in the game with a new pen name and new work.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Lets say publishers have been paying lots of promotional money to Amazon. This is the result they get?


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## Ben Mathew (Jan 27, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Lets say publishers have been paying lots of promotional money to Amazon. This is the result they get?


Good point.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Courtney Milan has written a very thoughtful post about the report. Perhaps Hugh or his Data Dude can address some of her concerns.

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2014/02/16/some-thoughts-on-author-earnings/


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

I'm working on another data set I pulled independent of Hugh and "Data Guy". Still in it's infancy, but I'm past 6,000 books so far. I *think* my data are a bit more random versus the top sellers only, although I confess it's easier by far to find the best sellers. I've also been focused on sci fi and fantasy cuz that's what I write! But I'm looking at several gigs (and still crawling) of data on mysteries and thrillers. Romance is next.

My intent is a second set of eyes to corroborate what Hugh and "Data Guy" came up with (yes, I've corresponded with Data Guy and no, I don't know who he or she is. Although they did enjoy my "data boner" comment many pages back).

Thus far my research is only on ebooks, but eventually I'll expand into print and other areas. And yes, I'll be releasing this unto the world when I get it cobbled together as best I can - both in fancified form and as raw data. As Data Guy and Hugh did, I won't be outing anyone's titles, ASINs, or royalties... however I am seriously considering letting anyone that contacts me privately and wants to have a dataset with their numbers (only) revealed. Truth be told, the more I think about that the more pointless it is. Sure, most of us want to know where we stack up in the big picture, but we already know where we are. What we want to know is are we at the bottom, in the top 50%, 25%, 10%, 5%, 1%, etc..

As you can probably guess, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here. Working independently from Data Guy and Hugh to avoid any conspiracy theories. I may not be able to put together as fancy a report either, since there's 1 of me vs. 2 of them and I've got real life and day job to contend with still. But it's coming, that much I promise anyone who's interested in seeing a second snapshot of the real estate.


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

Monique said:


> Courtney Milan has written a very thoughtful post about the report. Perhaps Hugh or his Data Dude can address some of her concerns.
> 
> http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2014/02/16/some-thoughts-on-author-earnings/


I tried...but couldn't do it. Her font made my eyes roll up in my head and blood started running out of my ears. It was messy.

I do think from what I could read before the baseball bat hit me in the back of the head that she's assuming somebody claimed this was a scientific peer reviewed double blind study (or something to that effect). It's not. It's numbers gleaned from a massive web site by crawling across thousands of pages. There's no science to it, it's like throwing a massive fishing net into the ocean and tossing the dolphins and other critters you don't want back in the water so you can keep the tasty parts.

Take a picture of Mars and ask a group of interested people what they see. They will speculate and use everything they can to figure out as much as they can. That's what this is, snapshots in time of data that is being observed and looked at from different angles. There's a lot missing that is hiding in Amazon's databases. There's also a lot of speculation and assumptions that have to take place. And like any good study, this raises more questions than it answers. Sure this is Amazon only and Amazon has been without a doubt the friendliest platform for independent authors. I expect indies get the shaft on B&N, Kobo, iTunes, and whoever else is left. But is the volume on those others of sufficient quality to invalidate the findings (however theoretical at this point) on Amazon?

All things aside, there are basic questions that are raised by this that can not be denied. Questions that have been raised on this forum. It's a work in progress, ultimately. The real question is, where's the data that proves what Hugh and Data Guy came up with is wrong? That's my challenge to Courtney Milan and any other naysayers. Stop telling us that we're wrong and this is why we're wrong - Show us some data of your own that proves it.


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

Christa Wick said:


> The fees themselves are a sound business reason -- from my read, it seems at least an additional percent of all of the publisher's profits on Amazon in order to get any special treatment. So you've got the %, PLUS the fees for ad placement on Amazon AND fees for the algorithm boost (if that is indeed still going on).


But as ElHawk was saying, if Amazon's customers prefer indies (or at least don't prefer trads), then Amazon has a decided disincentive to engage in this behavior. Paid ads are one thing, but if they rig their algorithms to recommend books that their customers will like less, they are shooting themselves in the foot. Amazon's recommendation engines are the reason they are where they are today; no smart business would mess with that in exchange for short-term profits.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Jason Halstead said:


> ... she's assuming somebody claimed this was a scientific peer reviewed double blind study (or something to that effect). It's not. It's numbers gleaned from a massive web site by crawling across thousands of pages. There's no science to it, it's like throwing a massive fishing net into the ocean and tossing the dolphins and other critters you don't want back in the water so you can keep the useless parts.


That's it! It's the numbers themselves that are of interest, not what people make of them. I think Ms Weinberg has provided two very good tables that show the spread of numbers in each category of author (although I don't agree with her conclusions).

Thanks to Hugh and Data Person, we have _objective_ data for the first time - the numbers don't care about the great indie/trad debate. On their own and without the need for anything other than the most rudimentary analysis (like Hugh/DP and Ms Weinberg provided), they show that indie publishing is a viable business choice in the digital marketplace.

I reckon these numbers have done two things.

First, they have dispelled the lingering arguments made by trad-affiliated folk that the reading public don't like indie books because of poor spelling/covers/grammar. The fact that indie published books occupy so much of Amazon's best seller list show that the average reader doesn't give a fig about who publishes a book, and that there is no stigma to being a non-corporate/aligned writer.

Second, it shows Amazon is making a heck of a lot of money on indie books, which goes some way to explain why they won't have the Scribd app in the Kindle Fire app store.

Don't be too surprised if Amazon makes a move towards joining/stomping out all you can read services in the near future..


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Monique said:


> Courtney Milan has written a very thoughtful post about the report. Perhaps Hugh or his Data Dude can address some of her concerns.
> 
> http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2014/02/16/some-thoughts-on-author-earnings/


Thanks for the link, Monique. It's worth reading. Courtney has some valid points which, if taken into consideration and implemented, could produce even more solidly based results down the road. What she's saying, in a nutshell, is that in order for the mathematical model to hold weight, it should be based on real data, take into account the margin of error, and address its own potential shortcomings. A model merely explains or predicts something in a mathematical or scientific field.

What Hugh's trying to do is bring to light that indies are actually a bigger force than anyone realizes. What Courtney's suggesting are some ways to collect further data and use tighter math for an even more solid model of author earnings. [Cliff's Notes version]


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## 28612 (Dec 7, 2010)

I confess to skimming. All those numbers. 

One thing puzzles me about what I think I'm gathering from the critiques of the HH/DG report: That as a snapshot it is not accounting for a book's traveling up or down in the rankings. So it would not accurately reflect the year-long earnings for an individual book.

But since the snapshot includes books in all stages of those ranking travels, doesn't that account for the differences? And while it would not accurately reflect the results for an individual book, it would show the gist for a bunch of books.  (I know, I know, the technical talk is getting think here.)

Or am I missing something?


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## rosclarke (Jul 12, 2013)

Jason Halstead said:


> All things aside, there are basic questions that are raised by this that can not be denied. Questions that have been raised on this forum. It's a work in progress, ultimately. The real question is, where's the data that proves what Hugh and Data Guy came up with is wrong? That's my challenge to Courtney Milan and any other naysayers. Stop telling us that we're wrong and this is why we're wrong - Show us some data of your own that proves it.


Just to be clear, in case this is implied in your comment, Courtney is an incredibly successful self-publisher herself. She's not a naysayer with respect to self-publishing.


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## Ben Mathew (Jan 27, 2013)

Patricia McLinn said:


> I confess to skimming. All those numbers.
> 
> One thing puzzles me about what I think I'm gathering from the critiques of the HH/DG report: That as a snapshot it is not accounting for a book's traveling up or down in the rankings. So it would not accurately reflect the year-long earnings for an individual book.
> 
> ...


No, I think you're right. As some people pointed out earlier in the thread, even if indie books hold their ranks only for a short period, so that an instantaneous rank is not representative of a book's annual earnings, their spots will be taken by other indie books. So it's an accurate representation of indie books as a whole. We know that a lot of money is going to indie authors. We don't know whether it's a lot of money going to a few indies, or a little money going to lots of indies. But we do know that a lot of money is going to indies as a group.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Christa Wick said:


> If Amazon has stopped giving them an algorithm boost (remember, this could be a search algorithm OR it could be an alsobought boost, or an email recommendation algorithm boost or a combination of any of these), that may be why a switch seemed to flip in 2011 in indie sales. That's when I started to see it with other indies and decided to get back in the game with a new pen name and new work.


Could be!


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## rosclarke (Jul 12, 2013)

Patricia McLinn said:


> But since the snapshot includes books in all stages of those ranking travels, doesn't that account for the differences? And while it would not accurately reflect the results for an individual book, it would show the gist for a bunch of books. (I know, I know, the technical talk is getting think here.)
> 
> Or am I missing something?


I think what you're missing is that the report attempts to draw conclusions about author earnings from that data. If the book is replaced by a different indie book every day, then author earnings are overestimated by a factor of 365. If it's replaced every 10 days, they're overestimated by a factor of 36.5. And so on. There isn't any data in the report (because it is a snapshot) which gives a basis for the annual author earnings extrapolation.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

If I reading the spreadsheet right, it shows one line per author. So there is one line if an author had one book, and one line if the author has ten books.

That implied there are raw records we don't see. The single line for an author with ten books is a summation from the set of ten lines, one for each book.

Raw data would show one record per book, with an ID number for the author.

The detail level of the data would then be one book. Author ID number, publishing source, and rank would be attributes of the book.

That's the end of the raw data.

The mapping of unit sales to rank is probably done with some table or function. If we knew the function or table, we could reproduce the results.

However the mapping function or table is not raw data. They are derived from some other collection of data.

None of this is a criticism of what Howey has done. Like Milan says, he has produced a model. Howey has taken the first step, and it is a huge step. More data will come from him and others. I see a statistical crowd sourcing arising.

Strong positions and rigorous methods welcome challenge. Let the games begin.

Ain't this a great country?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

What all the blog posts, such as Courtney's, are suggesting is not that the data is wrong. Data is neutral. We all know that. What isn't neutral is how that data is interpreted, manipulated and analyzed. A number of issues have been pointed out with the dataset and its manipulation (this is a neutral term - read simply as how the data is being used and handled). Look, it's great to have all the numbers pulled together into a nice spreadsheet. But this is all public data that's being scraped. It's stuff those of us who have been watching the charts have been seeing on a daily basis. 

What's getting the attention is the analysis around those poor little numbers -- the ones returned via the spider at point of capture that are sitting in the spreadsheet. What's being scrutinized first off is the assumptions being made and how they're being assigned to the scraped data. I've flagged some issues earlier in this thread. Courtney and others linked to in this thread touched on others. Then beyond that is the editorial (at this point I'm not comfortable calling it analysis - sorry, Hugh) surrounding the data charts. Again, the assumptions being made based on how the data has been manipulated in some cases and, well, speculation in others. 

While I have problems with some of the types of titles included in the dataset being looked at (see my earlier posts), in general, I think the numbers of units being moved by the general classes of "trad" and "sp" will be in the ballpark of reality. But when talk turns to individual author earnings - or even a comparison between trad earnings in general vs sp earnings - I don't think the assumptions being assigned are rigorous enough to return a real-world look based on the raw data we've seen (and let's be clear that the spreadsheet includes both raw data side-by-side with the assumptions). 

IMHO, I think Hugh released his report too early. He was excited about this data and wanted it out as soon as possible. Totally understandable if you're a Hugh type and not a Courtney type. Honestly, making several iterations of the raw data available would have gone a long way in building a friendly rapport between "us" and "them." But he didn't subject his "analysis" to scientific rigor before releasing it. How is that any better than others releasing the results of self-selected surveys? We can point to the raw data all we want and say, "Isn't it great to have that all available in one place! Never before have we had it all available so clearly" but we still need to separate having the dataset available from the editorial Hugh's given around it since both are rolled up into the report.

Had Hugh simply released the data and pointed out the raw numbers (without any of the assumptions assigned in the way of sales numbers and, especially, earnings) showing that indies have a huge chunk of the Amazon market in the top genres, I think it would have been splashy enough. But because he and Data Guy went further and began assigning values to the raw numbers in a bit less-than-scientific way and then reported out his interpretation of the findings, that opened the report to the scrutiny it's receiving. IMO, a lot more rigor around how earnings were being calculated was needed before going public with that, as well as things like the speculative correlation between book price and reviews.

Guys, I've done my share of data sharing here. I've made assumptions and thrown out ballpark interpretations myself. I am one of "us." The thing is, if the analysis is correct, it will stand up to scrutiny. Hugh and all the self-pubbed out there should welcome the criticism. Others will test it. If it's solid, the results will be corroborated. 

Skepticism and criticism are part of the scientific method. Neither is a condemnation but a healthy reaction to any model. As the issues are identified and corrected for, the next iteration of data interpretation will be even better. 

But the only way it CAN get better is to BE better by taking lessons learned from the folk who understand data analysis and applying them going forward.


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

rosclarke said:


> Just to be clear, in case this is implied in your comment, Courtney is an incredibly successful self-publisher herself. She's not a naysayer with respect to self-publishing.


Thanks for bringing this up. I confess to not having read all of her article (as I indicated, the font made my head hurt). I didn't mean to imply she was negative per se, I'm just tired of people trying to make it into more than it is. I won't speak for anyone I don't have the right to speak for (which includes everyone, including myself half the time), but it seems like everyone that's trying to make more out of it than it is has an agenda.

So if I came across that way about her, I apologize. Somebody else mentioned a cliff notes version which made it sound like a good thing.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Hugh, I hope I've said it already, but if I haven't, you and Data Guy have done a great thing! Outside of making the data anonymous, you've provided broad access to the data for free, you've acknowledged the limitations of the study from the outset, invited scrutiny in a way none of the other studies have, sacrificed time (that could have been spent making money or enjoying that time with friends and family) and money and risked your future relationship with publishers and perhaps even Amazon. You've done this for other authors, not for yourself. I truly believe you and Data Guy want to help authors realize their full potential, be free to create instead of flip burgers (etc), and finally have some financial security without ever entering the realm of "bestseller."  

I just wish survey reports like the WD/DBW report, and numbers like those provided by Kensington's CEO were subject to as rigorous scrutiny. But, hey, I'm pretty sure that means you struck a nerve with the most objective and comprehensive data I've seen to date.

I'll repeat what I sent you in a PM. Pick a date when you're running additional crawls and tell me what I need to record from my dashboard for those dates and I will (romance & erotica genres). I bet hundreds of self-published authors in your data range would do the same.

Thank you -- you and Data Guy rock!


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## rosclarke (Jul 12, 2013)

Jason Halstead said:


> Thanks for bringing this up. I confess to not having read all of her article (as I indicated, the font made my head hurt). I didn't mean to imply she was negative per se, I'm just tired of people trying to make it into more than it is. I won't speak for anyone I don't have the right to speak for (which includes everyone, including myself half the time), but it seems like everyone that's trying to make more out of it than it is has an agenda.
> 
> So if I came across that way about her, I apologize. Somebody else mentioned a cliff notes version which made it sound like a good thing.


No problem.

Personally, I think everyone has an agenda. There is no neutral. That's why it seems even more important to me that methods and data are laid bare for examination by anyone. I think that Data Guy has hit on a great tool and there is real potential to discover some important and useful things about the current state of publishing. I don't think that it is best served by the kind of extrapolation that has been done so far and I would love to see someone who is a real statistician have a go at it.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> But the only way it CAN get better is to BE better by taking lessons learned from the folk who understand data analysis and applying them going forward.


Exactly. That was our hope when we released this, that people smarter than us would come forward and tell us what the data means.

Still looking forward to that happening. Especially as more data comes to light.

The brilliant thing about all of this is that nobody seems too surprised that self-published authors, as a group, are outselling the Big 5 on the largest marketplace and across the most popular segment of e-books. Maybe others already expected this. I would have guessed indies accounted for 15% of that market and the Big 5 accounted for 60%. By number of titles sold, it looks to be a dead heat (whatever sales rates you apply; the distribution is such that you can hurt or help one side without impacting the other).

Another shocker for me was to see that Amazon is likely making more money off us than the Big 5. That puts us in a position of power. Where are the fears that they'll take away our 70%? For me, those conspiracy theories are squashed. Gone. Poof. Good riddance. Where's my 80%? 

And e-books accounting for roughly 90% of the spots by format? I would've gone crazy and speculated 50%.

It'll be interesting to see what the 50,000 title report shows across all genres. My guess is that some of the numbers will be muted. But maybe it's crazy to assume anything. I would've been wrong about everything I saw in the last data set.

Oh, and I think people are getting caught up in precise author earnings, as if we are looking at real individuals. These numbers give us market share of large groups. Maybe we should have labeled the earnings "Hypothetical Indie Author A" or "Hypothetical Trad Author 1" to prevent the idea that each person in this snapshot could calculate something larger. My thinking is that indie and trad author alike will bounce around the charts, fall off them and come back on them, but the overall share will be pretty steady. Like Brownian Motion. I also assume whatever is true of one segment (how long an indie is on the list) applies on average to the other segment. Longitudinal studies might reveal this. ASINs can be tracked to answer some of those questions.

Anything that's wrong about the survey belongs to me. The data is spot-on. It is what it is. And the technique and idea, which belong to Data Guy, are absolutely brilliant and unbelievable game-changers. Others are already replicating his work. The dude's a genius, and he has single-handedly changed the game when it comes to reporting on the health of the publishing industry, both how we do that and what we'll find. Despite saying my conclusions could be wrong and welcoming discourse and disagreement, people are looking at this like we think it's a peer-reviewed bucket of fact. We don't. It's just the beginning. Except for some people, who can tell this is getting close to the end.


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## Guest (Feb 17, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> Except for some people, who can tell this is getting close to the end.


The end? Hugh, this is just the beginning.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Jason Halstead said:


> Thanks for bringing this up. I confess to not having read all of her article (as I indicated, the font made my head hurt). I didn't mean to imply she was negative per se, I'm just tired of people trying to make it into more than it is. I won't speak for anyone I don't have the right to speak for (which includes everyone, including myself half the time), but it seems like everyone that's trying to make more out of it than it is has an agenda.
> 
> So if I came across that way about her, I apologize. Somebody else mentioned a cliff notes version which made it sound like a good thing.


I think I'm taking the report for exactly what it is.

The report says things like, "self-published authors are earning more money from genre e-books than traditionally published authors." The data in the report does not provide enough information to support that conclusion. I'm not asking for a double-blind peer reviewed study, but I do ask that the report give the basic information required of a freshman level lab report.

To give you an example: Let's imagine that we're measuring the height of two buildings, but the only tool we have to measure them with is a single toothpick that must be laid end to end, and the only person that can do the measurement has super-shaky hands and is bad at counting. This person measures one building as 2,422 toothpicks high, and the other one as 2,134 toothpicks high. Do I feel confident reporting one building is higher than the other? Do I feel so confident about it that I tell people that in the event of a bad flood, they need to run to the first building? I shouldn't feel confident about it.

The way that we tell whether we're measuring with a bad counter laying toothpicks end to end, or whether we've got prime surveying equipment, is by giving an error estimate on the measurement.

Here, I can do my best to try and figure out what the error estimates are on the measurements, and what I come up with is "big." Probably at least 30%, and possibly more.

So when I see a graphic that breaks down daily revenue, and it says that traditionally published authors earn a tad over $200,000, and a graphic that says that indie published authors earn a tad over $300,000, I have to assume that those are rough figures. How rough? Well, I suspect they're at least 30%. And given that kind of margin of error, it might be that the reality is that traditionally published authors might take in as much as $260,000, and indie authors might earn as little as $210,000.

If the error in the study is greater than the difference in measurement capabilities, we can't make comparative statements.

You certainly can't make statements like, "Genre writers are financially better off self-publishing, no matter the potential of their manuscripts." Not on the basis of this data.

I obviously think that I am financially better off self-publishing, as I've chosen to do it. At this point, I simply can't imagine what a publisher would be able to offer me that would be worth what I have to give up. I'm willing to stipulate that most romance writers would make more money on a self-published book, although I don't think it's as simple a proposition as even that. (For instance, I'm still a little confused about what the report did with hybrid authors.) I agree with many of the conclusions stated in the report. I'm the one who ran the math for Brenna Aubrey and told her what a shitty deal a six-figure deal for her books was. I have a dog in this hunt, and it's the same dog as your dog.

My agenda in this is that I don't like it when my side makes mistakes it doesn't have to make. I'm not saying that the report is fatally flawed. I'm saying that there's a huge opportunity to make it better--to make it unassailable.

I think Phoenix Sullivan had it right. This was released too early.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Oh, and I think people are getting caught up in precise author earnings, as if we are looking at real individuals. These numbers give us market share of large groups. Maybe we should have labeled the earnings "Hypothetical Indie Author A" or "Hypothetical Trad Author 1" to prevent the idea that each person in this snapshot could calculate something larger. My thinking is that indie and trad author alike will bounce around the charts, fall off them and come back on them, but the overall share will be pretty steady. Like Brownian Motion. I also assume whatever is true of one segment (how long an indie is on the list) applies on average to the other segment. Longitudinal studies might reveal this. ASINs can be tracked to answer some of those questions.


I think that using this to evaluate indie market share is great. I think that using it to talk about the 30/70 digital/print number is useful.

I think that using it to evaluate relative author earnings on titles is (at present) deeply flawed, until you can get a handle on what the error rate is in this, because that's the point where it stops being a question of Brownian motion, where errors cancel out, and starts to be a place where the errors can swamp the analysis.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Yeah, people do need to keep in mind that the first report was only ever intended to be a first report: a beginning to what will hopefully be a long and broad analysis of lots and lots of data, at the end of which (or after a nice, long time; hopefully it'll never end) we'll be able to really apply the best minds in the industry and come up with some facts.  It's all preliminary stuff right now -- it seems to hint at some really, really exciting stuff, and we should all be jazzed about the possibilities -- but Early Data Is Early and all that.


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## Ben Mathew (Jan 27, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> If I reading the spreadsheet right, it shows one line per author. So there is one line if an author had one book, and one line if the author has ten books.
> 
> That implied there are raw records we don't see. The single line for an author with ten books is a summation from the set of ten lines, one for each book.
> 
> ...


There are two tabs on the spreadsheet (besides the graph). The first one, called "title data" shows one record per book. The second one, called "author data" is one record per author.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Ben Mathew said:


> There are two tabs on the spreadsheet (besides the graph). The first one, called "title data" shows one record per book. The second one, called "author data" is one record per author.


Not sure what is happening. I had trouble with the download, and don't see the buttons. I have been on an IMac. Ill give it a shot on the PC.

If it does have one record per book, then anyone can apply whatever mapping to sales they like. But I can't think of a mapping that would change the overall results.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Not sure what is happening. I had trouble with the download, and don't see the buttons. I have been on an IMac. Ill give it a shot on the PC.


I had the same problem at first. Just retry and hopefully it'll come up right the second time.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

Maria Romana said:


> Amazon's recommendation engines are the reason they are where they are today; no smart business would mess with that in exchange for short-term profits.


B&N does it all the time....oh....hmmm....well, guess that just proves the point since B&N is doing so well these days, huh?

Hugh...many many MANY thanks for all you and Data Guy have done and are planning on doing. You didn't have to stick your head up out of the hole, but you did....and the whack-a-Howey players who are trying to discredit you aren't doing too well at hitting their mark. Because they don't have the data, haven't been honest about the data they do have, and, while defending their wonderful studies ($300 for a copy? Really?) have ignored the questionable nature of their data (and the glaring gaps, which you have so often pointed out) while choosing to attach your data for not being something other than what it is. I'm one of your legion of Wool fans, but my hat's off to you for the incredible difference you've made in the whole discussion. Thank you!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Not sure what is happening. I had trouble with the download, and don't see the buttons. I have been on an IMac. Ill give it a shot on the PC.
> 
> If it does have one record per book, then anyone can apply whatever mapping to sales they like. But I can't think of a mapping that would change the overall results.


Exactly.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Just FYI I'm keeping a blog post with all the links I come across about the study.

http://www.clarybooks.com/?p=316


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## 28612 (Dec 7, 2010)

rosclarke said:


> I think what you're missing is that the report attempts to draw conclusions about author earnings from that data. If the book is replaced by a different indie book every day, then author earnings are overestimated by a factor of 365. If it's replaced every 10 days, they're overestimated by a factor of 36.5. And so on. There isn't any data in the report (because it is a snapshot) which gives a basis for the annual author earnings extrapolation.


Nope. Not missing that. But I see it as earnings for "an" author (a hypothetical standing in for an amalgam of authors), rather than "the" author.

The earnings would not be overestimated. The earnings for the books in that spot would, rather, be spread amongst the authors whose books have held that spot in proportion to the number of days it held that spot.

At that same time, no individual author's earnings could be overestimated by a factor determined by simply dividing by the days that author's book occupies that specific spot on the best seller list, because commonsense and experience say the book would occupy other spots on the list -- higher or lower -- for some period of time. What period of time at which spots? Entirely idiosyncratic.

I see this snapshot -- and appreciate it for -- giving a sense of the shape of things.

I'll be interested in the future entries in this fascinating wip with thanks to Hugh and DG.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

jnfr said:


> Just FYI I'm keeping a blog post with all the links I come across about the study.
> 
> http://www.clarybooks.com/?p=316


Thank you!!! I keep finding stuff but there is sooo much (as your post proves  )


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I think what you're missing is that the report attempts to draw conclusions about author earnings from that data. If the book is replaced by a different indie book every day, then author earnings are overestimated by a factor of 365. If it's replaced every 10 days, they're overestimated by a factor of 36.5. And so on. There isn't any data in the report (because it is a snapshot) which gives a basis for the annual author earnings extrapolation.


If we stay within the bounds of the data, we can make a similar point about all books, both traditional and independent.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

If we all chipped a couple bucks, maybe Hugh and Data Guy could buy a copy of the $300 WD/DBW report, and do a cross-analysis of the data? (or give it to Courtney Milan, who also seems to be good at that) - I"d be in for $10 toward purchasing the report.


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## PatriceFitz (Jan 8, 2011)

I'm definitely up for throwing in my $29.50 for the report... if nine more people do it, we can afford to read what they have to say!  Somebody check my math--will that add up to $295?

(Kidding! I'm good at math. Like most girls.)


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

I think they've released enough of the report not to need to pay for any of it. Until the survey participants become more robust, those results only have something to say about new writers just starting out. 40% of their respondents had yet to complete a manuscript. 30% of those who had only had a single book to their credit. I'm not sure it would tell us anything interesting for our numbers to agree or disagree with their numbers.

I think their survey would be awesome with more participation. I don't know of anyone who'd heard about it, and I get around in trad and self circles. I'd also want to see them control for the percentage of people who go trad without ever getting a book deal. Otherwise, the study is useless to authors. It's an earnings and happiness report that compares 1% of trad to 100% of self. Again, not much use for those of us at a crossroads.

ETA: Now I know how Darwin must've felt about Huxley: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/02/indies-eat-publishers-lunch-semi.html

Also interesting that a web-browser and pencil analysis came up with similar numbers: http://www.edwardwrobertson.com/2014/02/self-publishings-share-of-kindle-market.html


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Ed did a great job with his numbers. I know how much work it is to get all that info out by hand.

And as Blake was wondering earlier, we see that thrillers/mystery actually does have a much lower percentage of self-pubbed bestsellers than other genres. Which is curious and interesting and who knows exactly why?

More data is always useful.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

JNFR: If I had to guess, it would be three things. The airport effect (large numbers of this genre sold in airports), the demographic of the readership (older, so more likely to stay with tried and true brands than take a flyer), and fewer books read per person than other genres (take serial romance readers, whose appetites are voracious, and contrast that against someone who might read 6 novels a year). Throw in what I call "The Patterson Effect," wherein the top slots at any given time are going to be dominated by the biggest earners in the book business, and you have a good explanation for what I've always suspected the distribution is.

Bluntly, it would appear that genre matters a lot in terms of whether a trad deal is a good idea. For thrillers, a decent one might not be a bad idea. For romance, I'd ask why bother? Same for Sci Fi. Because of the reader demographic and the rate at which that demographic consumes novels, I'd be hard pressed to think of a reason to sign.

It's all rather fascinating.


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> ETA: Now I know how Darwin must've felt about Huxley: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/02/indies-eat-publishers-lunch-semi.html


Indeed! Konrath's point-by-point refutation is scathingly brilliant, and as always, beverage-spewingly humorous. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet, purely for the entertainment value.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> JNFR: If I had to guess, it would be three things. The airport effect (large numbers of this genre sold in airports), the demographic of the readership (older, so more likely to stay with tried and true brands than take a flyer), and fewer books read per person than other genres (take serial romance readers, whose appetites are voracious, and contrast that against someone who might read 6 novels a year). Throw in what I call "The Patterson Effect," wherein the top slots at any given time are going to be dominated by the biggest earners in the book business, and you have a good explanation for what I've always suspected the distribution is.
> 
> Bluntly, it would appear that genre matters a lot in terms of whether a trad deal is a good idea. For thrillers, a decent one might not be a bad idea. For romance, I'd ask why bother? Same for Sci Fi. Because of the reader demographic and the rate at which that demographic consumes novels, I'd be hard pressed to think of a reason to sign.
> 
> It's all rather fascinating.


Seeing the share of indie authors in THRILLERS might suggest how many people are reading thrillers, but as for whether or not it's best to self-publish or traditionally publish, you would have to look at the market share of traditionally published authors in the same category.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Also interesting that a web-browser and pencil analysis came up with similar numbers: http://www.edwardwrobertson.com/2014/02/self-publishings-share-of-kindle-market.html


Hugh, to be clear, the web-browser and pencil analysis came up with the same percentages of number of books that are trad vs indie in the sample sets.

I don't think anyone anywhere is refuting those ratios from your spider crawl or from Ed's computations. Those are hard data that are replicable by any computational method.

That isn't what the brouhaha is about.

And those ratios, which are pretty impressive for genre books, are being lost in the brouhaha. Which is the real shame...


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> And those ratios, which are pretty impressive for genre books, are being lost in the brouhaha. Which is the real shame...


Do you really think so? I would have thought the fact that even the critics of Hugh's analysis weren't disputing this was the major victory of the work he has done. No one is disputing the quality of indie literature anymore, nor the volum of sales on Amazon. They're all just faffing about at the edges of Hugh's analysis, which he admits is flawed.

The next lot of numbers will be interesting, especially to see if indie ratings hold their own. It's one thing for the top tier of indie sellers to out-rate trad sellers, but it would completely blow any claims of below-par quality of indie books right out of the water if the second tier of indie sellers have higher average star ratings than their trad published peers.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> Also interesting that a web-browser and pencil analysis came up with similar numbers: http://www.edwardwrobertson.com/2014/02/self-publishings-share-of-kindle-market.html


Thanks for the mention. 

Main goal was to see how the genre breakdown looked, but where the numbers overlapped, it was neat to see my back-of-the-envelope stuff match up with yours. Provides a piece of support against the criticism that your numbers are a snapshot that may not be representative of the real trends. I didn't really buy that.. Amazon is such a huge market that I don't think we'd see much variance from day to day. But more data is always good.

Speaking of, looking forward to the BN report.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> The next lot of numbers will be interesting, especially to see if indie ratings hold their own. It's one thing for the top tier of indie sellers to out-rate trad sellers, but it would completely blow any claims of below-par quality of indie books right out of the water if the second tier of indie sellers have higher average star ratings than their trad published peers.


Might have that data up tomorrow.

And the victory here is that people are now debating whether or not self-publishing is superior to traditional publishing, or merely its equal.

Wha-?!


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I noticed that as well. It seems like it's only been a few months since indies were accused of simply lying about their numbers. 

Also, personal attacks ftw.

The "mystery/thriller" thing in the back of the envelope analysis really intrigues me. More than other stores or moving into second tier, I'd love to see breakdowns of subgenre. The past two years in romance were dominated by erotic romance and new adult, both genres that had a head start. Erotic romance was ebook before the indie revolution because it was the only place you could buy it. New Adult was indie dominated because until it started to hit the best seller lists, NY wasn't buying it. So are they dragging romance into the indie world or does that extend to sweet romance and other subgenres?


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> I noticed that as well. It seems like it's only been a few months since indies were accused of simply lying about their numbers.


And remember two weeks ago when it was one indie slam piece after the other? What happened to those?

I feel like a filet mignon all of a sudden. Flying first class. Over a volcano spewing glitter and rainbows.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I'm counting down until they admit its successful but claim it's a bubble. We haven't heard that for about a year. It's due for a comeback.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

I do think this project is doable and I also think it's interesting. Nothing I say is an attempt to somehow discourage it. On the contrary, I hope Hugh continues with it. But taking some of these things into consideration will improve it.

*1. Samples and biases.* If there's a problem with Weinberg's study, it's that the population sampled (i.e., Writer's Digest readership) isn't representative of the whole indie population. That might be true, but it's not obviously so. No one knows how many indie writers there are or where the majority or a representative group of them can be found. But Hugh's study isn't an antidote or a counterbalance because he intentionally sought people that make money self-pubbing-not self-pubbers in general. That distorts things even more because it causes self-selection bias, meaning the only people who respond are people who make money.

*2. Weinberg and the "1%."* Hugh's study reported on the top 7,000 e-books on Amazon. The retailer has just over 2.4 million e-books in the Kindle Store, so his sample only represents the top 0.3% of e-books on Amazon. Dividing total books by authors doesn't improve the representativeness of the sample either. Even if we assume that the average author on Amazon has 5 books (bringing the total sample down to 480,000 authors instead of 2.4 million books), we have no way of knowing how many of those authors are represented (by one or more books) in the top 0.3%. For example, at 5 books apiece, 1,400 writers could've written all 7,000 of the top books, so we're back to surveying only 0.3% of the authors on Amazon (i.e., on the five-book assumption).

By the way, the top 50,000 is still only 2% of 2.4 million e-books.

*3. Scientific reporting.* The people here who've criticized the report (Phoenix, Courtney) haven't "assumed" that the report is scientific; they've explained why it's not scientific and why, as a consequence, the inferences about income and so forth aren't reliable.

But that doesn't mean that Hugh can't generate results that are scientifically defensible. If he tracked the top 2,000 books weekly for a year by price and units sold (with units sold inferred from rank), he could draw inferences about income from the books travelling through that range for that time period. If the tracking is good and he excludes and otherwise accounts for anomalies, he could produce results that would be very difficult to dispute by anyone. Phoenix seems to think this is possible, and there's also a way to neutralize Courtney's (very valid) criticism of the ranking-earnings correlation by tracking over time.

*4. Reviews comparison.* Hugh discounted tampering and other explanations for the discrepancy between trad/indie review averages. But the difference between 4.15 and 4.35 on an average of 100 reviews is only 5 five-star reviews in place of 5 one-stars, which isn't much of a difference. Some people are claiming it's a statistically significant difference. But that only holds when the two groups being compared are essentially the same. Indie and trad books are different, however; even if you leave aside gaming reviews, the fact that indies report bogus one-stars to Amazon while trads don't is going to affect the overall ratings.

It's also not obvious that the price-value claim-i.e., that indie books are better value for money-is a good explanation for the gap. And need I mention that that sword cuts both way? Indie books are (generally) less than half the price of trad books. Yet the disparity between ratings is only marginal. So if the main reason for rating indies higher is value for money, all other things equal, trad books must be better value for money. Put another way, the price gap is wider than the ratings gap; so if both books were priced the same, indie ratings would decline over trad books. Now, I'm not saying that this is true, and it does depend on a whole lot of other things. What I'm saying is that the facts make it as possible as the opposite explanation.

Again, I hope he continues with the project. But my reaction to it was almost exactly the same as that of Courtney, Phoenix, and others.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Love studies like this because the remind me of...



Robert Heinlein said:


> Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

My hope is that this study finally kills the trad v indie debate. It's nigh on impossible to get accurate numbers on Amazon sales because of all the little bits and pieces that go into the algo. What is very possible, and what Hugh has achieved, is to show the lay of the retail landscape. Hugh's data invalidates the two most potent attacks levelled against indies.

First, it is impossible to refute the assertion that indie published ebooks sell as many as trad published ebooks through Amazon. That is beyond doubt, which means that one of the pillars of indie attack - too many ebooks will dilute sales and the turn readers away - has been demolished.

Second, it is impossible to refute the fact that indie published ebooks were rated just as highly as traditionally published ebooks by the reading public who purchased ebooks through Amazon. Therefore, the second pillar of indie attack - that indies publish poorly written, badly edited rubbish which will turn off readers - has also been demolished.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Sylvia Day, today, on Marketplace (NPR):

"I love digital books. And I actually started digital-first publishing back in 2005. Of course, now with the novels I release today, I sell on average three eBooks to one paperback. Traditional publishing has a lot of work to do to catch up to that. The shift in power from publishers to authors has been massive. And really the driving seat now is no longer the sales and marketing department of a publisher who is on an acquisition meeting saying, 'I really don't know how we're going to sell this,' to the reader who just can surf on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Kobo and just say, 'Boy, that sounds interesting, I'll pick it up.' That's why we see these self-publishing books that just explode and publishers are like, 'how did people hear about that?' Well, readers are in the driver's seat."

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/big-book/meet-sylvia-day-steamy-baroness-book-deals










B.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Thank you for the find and link, Justin!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

WHDean said:


> *2. Weinberg and the "1%."* Hugh's study reported on the top 7,000 e-books on Amazon. The retailer has just over 2.4 million e-books in the Kindle Store, so his sample only represents the top 0.3% of e-books on Amazon. Dividing total books by authors doesn't improve the representativeness of the sample either. Even if we assume that the average author on Amazon has 5 books (bringing the total sample down to 480,000 authors instead of 2.4 million books), we have no way of knowing how many of those authors are represented (by one or more books) in the top 0.3%. For example, at 5 books apiece, 1,400 writers could've written all 7,000 of the top books, so we're back to surveying only 0.3% of the authors on Amazon (i.e., on the five-book assumption).
> 
> By the way, the top 50,000 is still only 2% of 2.4 million e-books.


Is this really a concern? It blew my mind when I saw this. The problem with the DBW report is that it ignores the 99% of manuscripts in the slush pile. It only makes sense to ignore the 99% of self-published books that aren't faring well. Looking at the top 2% is overkill for an apples to apples comparison.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Dividing total books by authors doesn't improve the representativeness of the sample either.


Sample? It is the full population of the top 7,000 genre books. A sample would have taken some of the 7,000 and used it to represent all of the 7,000.

7,000 books randomly taken from KDP would be a sample.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

I truly don't see myself as in the top 2% of self-published authors. I doubt I am. I have 28 books that 95+% of my earnings are spread out on. Some contribute in a bigger way than others, of course, but even the small contributors are at least $5k a year unless they are priced $0.99. I'm probably getting about half my income on the long-tail principle (a plump tail, but a tail nonetheless). 

I say that because I think the top 2% are making more than we can project, which means a large segment below the top 2% are making real money -- above the poverty level, 2x the poverty level and better. If they are self-publishing. 

And do we really care about a book that is selling in the 2 million mark? My apologies to anyone in that zone - my other pen name has about 8 books in the 1m to 1.5m and one almost at 2m. I haven't tried to pull those books up in the same way I started my Christa name. I had one new release for that pen name all of last year and I probably will keep the books up but never release a new book under that pen name or finish putting my backlist up. (The last new release was something like 2009 before that.) I don't have a perma-free for that name. I don't market at all for that name. I probably haven't even optimized my keywords for that name. And I know the content/themes are a bit too "out there." The books, despite being nicely covered, blurbed and written to the same standards as my Christa books, deserve to be where they are. I put them there in so many ways -- starting with what I chose to write. I did not put on my publisher cap with those books. 

Hugh's report tells us what is possible when you put on your publisher cap (and your marketing cap) while doing good work as a writer (or happen to get damn lucky!). It also serves IMO as a decision guide for all the reasons that have been batted around - what genre are you in; is paper worth it for your genre; if not, then why sign a contract with crappy ebook rates? 

I can't wait to see the next one!


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Is this really a concern? It blew my mind when I saw this. The problem with the DBW report is that it ignores the 99% of manuscripts in the slush pile. It only makes sense to ignore the 99% of self-published books that aren't faring well. Looking at the top 2% is overkill for an apples to apples comparison.


Maybe I don't follow your complaint against Weinberg. It seemed to me that you thought she didn't paint an accurate portrait of self-publishing because of the implied comparison between her sample and the top 1% of published authors. I didn't see how that could be a problem when you're only comparing the top 0.3% to each other. (If that's not your point, I didn't follow your intent in raising the 1% figure.)

I should add that a lot depends what you're trying to show: (1) If you meant to show that self-published writers can make it onto the top of the Amazon bestseller lists, then you showed that in spades. (2) If you meant to show that self-published authors at the top of the food chain make as much as trad published authors at the same place, I think there's a prima facie case for that, but the jury's still out until the missing pieces can be filled in.

Personally, I have no doubt that self-publishing is the better option. By my analysis is my own.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

Only speaking for myself, the issue I had with the DBW survey is that a self-selected population isn't necessarily a valid sample for anything.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

The problem with Weinberg's report was that she biased her populations by ignoring trad published authors who had yet to be published, while including all self published authors who had never sold a book. 

Had she had done her analysis without this bias, it would have been far more useful, but then again, not many of her target audience would fork over $300 for a report that doesn't tell them what they want to hear.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Maybe I don't follow your complaint against Weinberg. It seemed to me that you thought she didn't paint an accurate portrait of self-publishing because of the implied comparison between her sample and the top 1% of published authors. I didn't see how that could be a problem when you're only comparing the top 0.3% to each other. (If that's not your point, I didn't follow your intent in raising the 1% figure.)
> 
> I should add that a lot depends what you're trying to show: (1) If you meant to show that self-published writers can make it onto the top of the Amazon bestseller lists, then you showed that in spades. (2) If you meant to show that self-published authors at the top of the food chain make as much as trad published authors at the same place, I think there's a prima facie case for that, but the jury's still out until the missing pieces can be filled in.
> 
> Personally, I have no doubt that self-publishing is the better option. By my analysis is my own.


I think we just wanted to know the overall share in rough percentage terms between trad and self pub. Everyone of course will personalise this data, but to me it's not about where I come in the list or who is top 10% etc. It's about knowing (which I already did) that self pub is a viable career where you can earn a better living in some genres than you could possibly make in trad unless hit by lightning and become a JK Rowling. This isn't perhaps important to us here because we already knew, but validating our position with real data to other authors wavering on the fence and scared to make the jump is important for them. They need the light shone on the situation to make an informed choice.

Let's not forget that everyone on kboards was already invested in self pub and believed--even without proof--that something like this data was the reality. I mean, its hard to ignore when one of my books drops below another board member one day and then edges passed another the following week. You get to know those titles and authors. I watch my sci-fi genre lists, and I recognise many of the books from this board hovering around mine. In some of those lists, a trad book is a rare sight.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> Do you really think so? I would have thought the fact that even the critics of Hugh's analysis weren't disputing this was the major victory of the work he has done. No one is disputing the quality of indie literature anymore, nor the volum of sales on Amazon. They're all just faffing about at the edges of Hugh's analysis, which he admits is flawed.


Yes, I do believe the emphasis is being lost.

But I also believe the claims around market share could be overstated. Indies are claiming more high-value spots on the bestseller lists, yes, but what does that actually say about the market?

So let me try this one more time. Let's look at things we know:

Indies have historically not been counted in the industry reports that talk about how the ebook market is doing. So if the market is flattening for the trad pubs, that still means they are selling the same number of ebooks now as they were before, regardless of where those books appear in the ranks.

Two years ago -- in March and April, to be exact -- it took around 600 sales to hit #85 on the Amazon bestseller list. Today it takes about twice that, though seasonality accounts for maybe a 10-15% fluctuation in those numbers. I know. We've been putting 1-4 books into the Top 100 paid each month, and I keep very detailed records.

What can be deduced from these observations? That the ebook market has grown by a considerable factor over the past two years, certainly. But what can we actually deduce about market share?

One possibility is that the majority of the overall growth can be attributed directly to indies, which is why the trads remain flatlined or growing at extremely modest single-digit rates (assuming that's the case). But even flatlined, does that mean the trads are suffering and losing ground to indies?

Not necessarily. It may mean they are not gaining ground, but would the market be increasing had indies not entered it all? That's an unknowable.

Let's say, though, that the trads held 90% of the lists 2 years ago. If we apply the same fuzzy math as the HH report does for figuring units sold along with my historical data, we can assume it took 50% fewer sales to hit each rank then.

Using today's numbers, the overall unit sales for the Top 100 is about 207,500 copies:
(From Theresa Ragan's sales chart at http://www.theresaragan.com/p/sale-ranking-chart.html)
20,000 - Ranks 1-5
52,500 - Ranks 6-20
37,500 - Ranks 21-35
97,500 - Ranks 36-100 (I used the median of a 1000-2000 spread here)

If we halve that, we get 103,750 for 2 years ago.

90% of 103,750 = 93,375

50% of today's overall unit sales of 207,500 = 103,750

By this measure, trad pubs could lose 40% of what's being ill-defined here as market share and still be selling MORE than they were 2 years ago. Maybe this is why they aren't running scared?

(ETA: If books in the #1-5 ranks are selling considerably more than 4000 copies each day, and trad pubs routinely hold the majority of those spots, then the above actually skews even more in favor of an increase in trad ebook numbers when applying the same factors.)


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> One possibility is that the majority of the overall growth can be attributed directly to indies, which is why the trads remain flatlined or growing at extremely modest single-digit rates (assuming that's the case). But even flatlined, does that mean the trads are suffering and losing ground to indies?


Depends on the measurement. Over the last year...

If we use units sold, and trads have not seen a decrease in units, then trads have not lost units to independents regardless of what independents did.

If we use dollars, and trads have not seen a decrease in dollars, then trads have not lost dollars to independents regardless of what independents did.

If we use unit market share, and independents have increased unit market share, then trads have lost unit market share to independents.

If we use dollar market share, and independents have increased dollar market share, then trads have lost dollar market share to independents.

Market share indicates the changing tastes and preferences of consumers.

This isn't a credit default swap where one party pays the other if a certain event happens. If it was, then we would have to really nail down the numbers. This is a situation where each company and author decides their individual path. The Howey study may not be perfect, but it is certainly sufficient for making much better decisions today than ten days ago.

I eagerly await the numbers from the traditional side.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

I wonder which of those measurements Rupert Murdoch and Thomas Rabe care most about.

B.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I wonder which of those measurements Rupert Murdoch and Thomas Rabe care most about.
> 
> B.


"We have lost market share, Rupert. But don't worry, our sales are flat."


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> "We have lost market share, Rupert. But don't worry, our sales are flat."


Or

"We have lost market share, Rupert. But don't worry, we'll just double our prices."


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Sample? It is the full population of the top 7,000 genre books. A sample would have taken some of the 7,000 and used it to represent all of the 7,000.
> 
> 7,000 books randomly taken from KDP would be a sample.


The sampling relates to _when _the data was collected, since we can't collect data on the top 7000 every hour the rankings change.

We're making assumptions about the behavior of those 7000 (that they're representative of the top 7000 at any given time) based on a snapshot. We can argue about the robustness of the sampling and the robustness of the assumptions, but it's still a sample.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Its actually a census.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> The sampling relates to _when _the data was collected, since we can't collect data on the top 7000 every hour the rankings change.
> 
> We're making assumptions about the behavior of those 7000 (that they're representative of the top 7000 at any given time) based on a snapshot. We can argue about the robustness of the sampling and the robustness of the assumptions, but it's still a sample.


By definition, the HH data is not a sample because the crawlers captured the whole population of the Top 7,000. This distinction is of critical importance because it informs which statistical tests can and should be performed on the data. Census data is often the only means of obtaining insight into small sub-groups which samples cannot comment on due to the natural limits of a sample's precision. Dealing with entire populations open up whole new avenues. That is one of the reasons why I was so excited with how Hugh went about his data collection.

That is not to say you are not raising a critical point. Censuses are still only snapshots. If the US government had based a 1931 food aid program off a hypothetical 1928 census, demand would have been severely underestimated. Similar arguments could be envisioned for the publishing landscape. If the majority of industrial publishing's advertising dollars were targeted for a certain time of the year, or if consumers of industrially published content were vastly more likely to purchase content at a particular time of day/week/month/season then many of the assumptions made in the HH report would fail. Collection of additional data sets is therefore entirely warranted, and hopefully those sets, too, will be censuses.

B.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> What can be deduced from these observations? That the ebook market has grown by a considerable factor over the past two years, certainly. But what can we actually deduce about market share?
> 
> One possibility is that the majority of the overall growth can be attributed directly to indies, which is why the trads remain flatlined or growing at extremely modest single-digit rates (assuming that's the case). But even flatlined, does that mean the trads are suffering and losing ground to indies?
> 
> ...


The other explanation is that indies are converting the used book market/trade to low-priced e-books. Consider that the most important variables are price and convenience, and indie books are in the same price range as used books and they're more convenient. I've never heard this offered as an explanation by all the so-called experts in the business, but I've long suspected it. And it does seem like the only way to explain the apparent explosion in indie sales without a concomitant decrease in trad books sales or a concomitant increase in readership. It also explains why so many used book stores are either going out of business or focusing on niche books-at least, all the ones I go to.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

B. Justin Shier said:


> By definition, the HH data is not a sample because the crawlers captured the whole population of the Top 7,000. This distinction is of critical importance because it informs which statistical tests can and should be performed on the data. Census data is often the only means of obtaining insight into small sub-groups which samples cannot comment on due to the natural limits of a sample's precision. Dealing with entire populations open up whole new avenues. That is one of the reasons why I was so excited with how Hugh went about his data collection.
> 
> That is not to say you are not raising a critical point. Censuses are still only snapshots. If the US government had based a 1931 food aid program off a hypothetical 1928 census, demand would have been severely underestimated. Similar arguments could be envisioned for the publishing landscape. If the majority of industrial publishing's advertising dollars were targeted for a certain time of the year, or if consumers of industrially published content were vastly more likely to purchase content at a particular time of day/week/month/season then many of the assumptions made in the HH report would fail. Collection of additional data sets is therefore entirely warranted, and hopefully those sets, too, will be censuses.
> 
> B.


Great explanation. I stand corrected.


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## edmunddewight (Jan 28, 2014)

Thanks for pulling the curtain back and trying to show some of what the real world of author earnings is like. So much is hidden behind the big publishers touting themselves as the only way and so much more is hidden behind the impenetrable barrier of Amazon's methodology that authors have no clue what to expect. This is really a game changer. I can't wait to see how the data plays out over time.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

WHDean said:


> The other explanation is that indies are converting the used book market/trade to low-priced e-books. Consider that the most important variables are price and convenience, and indie books are in the same price range as used books and they're more convenient. I've never heard this offered as an explanation by all the so-called experts in the business, but I've long suspected it. And it does seem like the only way to explain the apparent explosion in indie sales without a concomitant decrease in trad books sales or a concomitant increase in readership. It also explains why so many used book stores are either going out of business or focusing on niche books-at least, all the ones I go to.


Used is reasonable. And as backlists go up on KDP, it becomes the equivalent of a used eBook store.

But if trad unit sales in the subject genres are indeed not decreasing, how would we know? The trads have both paper and eBooks. Where do we look to see how each has done? Where can see see both units and dollars? To what level of detail?

Independent increases in the subject genres can come from 
1. Brand new purchasers 
2. Trad Paperback
3. Trad Hardback 
4. Trad eBook
5. Independents in other genres
6. Used 
7. Libraries
8. Some other stuff I didn't think of

We also have to acknowledge a consumer can drop one trad paperback and buy three independent units for the same outlay.

I don't know where to get the data.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

WHDean said:


> The other explanation is that indies are converting the used book market/trade to low-priced e-books. Consider that the most important variables are price and convenience, and indie books are in the same price range as used books and they're more convenient. I've never heard this offered as an explanation by all the so-called experts in the business, but I've long suspected it.


Fair point. However, we must also consider how many of those bargain buyers are now "lost" to the siren's call of digitally pirated, free, and public domain works.  I prefer to wake up asking how I can best steal market share away from Candy Crush. It makes my coffee taste better.

B.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> By this measure, trad pubs could lose 40% of what's being ill-defined here as market share and still be selling MORE than they were 2 years ago. Maybe this is why they aren't running scared?
> 
> (ETA: If books in the #1-5 ranks are selling considerably more than 4000 copies each day, and trad pubs routinely hold the majority of those spots, then the above actually skews even more in favor of an increase in trad ebook numbers when applying the same factors.)


It's not from sales that the trad publishers are running scared, it's losing the slush pile that is worrying them. All the recent attacks have been trying to downplay indie earnings, telling us that, apart from a few outliers like Hugh, no one's making money.

Can't make no bread if there ain't no grist for the mill.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Drew Gideon said:


> Michael Bunker stepped up to the mic regarding Hugh's report and the overall "choice" between Trad/Indie, and nailed it.
> 
> http://journal.michaelbunker.com/2014/02/is-traditional-publishing-choice-not.html


Just read that blog. He didn't just nail it, he used one of those pneumatic industrial-sized rivet guns! Awesome.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

B. Justin Shier said:


> By definition, the HH data is not a sample because the crawlers captured the whole population of the Top 7,000. This distinction is of critical importance because it informs which statistical tests can and should be performed on the data. Census data is often the only means of obtaining insight into small sub-groups which samples cannot comment on due to the natural limits of a sample's precision. Dealing with entire populations open up whole new avenues. That is one of the reasons why I was so excited with how Hugh went about his data collection.
> 
> That is not to say you are not raising a critical point. Censuses are still only snapshots. If the US government had based a 1931 food aid program off a hypothetical 1928 census, demand would have been severely underestimated. Similar arguments could be envisioned for the publishing landscape. If the majority of industrial publishing's advertising dollars were targeted for a certain time of the year, or if consumers of industrially published content were vastly more likely to purchase content at a particular time of day/week/month/season then many of the assumptions made in the HH report would fail. Collection of additional data sets is therefore entirely warranted, and hopefully those sets, too, will be censuses.
> 
> B.


Thanks for clarifying this.

Also: Our current run grabbed EVERYTHING. If it's on any sub-sub-sub lists, we snagged it. Over 54,000 titles. Hoping to have the report up tonight.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I think the reason there's so much pushback from certain segments is straightforward: a combination of our old friends fear and greed.

Fear, because in business, you're either shrinking or growing, and entrenched players generally want things to continue as they have as opposed to being displaced by new rivals or technology.

Greed because if the average mid-list author is earning, say, $25K, and the average mid-list self-pubbed author is making $50K, then the industry would have to offer better contracts, and it doesn't want to do that, because in most book deals it's viewed as zero sum. If there's a dollar earned, the less the author gets the more for the company. It's very simple. 

Just fear and greed. 

I've been saying for a while that smart publishers will have to start offering better deals to attract the mid-list authors who can actually perform, and will have to return to the old days where it might take three or four books for a hit to happen. Witness Dan Brown. In the current environment there would have been no Da Vinci Code - just his first book, which sort of bombed, and that would have been it.

Of course, you have an essentially adversarial relationship inherent in zero sum deals, but the trads have to couch it differently: they're helping the author, not raping him. It's an honor to be paid peanuts from each dollar, not an affront. And so on. Same as in the music biz.

I personally don't think the trad pubs are quaking in their boots because of a lack of submissions or because they fear going out of business. I think they fear getting less of each dollar to secure the best talent. It's almost a laugh to approach a bestselling indie romance author for them - there's little chance anyone's going to trade off a million dollars of revenue from a book or two in exchange for $300K today. So people like Holly give them the finger. But there are a lot of other genres, and they're battling for their profits here, not to prove a point.

It's basic business. More for me. Less for you. Someone loses in a zero sum relationship so I might gain. 

Simple


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Thanks for clarifying this.
> 
> Also: Our current run grabbed EVERYTHING. If it's on any sub-sub-sub lists, we snagged it. Over 54,000 titles. Hoping to have the report up tonight.


Cue the site crashing within five seconds of publishing it.


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## Ben Mathew (Jan 27, 2013)

WHDean said:


> *3. Scientific reporting.* The people here who've criticized the report (Phoenix, Courtney) haven't "assumed" that the report is scientific; they've explained why it's not scientific and why, as a consequence, the inferences about income and so forth aren't reliable.
> 
> But that doesn't mean that Hugh can't generate results that are scientifically defensible. If he tracked the top 2,000 books weekly for a year by price and units sold (with units sold inferred from rank), he could draw inferences about income from the books travelling through that range for that time period. If the tracking is good and he excludes and otherwise accounts for anomalies, he could produce results that would be very difficult to dispute by anyone. Phoenix seems to think this is possible, and there's also a way to neutralize Courtney's (very valid) criticism of the ranking-earnings correlation by tracking over time.


This seems to be the most significant weakness that has been raised so far. I agree that it's a fair point. We can't accurately calculate an author's annual earnings from the rankings of his/her books at a given point in time. The report assumes that an author's sales will be constant over the course of a year. And that's not often true. There are ups and downs. You have described how we can address this by tracking rankings over time. That would certainly be a useful thing to do. But--and I think that this is a point that has not been emphasized enough--this shortcoming biases the report *against* Hugh's claims about indie author earnings. *Fixing the shortcoming will provide more, not less, support to Hugh's claims about indie author earnings.* Here's his oft-stated claim. From the report:



> *Writing Doesn't Pay?*
> 
> This is a story that has been sensed by many. The clues are all around us, but the full picture proves elusive. It is being told in anecdotes on online forums, in private Facebook groups, at publishing conventions, and in the comment sections of industry articles. Authors are claiming to be making more money now with self-publishing than they made in decades with traditional publishers, often with the same books [link]. I've personally heard from nearly a thousand authors who are making hundreds of dollars a month with their self-published works. I know many who are making thousands a month, even a few who are making hundreds of thousands a month. But these extreme outliers interest me far less than the mid-list authors who are now paying a bill or two from their writing.
> 
> My interest in this story began the moment I became an outlier. When major media outlets began asking for interviews, my first thought was that they were burying the lead. My life had truly changed months prior, when I'd first started making dribs and drabs here and there. And I knew this was happening for more and more writers every day. But that inspiring story was being buried by headlines about those whose luck was especially outsized (as mine has been).


In other words, Hugh's story is that a lot of indies are making modest money, not that a few indies are making lots of money. I've heard him say this several times over the past year. It's his central claim about author earnings--the story he's excited about. I'm guessing he wants the data to confirm this. Now if I'm reading the data right, on the day the data was downloaded, 1,330 indie authors took home a total of $324,342 and 962 big five authors took home a total of $216,176. So indie authors took home an average of $244 and big five authors took home $225. If these 1,330 indie authors experienced the same sales the rest of the year, they would have taken home, on average, $89,011 per year. And if these 962 big five authors experienced the same sales the rest of the year, they would have taken home, on average, $82,021 per year.

Now what would happen if Hugh's assumption of steady sales does not hold? What if there are ups and downs and one author falls in the rankings and another rises? Then that $244 per day for indies will be spread out more between the authors in the sample and also between authors who are not in the sample because they were having a bad day. That's great news for Hugh's claim! Look, it's not just Holly at the top making all that money. These earnings are more evenly divided between authors both inside and outside the sample. So Hugh's assumption is, in a sense, a conservative assumption. It goes against the story he's trying to say. The real story is even better for Hugh (and for those of us lower down in the distribution).


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Hugh: I tried posting this comment on the original report, but kept getting, "go back and enter the correct password" (or a message like that). There was no password field on the form, so there was nothing I could do.

Here's what I wanted to say...



> Thanks for the excellent start, Hugh. As one of the "authors you wanted to hear from," I appreciate the value and timeliness of this information. I'm excited to see how the data and conclusions will evolve as you analyze trends over time and refine the analysis. This is only the beginning!
> 
> I also appreciate the real story you are trying to tell with this project. Most of your detractors seem to be missing the point. My writing hasn't earned me a living, but it has contributed substantially to my income. I have no reason to believe I would have earned *anything* if I had tried the traditional route. I'll never know for sure, but even if I had been accepted by the gatekeepers, I've seen no evidence that publishers are better at selling books than authors, particularly first time authors.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

On this whole "only covers 7000 books" how many books does a small bookstore have anyway? We've gotten used to the B&N/Borders superstores, but my life growing up was small Waldenbooks or an even smaller indie store that had, I dunno, like two shelves of SF, 2 of mystery, and 4 of romance?


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

markecooper said:


> http://journal.michaelbunker.com/2014/02/is-traditional-publishing-choice-not.html
> Just read that blog. He didn't just nail it, he used one of those pneumatic industrial-sized rivet guns! Awesome.


Yes! My favorite line from that blog post:
"...in choosing to go this route [trab pubbing], you aren't really choosing to publish. You are choosing to SUBMIT. You are choosing to buy a lottery ticket."

This is where he really nailed it.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

And the 50k Report is up, with all the raw data. Let's see how long the server stays up this time.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

The nonfiction data caught me flatfooted. It's great to see small and medium-sized publishers doing so well there. 
(Perhaps that is the norm. I simply had no idea.)

B.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The in-roads being made outside of genre fiction are eye-opening. Nicely done Hugh and DG.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

It's interesting if you have to be on any genre list, no matter how sub, sub, sub the list might be. The more niche a list, the "worse" the rank can be and still chart. Plus, this was 2/7 and Amazon added all the erotica cats just this week, so that would make for a very interesting future draw pushing out a decent portion of the nonfiction titles. 

But the "list" requirement means there's a lot of "living wage" not being captured, especially in competitive genres like Romance. I very, very, very seldom make a list (even though I have 3 titles ranked more favorably than 11k and 6 additional titles ranked more favorably than 25k), yet I definitely make a living wage. That's probably true for some trade published authors, too.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Cool beans!

Great job again, guys.

Here is an idle thought for another bit of data I'd be curious about: Is there any way you could grab numbers from much further down?

I'm looking at Kindle editions of backlist from some classic authors, such as Donald Westlake.  A lot of his books are ranked at 200,000 or so.  There are a lot of beloved books hanging about at that ranking. So we know that that ranking is not the "swill" we hear so much about.

So I'm just curious about how low you have to go before the ratio starts shifting to mostly self published.  Where does the so-called Tsunami of Swill begin?

Is it possible to spot check a couple thousand books in the 200,000 to 198,000 range?  Or does the sampling depend on books hitting some kind of sub-category top 100 list to be found?

Camille


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Right now, we can only hit the top 100 sub-sub-sub lists (and their parent lists). One way to crawl for deeper data would be to bounce through also-boughts randomly and just keep collecting data deeper and deeper into those links.

The problem with cataloging books ranked over 200,000 is that a single sale creates enormous volatility. I don't know what we'd even be looking at there.

And I hear what people are saying when they point out that they make a living wage without even being on the list, and that just strengthens our argument. What you'll hear from the anti-indie crowd in the next week (if they bother to respond) is that these 54,000 titles are not only outliers, but that they aren't making much money. Those arguments ignore the fact that 4 or 5 of these books belong to a single author, and the total earnings might be $50,000, where no book is paying a living wage. It also misses the fact that some self-pubbed authors are paying bills without any books on a bestseller list.

I don't think many trad-pubbed people fit into that last category, though. The royalty rates are simply too low.


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## Escapee (Jan 31, 2014)

Hugh, you have cured me of my wistful hope that I would one day be snatched up by a trad publisher. After reading through the reports and subsequent posts from other indie authors, I see that I'd be better off without the scanty royalties the big 5 offer. My thanks go to you and the data guy for your hard work compiling the reports and explaining them in such detail.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm sure there's an obvious answer that I'm too blind to see, but why not use the top 50,000 by overall rank and ignore the BS lists?


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> The problem with cataloging books ranked over 200,000 is that a single sale creates enormous volatility. I don't know what we'd even be looking at there.


Yeah, I think you'd only be able to do much with that if you were able to grab a snapshot -- all at once, not spidering (which would create biases), but only if you could actually grab a block all at once.

If you could actually capture a rankings block at a particular moment, then you should get a representative sample of the books bouncing up and down in the range. (Honestly, the difference between 100k and 500k isn't enough to matter in terms of income. The point would be to find a way to capture a relatively random and unbiased sample of books within that range. IMHO a one moment contiguous block would be a good way to do that.)

It might be easier to do it at Barnes and Noble, where the numbers aren't so volatile....

But anyway, I didn't think you could do it. Just thought it would be cool data to know.

Camille


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

Great job again, Hugh. Just keep piling on. Given that these are the only hard DATA that anyone is putting out, your reports will remain the locus of discussion, until and unless Legacy, Inc. chooses to open their files and share their own data. It is simply not credible for them to continue throwing stones at you without providing alternative numbers -- or to blame Amazon for not being transparent while traditional publishers bury their own data and require their own authors to keep secret the terms of their contracts.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Monique said:


> I'm sure there's an obvious answer that I'm too blind to see, but why not use the top 50,000 by overall rank and ignore the BS lists?


Because Amazon doesn't list books by rank in general, only the top 100 in any particular genre list.

I would LOVE to be able to see books by rank, but that's just not available.

Camille


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> Because Amazon doesn't list books by rank in general, only the top 100 in any particular genre list.
> 
> I would LOVE to be able to see books by rank, but that's just not available.
> 
> Camille


Si, I know they don't put out lists of them, I just thought there must be a way. I guess it would require spidering the whole magilla though and then using the overall rank to filter out the top 100k or whatever.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

You know, this is probably too simple to be possible, but....

You can find books listed by price range with a link like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?node=154606011&field-publisher=-domain&field-price=99-299&redirect=true

(That searches for all books priced between .99 and 2.99, excluding public domain.)

It seems like if you could find the name of the field for Kindle paid sales rank, maybe you could get an immediate snapshot of ranges of rank. The details could potentially be spidered out later.

Camille


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Monique said:


> I'm sure there's an obvious answer that I'm too blind to see, but why not use the top 50,000 by overall rank and ignore the BS lists?


Total guess, and I haven't read the new data yet, but because the top 50,000 would all be in Romance, and erotica?


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

I'm not surprised at the figures. Self pubbing is a job. You do a bad job and people will remember and speak. You do a great job and the same happens, except you move forward.


OT: Who does Mr. Bunker's covers? They're gorgeous.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

AA2014 said:


> OT: Who does Mr. Bunker's covers? They're gorgeous.


That would be Jason Gurley. He's the bomb.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Monique said:


> Si, I know they don't put out lists of them, I just thought there must be a way. I guess it would require spidering the whole magilla though and then using the overall rank to filter out the top 100k or whatever.


At which point you will have the data for what 2? 3? million books. Thats a lot of crunch time.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> At which point you will have the data for what 2? 3? million books. Thats a lot of crunch time.


I don't think we need to go any deeper to show that self-published e-books are competing with traditionally published e-books. I believe we've dispelled the notion that this story is about a handful of top sellers who might be poached by NY houses. I hope we've dispelled the notion that we are cattle. I'm sure the anti-indie army will rally the troops and we'll see more articles come out that bash self-publishing, but anyone on the fence or with an open mind will dismiss these as the fear-mongering that they are.

Until they show us some great benefit to taking less money and giving away our art, all the attacks are now going to feel even more strident and petty than before. Not because anything has changed -- I think most here and many elsewhere knew that these numbers existed -- but now they know what we've known.

At best, I hope the end result is that they treat their authors better with fairer contracts, better pay, and most importantly: greater respect.
At minimum, I hope this helps authors make the tough decision, title by title, on what to do with their work. There is no right answer except an uninformed one.
At worst, I hope the people who take pleasure in denigrating what we enjoy doing -- writing and publishing directly to our fans -- will kindly STFU.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> The problem with cataloging books ranked over 200,000 is that a single sale creates enormous volatility. I don't know what we'd even be looking at there.


I'd say it's over 100k. I'm seeing a 500s rank drop to the 120s on the basis of one sale.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Katie Elle said:


> I'd say it's over 100k. I'm seeing a 500s rank drop to the 120s on the basis of one sale.


This really just reenforces the position that regardless of how they make it to market, most books do not sell, at all.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

VydorScope said:


> This really just reenforces the position that regardless of how they make it to market, most books do not sell, at all.


That's not entirely something you can infer from ranking, however. I have books that have sold a few hundred copies that are ranked 400-500k plus. I have a literary short story that has sold over 1200 copies that I think is ranked right around 500k right now. My thriller is ranked around 340k, but it's sold 2 copies this month (actually, 4, but 2 on Amazon) and has sold ~2k copies in its lifetime. If you just look at rank right now, sure, it seems like most books don't sell. And I'm sure plenty don't. But that conclusion isn't something you can infer just from rankings.

I do agree that once you get over 100k in rank, the ranks are super volatile and would be tough to study.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

markecooper said:


> Total guess, and I haven't read the new data yet, but because the top 50,000 would all be in Romance, and erotica?


Nope -- it depends in part on how many categories there are. I think romance has 36 (https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A19G4ONBAU6NO3) -- so *roughly* 3600 of the 11,000 results COULD BE romance. SFF has over 40. HOWEVER (sorry, must use all caps) -- not every sub category is filled with 100 spots. I think books have to have a minimum rank to be on a list (although the lowest rank on the spreadsheet is something like 1.2 million). I know I had a YA book on a top 100 list - it was #2, there was no #3. (WTF But that was like 2010 or something, maybe things have changed.)

More importantly, since romance trounced SFF in the first result, the 36 sub cat lists for romance probably have a majority of books ranked higher than the majority 40+ SFF subcat lists. When this snapshot was taken (2/7), there was only 1 erotica category, now there is a virtual buttload (ahem...).

For now, there are lots of restrictions, but it's the most comprehensive data I've seen.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Christa Wick said:


> Nope -- it depends in part on how many categories there are. I think romance has 36 (https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A19G4ONBAU6NO3) -- so *roughly* 3600 of the 11,000 results COULD BE romance. SFF has over 40. HOWEVER (sorry, must use all caps) -- not every sub category is filled with 100 spots. I think books have to have a minimum rank to be on a list (although the lowest rank on the spreadsheet is something like 1.2 million). I know I had a YA book on a top 100 list - it was #2, there was no #3. (WTF But that was like 2010 or something, maybe things have changed.)
> 
> More importantly, since romance trounced SFF in the first result, the 36 sub cat lists for romance probably have a majority of books ranked higher than the majority 40+ SFF subcat lists. When this snapshot was taken (2/7), there was only 1 erotica category, now there is a virtual buttload (ahem...).
> 
> For now, there are lots of restrictions, but it's the most comprehensive data I've seen.


Great points. Also: Many books are ranked at least twice, if they are ranked at all. So you can expect the final list to be half what you expect (can be much less, since some books are in 3 or 4 categories).


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2014)

I for one am thrilled that you have taken this on Hugh. But I was wondering at what point did you decide to do so and what was the catalyst?


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Doomed Muse said:


> That's not entirely something you can infer from ranking, however. I have books that have sold a few hundred copies that are ranked 400-500k plus. I have a literary short story that has sold over 1200 copies that I think is ranked right around 500k right now. My thriller is ranked around 340k, but it's sold 2 copies this month (actually, 4, but 2 on Amazon) and has sold ~2k copies in its lifetime. If you just look at rank right now, sure, it seems like most books don't sell. And I'm sure plenty don't. But that conclusion isn't something you can infer just from rankings.
> 
> I do agree that once you get over 100k in rank, the ranks are super volatile and would be tough to study.


That is a valid counter point, but there is what 2 million books now? If that is right, then even your rank of 500k is still ahead of MOST books.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Great points. Also: Many books are ranked at least twice, if they are ranked at all. So you can expect the final list to be half what you expect (can be much less, since some books are in 3 or 4 categories).


Oh, yes, that's a huge aargh! I have participated in box sets and our "publisher" is genius in getting about 8 categories or so to show up for a book. All three box sets hit top 100 kindle overall. While you can only see each ranked in the first 3 categories on its book page, if you go to each of its categories top 100 pages, you'll find it on there, too. So easy for the top 100 of each genre to take a space in several sub categories, too.

Hah...I took one statistics class years and years ago and my head almost exploded back then from binomial coefficients and chi square distributions and such. Something with 50,000 samples is too much to wrap my mind around. My brain really would explode and there'd be a new black hole in the universe.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Christa Wick said:


> Hah...I took one statistics class years and years ago and my head almost exploded back then from binomial coefficients and chi square distributions and such. Something with 50,000 samples is too much to wrap my mind around. My brain really would explode and there'd be a new black hole in the universe.


Agreed. It's a lot of data. Fortunately, the main messages don't require a lot of statistical analysis. Sums and averages show the strength of self-publishing.

The guy putting this data together is wicked-smart. MIT and all that. He used to do this very thing for a living (data analysis). We get a laugh every time someone waves a degree at the data, hoping it will all go away.

What is still impossible to capture is anecdotes and nuance. DBW's response to our first report was: Nobody makes a living writing. Which must be comforting to their legacy-publishing audience. But as Annie pointed out in this thread, she sees income from books that aren't even ranked. And DBW didn't account for the fact that most (if not all) of the living-wage authors have more than one book available. Nor did they touch on the fact that income is being made from work no longer performed.

The true health of indie publishing is likely far more robust than our data indicates. We are leaving out audiobooks, POD, e-books on other markets (not everyone makes most of their income on Amazon). We are also leaving out foreign sales, and overseas markets are seeing most of the measured e-book growth right now. So this is just the tip of the iceberg.

When anyone complains that our data is incomplete, these are the holes I think about. I believe those who would like none of this to be true might consider calling for less data, not more.


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

I've got a little over 10k books gathered so far. I don't have genres, unfortunately (haven't found a way to get em yet), but my crawler is a bit more random rather than crawling specifically through lists (also why I don't have genres). Unfortunately, it's easier to find the higher ranked titles than the lower ranked ones. I do have publishers but haven't broken them into groups yet to confirm the breakdown with my data matches Hugh's.

What I noticed this morning was that my sample set over just over 10k books has just over 5k authors (average of 2.07 books / author). That's not conclusive though, since I have 46 books listed on Amazon and it only captured 40 of mine (and I specifically went hunting for my data first because I could verify it).

Oh, and I'm definitely one of those unranked guys that's paying bills with my royalties. I think that's been the worst part of this for me - looking up people that have fewer books and, in my opinion, don't write things as well or as interesting as I do, yet they're pulling in hundreds more a day than I am based on the ranks of some of their books. Demoralizing for a moment, but then it fills me with a fire to work harder to accomplish my goals. I don't need to compete with or beat someone else, but I do need to compete with myself to be better.


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## Michael_J_Sullivan (Aug 3, 2011)

I need to read the entire post...been busy writing as of late. SO my comment may be something that has been brought off and hashed out.  But here goes:

The thing about Hugh's data is it proves what many have been saying for a long time...that self-published authors are running toe-to-toe with traditionally published authors in terms of sales on the largest bookseller in the world.  With higher royalties even if these authors ONLY get income from Amazon, they are making a really nice living wage.  There are thousands of authors, without household names, that are making  five and six figure incomes.  It proves once and for all that self-publishing can be a viable option for those with the entrepreneur spirit, and even those seeking traditional publishing should rejoice, since it shows publishers that they are not in competition only with each other, but with the concept of "going it alone." In such an environment, publishers will have to adjust their contracts and "industry standards" to attract and retain authors.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> That is a valid counter point, but there is what 2 million books now? If that is right, then even your rank of 500k is still ahead of MOST books.


Over 100k ranks have made us several thousand dollars. It's just that in the 100-500k range, there's an incredible amount of volatility. A 100 to 200 rank, in my experience, could be something that sells one copy every couple of days or it could be something that sells one every couple of weeks that just got that biweekly sale a few hours ago. The other thing that's hard to take into account is that while ebooks have a very long tail, sales do slack off with time particularly if you're not actively writing on that pen name and the rank takes that into account.

It would be an interesting exercise to find the worst selling KDP book on Amazon.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

daringnovelist said:


> You know, this is probably too simple to be possible, but....
> 
> You can find books listed by price range with a link like this:
> 
> ...


How do you generate a search query link like that? Is there a manual somewhere on how to craft precise query links?

Also note that Amazon only shows the first 400 pages.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Agreed. It's a lot of data. Fortunately, the main messages don't require a lot of statistical analysis. Sums and averages show the strength of self-publishing.
> 
> The guy putting this data together is wicked-smart. MIT and all that. He used to do this very thing for a living (data analysis). We get a laugh every time someone waves a degree at the data, hoping it will all go away.


I was wondering about the technical issues of crawling Amazon. How does he crawl Amazon without the amazon flagging his program for being a bot? Inquiring minds want to know ...

Oh is it also possible for the author names not to be hashed out so completely that you can't tell multiple books from the same author? You can probably do an interesting analysis of self-pubbers and their average number of published books.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

olefish said:


> I was wondering about the technical issues of crawling Amazon. How does he crawl Amazon without the amazon flagging his program for being a bot? Inquiring minds want to know ...
> 
> Oh is it also possible for the author names not to be hashed out so completely that you can't tell multiple books from the same author? You can probably do an interesting analysis of self-pubbers and their average number of published books.


Bot crawlers are allowed by a file that the webmaster put in the root directory. Think SEO and Google's crawlers.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Katie Elle said:


> It would be an interesting exercise to find the worst selling KDP book on Amazon.


The worst-selling book I've ever seen was around #2,100,000. Spotted that one a couple days ago. This is a tough game to play, because there's no good way to search by least-selling. And they keep making new books.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

The worst selling books are those with no rank. (Which is beyond me. I would always buy a copy of my own book to prime the pump. Nowadays, many of my readers know my book is live before I do, so I don't do that anymore. But no way would I have a book out there with no rank.)


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

jnfr said:


> And the 50k Report is up, with all the raw data. Let's see how long the server stays up this time.


I am not going to get a damn thing done at work today.


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## wildwitchof (Sep 2, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> The true health of indie publishing is likely far more robust than our data indicates. We are leaving out audiobooks, POD, e-books on other markets (not everyone makes most of their income on Amazon). We are also leaving out foreign sales, and overseas markets are seeing most of the measured e-book growth right now. So this is just the tip of the iceberg.
> 
> When anyone complains that our data is incomplete, these are the holes I think about. I believe those who would like none of this to be true might consider calling for less data, not more.


So true.

I just had the pleasure of making those little colorful pies to illustrate my 2013 sales, and was surprised to see only 42% was Amazon.com. Another 21% was Amazon.(uk, de, ca, etc). A full 25% was Apple. Only 7% for BN.

But now I've got one audiobook bringing in moolah and it's a shocker--it quickly overtook BN, just one title.

They're right: my print sales are almost nonexistent. You can't buy my books at Target. But... I've hit bestseller lists in the UK, and my neighbor's never heard of me.

Crazy world. Love it.


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

I think the next logical step is to start tracking these books over time. Build a database that adds new books that appear on the bestseller list, but also updates the rank and estimated sales data for old books that might have dropped off the list. Relatively easy to do with ASINs.

That way we can get a better picture of the movement made by both trad and indie titles over time. Do trad books stick longer on bestseller lists? Are indie titles more volatile? These are questions i'd like answers for.

Anyway, thanks to Hugh and his team for putting together this great info and sparking an amazing discussion.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

olefish said:


> I was wondering about the technical issues of crawling Amazon. How does he crawl Amazon without the amazon flagging his program for being a bot? Inquiring minds want to know ...
> 
> Oh is it also possible for the author names not to be hashed out so completely that you can't tell multiple books from the same author? You can probably do an interesting analysis of self-pubbers and their average number of published books.


We have shown average number of books per author.


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## TuckerAuthor (Jan 31, 2014)

It's all tremendous information. Thank you, Hugh and Data Guy for doing what we've all wanted to do but haven't had the knowledge or resources to accomplish on this scale.


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## PatriceFitz (Jan 8, 2011)

Hugh:  You are obviously putting serious money (and time) into this.  Can we help?  I mean, financially, or volunteer-wise, or in any other way?  It's quite extraordinary that an individual would dedicate his efforts to getting this information out for the good of... well... everyone.

Also--are you okay?  Are you holding up despite the brickbats being thrown?

I suspect it may get worse before it gets better.  The more unassailable the evidence becomes, the more reckless they'll get in disputing the message and dissing the messenger.

Remember... we've got your back.  

Let us know if you need a posse or something.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

olefish said:


> How do you generate a search query link like that? Is there a manual somewhere on how to craft precise query links?
> 
> Also note that Amazon only shows the first 400 pages.


No, there is no manual. I went to Jungle-search which has figured it out, put in a couple variables, and looked at the link they generated.

The question is how to get the name for the right field, you might be able to do this. You might find it looking at the source code for a book page, but that is thousands of lines long. (albeit, a lot of those lines are empty.) Maybe I'll try it one day when I have time.

(Oh, maybe not so long: dunno if it will work, but when I copied the source code to a text doc and searched on "rank" I found an item called "salesrank" - however I think it's just the list name, not really the field name. The actual rank number seems to be generated outside of the page, because it's just listed there.)

Camille


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## Jason Halstead (Mar 18, 2011)

olefish said:


> I was wondering about the technical issues of crawling Amazon. How does he crawl Amazon without the amazon flagging his program for being a bot? Inquiring minds want to know ...
> 
> Oh is it also possible for the author names not to be hashed out so completely that you can't tell multiple books from the same author? You can probably do an interesting analysis of self-pubbers and their average number of published books.


I'm not THAT guy, I'm another guy that's been crawling Amazon for stats. It's simple - just write a crawler to look at the links and go page by page. Then a text parser to go through the captured pages to gather the relevant data. I've got a SQL 2008r2 database on the back end to capture the data. Nothing to it.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Mark Coker chimes in on the debate over at PW. I'd hoped to ask him about the reports in person last night at a panel discussion in Palo Alto, but he was sick. This is better:

http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/61116-hugh-howey-and-the-indie-author-revolt.html


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

PatriceFitz said:


> Hugh: You are obviously putting serious money (and time) into this. Can we help? I mean, financially, or volunteer-wise, or in any other way? It's quite extraordinary that an individual would dedicate his efforts to getting this information out for the good of... well... everyone.
> 
> Also--are you okay? Are you holding up despite the brickbats being thrown?
> 
> ...


It has taken a chunk out of my monthly $2,000,000 earnings, but I'll be okay.

(An inside joke. I don't earn quite that much.)

As for holding up, I've never been happier. Not because of this. Just feeling very well adjusted right now. When I see people upset with me over this, I just feel bad that I've upset them. That's all. I'm learning to focus on the one person who's not upset with me, not the ten who might be. Something I'll be blogging about soon, because it's been transformative.


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## JohnHindmarsh (Jun 3, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> It has taken a chunk out of my monthly $2,000,000 earnings, but I'll be okay.


I read that as $2,000 and thought - poor Hugh. I must remember to wear my reading glasses.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> It has taken a chunk out of my monthly $2,000,000 earnings, but I'll be okay.
> 
> (An inside joke. I don't earn quite that much.)
> 
> As for holding up, I've never been happier. Not because of this. Just feeling very well adjusted right now. When I see people upset with me over this, I just feel bad that I've upset them. That's all. I'm learning to focus on the one person who's not upset with me, not the ten who might be. Something I'll be blogging about soon, because it's been transformative.


Hey Hugh, just listened to you on the Rocking Selfpublishing Podcast and I have to say that something you said resonated very VERY strongly with me.

It was the procrastination thing. I am EXACTLY that way. I can write for hours one day happily pounding away because its all there in my head ready to come out, the next day though (like you said) I'll procrastinate and do some marketing, blogging, email list, checking what's happening elsewhere looking for opportunities and God knows what else, but I don't feel guilty at all. You said it all goes toward the career rather than the current book. That's it exactly, and while I am doing that, the ideas are filling my head again for the next writing session.

A zero stress, frugal, life is my key. I think you said something about that too. It really surprised me that you felt the same. Apart from the mega-millions thing, we're the same! 

So you think hybrid was a bad deal looking back?


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## OliviaF (Feb 3, 2013)

I'm going to start out by saying that I haven't been able to keep up with every single response in this thread, but I have tried to keep up with most of the reactions to these reports. And I have to say this about everything I've read and heard:

While scientific methodology is both important and necessary, the first step to change is knowledge. Without data to analyze we have nothing! What you've done by making this data available to others is nothing short of amazing, especially having the courage to put your name on it. You've provided a valuable first step in changing the way the world sees and understands the publishing industry.

As Patrice said a few posts up: We've got your back, Hugh :-D


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Mark Coker chimes in on the debate over at PW. I'd hoped to ask him about the reports in person last night at a panel discussion in Palo Alto, but he was sick. This is better:
> 
> http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/61116-hugh-howey-and-the-indie-author-revolt.html


Looks like Mr. Coker committed the critical error of listening to 



 while composing that article. 

B.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Hugh Howey said:


> It has taken a chunk out of my monthly $2,000,000 earnings, but I'll be okay.
> 
> (An inside joke. I don't earn quite that much.)
> 
> As for holding up, I've never been happier. Not because of this. Just feeling very well adjusted right now. When I see people upset with me over this, I just feel bad that I've upset them. That's all. I'm learning to focus on the one person who's not upset with me, not the ten who might be. Something I'll be blogging about soon, because it's been transformative.


I'm not upset with you and come on, I'm worth *at least* ten people. Geez.

Also, thanks for the 54k data. These spreadsheets are going to eat my life but I'm just sick enough to have time to let them. Awesome job.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

OliviaF said:


> While scientific methodology is both important and necessary, the first step to change is knowledge. ....


That's the thing here: almost all of the people criticizing the study are dilettantes at science. (As am I, and most of the people praising it.) The thing is, good solid science doesn't come from a single study. It's a whole structure built on a variety of studies using a variety of methods.

The key to a great study -- once that structure has been built -- is framing the right question. But before that structure is built, those first real studies using real data, are supposed to come up with the questions. You have to start establishing, piece by piece, what can be known, and then start asking questions based on what you've learned.

Until those first studies are done, the questions themselves are speculation.

For example, this study itself: there has been a lot of speculative arguing about indies vs. traditional, but nobody really considers whether there may be other categories to look at. This study unearthed the fact that there is a significant percentage of "unknown" and smaller press. There really isn't any data in the study to help sort out who and what those "unknowns" are -- but that's the point of a preliminary study. You start finding out questions you never thought to ask.

This is how science works. Unfortunately, current culture is very ignorant of science, and so they assume it's a push-button. You do a "scientific" study and that gets you the truth, but other than that, all speculation is equal and so it's fine to remain ignorant.

The fact is, pure speculation in absence of any data is worthless. Speculative conclusions based on preliminary data is critical to building real knowledge.

Hugh and Data Guy may not be scientists, but listen to their attitudes, and you see that they ARE starting a process that really is scientific.

Camille


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## OliviaF (Feb 3, 2013)

daringnovelist said:


> The thing is, good solid science doesn't come from a single study. It's a whole structure built on a variety of studies using a variety of methods.





daringnovelist said:


> The fact is, pure speculation in absence of any data is worthless. Speculative conclusions based on preliminary data is critical to building real knowledge.
> 
> Hugh and Data Guy may not be scientists, but listen to their attitudes, and you see that they ARE starting a process that really is scientific.


Exactly what I mean. Without their groundwork we wouldn't even have the data to work with! I say that's a great start!


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> That's the thing here: almost all of the people criticizing the study are dilettantes at science. (As am I, and most of the people praising it.) The thing is, good solid science doesn't come from a single study. It's a whole structure built on a variety of studies using a variety of methods.
> 
> The key to a great study -- once that structure has been built -- is framing the right question. But before that structure is built, those first real studies using real data, are supposed to come up with the questions. You have to start establishing, piece by piece, what can be known, and then start asking questions based on what you've learned.
> 
> ...


I'm working on exactly that. Well, a study of how indie publishing and ebooks have influenced each other and how it has changed the world of publishing.
I'm collecting a lot of different research: this one, the WDB report (my uni got this one for me), Beverly Kendall's, and any report that I can find (suggestions are always welcome in pm, from both sides of the equation).

I think one of the biggest things to notice is that in only the past 3 or so months there have been a LOT of different reports coming out, it's a huge topic in the publishing world. This is important. Collecting all these data is important. We can't do anything from pure questionnaires (like WDB and Kendall's) we also need data like Hugh's and other places to look more into the real numbers we can find.

I love Hugh's reports, I might even share a bit of my own cross research soon as I'm working through the data.

Keep going guys!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Barnes and Noble report is up.

http://authorearnings.com/the-bn-report/


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

JimJohnson said:


> Barnes and Noble report is up.
> 
> http://authorearnings.com/the-bn-report/


So much for this being an Amazon-only phenomenon.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Hugh - how does your data handle Smashwords at B&N? Are they indie, small publisher, or?


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> So much for this being an Amazon-only phenomenon.


Great data again, Hugh (and Data Guy). Any chance you can direct your children of Ungoliant on Smashwords, Kobo or Apple's ebook sites to get an even more complete picture?


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

AnnChristy said:


> Very interesting, those B&N results. I just kept thinking...what will the screamers say now? Will they say that B&N is now in the book killing business along with Amazon since the results are so amazing and similar?


I don't think there will be a lot of screaming over this. I think the new understanding is that indies account for as much or more of e-book author income as the Big 5 combined, and that they provide more money to online retailers' coffers than any of the Big 5 publishers do.

This is the new paradigm in which publishing professionals must operate. It's the new paradigm in which authors of all stripes must operate.

My hope is that this survey will bore people to tears, because they already know what's happening.

Moo.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> I don't think there will be a lot of screaming over this. I think the new understanding is that indies account for as much or more of e-book author income as the Big 5 combined, and that they provide more money to online retailers' coffers than any of the Big 5 publishers do.
> 
> This is the new paradigm in which publishing professionals must operate. It's the new paradigm in which authors of all stripes must operate.
> 
> My hope is that this survey will bore people to tears, because they already know what's happening.


That begs the question, though...now that you've shown that indie pubbers are competitive with trad pubs, what's next? Telling more folks? Proving the point and stepping back? Not sure where you'd go from here other than to keep showing writers that they have more options now than ever before and if they pursue self-publishing smartly, they could do as well or better solo or hybrid than going with a tradpub only.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> I don't think there will be a lot of screaming over this. I think the new understanding is that indies account for as much or more of e-book author income as the Big 5 combined, and that they provide more money to online retailers' coffers than any of the Big 5 publishers do.


If there's anything new to be critical of, my guess is it will be the presentation. The big trades look a bit stronger on BN than on Amazon. And then you choose to break them up and show them individually so they appear to fare worse while small press and self-publishers are presented as blocks just like they were in the Amazon reports. Authors will have roughly the same publishing experience with any of the big trades so why the shift other than to present them in a worse light than the methodology used previously would show them?


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## TuckerAuthor (Jan 31, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> My hope is that this survey will bore people to tears, because they already know what's happening.


*yawn* More numbers from Hugh Howey.

Wait! The unwashed masses have earned enough money to buy bath tubs? They're not "unwashed" anymore?! The horror! 

Now, we're just "the masses".


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Thanks again to Hugh and Data Guy. These results surprise me a little bit simply because so many self published authors complain about not selling at B&N. I was expecting a much bigger slant toward trad. publishers. Also B&N has still lost quite a few people because of Amazon Countdown and Select. As you say it is very similar to the other reports. Interesting.

You always release these reports on the day I decide not to give in to my Writer's Café addiction. The first thing I'm looking for is the reports!


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

_Last year, Barnes & Noble reported that 25% of the Nook market was made up of self-published works [link]_

Great touch using Publishers Weekly as source instead of the B&N press release since that release was geared toward shareholders/investors. Not so with Publishers Weekly.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/56732-b-n-upgrades-pubit-to-nook-press-a-new-self-publishing-platform.html

_Indeed, sales of self-published e-books continue to grow on the Nook Platform and the company said they represent about 25% of all e-book sales on Nook devices. According to B&N, PubIt! titles grow by about 20% each quarter and general self-published titles offering through the Nook are growing by 24% each quarter._


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

I was just going through my flip board on my nexus and came across this. Not sure if anyone else already posted it. But it had a nice balanced reporting style as did the comments afterwards.

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2014/02/13/hugh-howleys-author-earnings-report-going-cut-anti-self-publishing-rhetoric-knees/#.UxliV4VsjUB


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

It's been almost a month and Author Earnings has been quiet...too quiet.

What have they got in the works next?


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## D.L. Shutter (Jul 9, 2011)

> It's been almost a month and Author Earnings has been quiet...too quiet


I was thinking the same thing today. I think Hugh and DGX may be up to something monumental.


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## MitchHogan (May 17, 2013)

On a twitter AMA a couple of weeks ago Hugh said the next Author Earnings report "is going to break out genre further and add that data to our sheets."


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

New report is up.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

JimJohnson said:


> It's been almost a month and Author Earnings has been quiet...too quiet.
> 
> What have they got in the works next?


We are going to do this quarterly. Though this report had too much to put in a single post, so we have a second report coming out a week from today.

It takes us about 10 days to collect the data and parse it, which is a lot of time out of two very crazy and busy schedules. One idea I've had is to automate some of these graphs and set a spider loose that compiles the numbers every day. Then we would really see trends. But it would be pretty expensive to host something like that. Right now, not counting lost time (which is more valuable than the money), we are spending a few hundred bucks a month to run the spider and host the website.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Great Info Hugh which would all be invisible if not for you and your spiders.


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## K. D. (Jun 6, 2013)

^^ This, and thank you, sirs  

Gesendet mit Galaxy S3 durch Tapatalk


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## LJ (Feb 14, 2014)

Hugh and Data Guy: I just want to say thank you. Thank you for having the vision, thanking you for taking the time and for making the investment. You are helping me (a new author) make informed decisions and I love you both for it. You are good people. Ok, I'm done fawning...for now.


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## Anne Frasier (Oct 22, 2009)

some really interesting stuff in this newest report.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

The latest report is up. We've had a lot of requests to drill into genre, so we did that. Amazon has added categories, so we are now pulling data for 120,000 titles. That's a heck of a sample size. There are possible trends, but I'm not calling it that until we have a year+ of data. Oh, and DRM doesn't look like a good idea.

http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/


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## DTW (Apr 13, 2014)

Hugh,

The animated graph gifs are extremely massively annoying.  They're distracting when trying to read the text, and they make it tough to look at the data sets and do comparisons.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

DTW said:


> Hugh,
> 
> The animated graph gifs are extremely massively annoying. They're distracting when trying to read the text, and they make it tough to look at the data sets and do comparisons.


Hmm. Good feedback. Looks smooth on Chrome for me. Seems like the best way to show the three snapshots and the movement over time. I'll look at this in the morning and see if we can do something better.


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## S. Elliot Brandis (Dec 9, 2013)

I like the gifs. They illustrate the change well.

Also--56% of the sci-fi/fantasy market is indie! Hell yes.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

YEah, I rather them be side by side then animated...


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

Yeah I don't like those animated .gifs either. Very hard to try to interpret data when the title and charts are constantly changing. My eyes don't physically move that fast!

More importantly, it's nice to have data showing that DRM harms sales, though it's not surprising. The music industry figured this out years ago, so it baffles me that books (and some other media, like movies and TV) still carry on with it. If a technology literally _only_ hurts paying customers, with no upside, there are going to be fewer and fewer of those customers.

I wouldn't enable DRM even if it did magically prevent piracy. I'd be flattered if my indie books were pirated. Isn't perma-free pretty much author-approved piracy anyway?


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## williamvw (Mar 12, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Hmm. Good feedback. Looks smooth on Chrome for me. Seems like the best way to show the three snapshots and the movement over time. I'll look at this in the morning and see if we can do something better.


I'm viewing in Chrome, and yeah, the load is slow and awkward for me. I would rather have, perhaps, the words FEBRUARY, APRIL, and JULY all visible, and then the chart changes when you mouse-over the corresponding month name. Just a thought. That way the viewer would control the progression. Otherwise, amazing data, Hugh -- again. Thanks so much for doing this.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Thanks Hugh although its depressing as an author of literary fiction and non-fiction. On the non-fiction front there would be an impact on the figures of eBooks because you studied Amazon where the maximum price of $9.99 would scare off most non-fiction writers. And before any fiction types get uppity it is not just about charging what the market can bear it is the market not taking seriously a serious non-fiction book at $9.99. I would be interesting to see a comparison with Kobo now that they offer their top royalty rate regardless of how high you price.



Hugh Howey said:


> The latest report is up. We've had a lot of requests to drill into genre, so we did that. Amazon has added categories, so we are now pulling data for 120,000 titles. http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I am confused by this graph:










Does the top of each bar within an individual category correspond with earnings? For instance, in Romance, the top of the indie bar lines up with approximately $275,000, the top of the Small/med publisher bar is at approx $325,000 ...

Is $275K the Indie average and $325K the small med average, etc?


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

C. Gockel said:


> Is $275K the Indie average and $325K the small med average, etc?


I believe what it's representing is that Romance as a whole covers approx. $425k, of which 66% of that $425k is indie, 8% of that $425k is small/medium, etc.


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

For that graph (2 posts up) I would rather have seen numbers of books sold, because I'm not convinced that the author earnings percentages are all that accurate for big-5 published authors. The big advances for star writers sometimes mean, in effect, higher earnings per book sold, even when the lousy percentages of net clauses.


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## DTW (Apr 13, 2014)

C. Gockel said:


> I am confused by this graph:
> 
> Does the top of each bar within an individual category correspond with earnings? For instance, in Romance, the top of the indie bar lines up with approximately $275,000, the top of the Small/med publisher bar is at approx $325,000 ...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_chart
Stacked Bar Graph. Each bar shows the sum, and the pieces of each bar are the piece of that total.

Romance shows ~440K. Indie is 66% of 440K, which is 290K. Small/medium is 8% of 440K, or 35K.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

Interesting that indies have a 56% share of the f/sf genre.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

I do not agree with the conclusion about DRM. I do not feel the data supports that DRM is effecting buying choices. I think we may have some confirmation bias here. I would challenge the idea that the "64%" that bought no-drm books made the choice based on DRM - or were even aware of the DRM. I would suggest that they do not even consider DRM in their choice. I would suggest what we have here is correlation and not causation. 

The data may actually suggest something about the better selling authors - that they as a group have rejected DRM. That seems more supportable in the data set that was collected. Whether or not that choice impacts sales, I do not think this data can answer.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

VydorScope said:


> The data may actually suggest something about the better selling authors - that they as a group have rejected DRM. That seems more supportable in the data set that was collected. Whether or not that choice impacts sales, I do not think this data can answer.


That was how I interpreted that too.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

VydorScope said:


> I do not agree with the conclusion about DRM. I do not feel the data supports that DRM is effecting buying choices. I think we may have some confirmation bias here. I would challenge the idea that the "64%" that bought no-drm books made the choice based on DRM - or were even aware of the DRM. I would suggest that they do not even consider DRM in their choice. I would suggest what we have here is correlation and not causation.
> 
> The data may actually suggest something about the better selling authors - that they as a group have rejected DRM. That seems more supportable in the data set that was collected. Whether or not that choice impacts sales, I do not think this data can answer.


Yeah, that was what I was thinking too. That maybe those that use DRM because they think it's a good choice, might also make other choices that harms their sales.
It might be a case of a bit of both.

On the one hand, there are readers who are very aware of DRM on books and won't buy them, but at the same time, authors who use DRM might also use other tactics that aren't as good or might even hurt their sales.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

VydorScope said:


> I do not agree with the conclusion about DRM. I do not feel the data supports that DRM is effecting buying choices. I think we may have some confirmation bias here. I would challenge the idea that the "64%" that bought no-drm books made the choice based on DRM - or were even aware of the DRM. I would suggest that they do not even consider DRM in their choice. I would suggest what we have here is correlation and not causation.
> 
> The data may actually suggest something about the better selling authors - that they as a group have rejected DRM. That seems more supportable in the data set that was collected. Whether or not that choice impacts sales, I do not think this data can answer.


I would agree; from anecdotal information posted in KBoards, the people who care the most about DRM don't make purchase choices based on the presence or not of DRM, they simply remove the DRM if present. Most of the rest of us are single device/vendor users and DRM or not makes little difference.

Sent from my KFTHWA using Tapatalk HD


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Most of the rest of us are single device/vendor users and DRM or not makes little difference.


Or multiple device - I shop for my Nook, Kobo, and Kindle at their respective stores and mostly buy trad stuff which is probably stuffed with DRM, but as I also have Nook, Kobo, and Kindle software it makes no difference.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Article published today in Business Insider cites Hugh & Co.'s data. Yet another sign that acceptance of the indie movement (at least in terms of income competitiveness) is finally breaking into the mainstream.

http://www.businessinsider.com/publishing-industry-revolution-is-helping-indie-writers-2014-7


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

The October 2014 report is up. A look at Kindle Unlimited, and the usual four charts (with the prior three charts for comparison).

http://authorearnings.com/report/october-2014-author-earnings-report-2/


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## LJ (Feb 14, 2014)

Thank you as always, Hugh. This is a great thing you guys are doing and I really, really appreciate having access to this information.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Thanks, Hugh. So your conclusions are top sellers are killing it in KU, newbies are doing better in KU than out (visibility I guess) and everyone in between (me) is getting screwed by roughly 34%? I'm getting screwed by over 50%, just to clear things up and show where I stand.

BUT

I didn't get screwed by KU exactly. I got screwed by the changes Zon made a week or so before to pre-position KU and make it look good. My audio spreadsheet is very telling I think. Whatever they did, reduced visibility of non select titles, or maybe the opposite, boosted them and caused a reshuffle of lists.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Interesting data. I, too, look forward to seeing year-over-year comparisons at the end of the next quarter. Thank you!


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Yeah, the Oct. update doesn't really address KU at all and the issue of reduced visibility for all indies out of KU AND the lost sales on other platforms.

WAY too rosy a picture.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

ʬ said:


> WAY too rosy a picture.


This is Miss Quiss (who does have books in KU) right now:


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Thank you Hugh. I thought it was balanced -- it did say a lot of authors in and out of KU were seeing earnings fall. I had a new release after KU and it did better than ever before, but I've seen my sell-thru rate from my permafree to my second in series sink approximately 2 percentage points since KU came out. I've lowered the price of my second in series, and that has helped ... but of course that lowers revenues. It's all very frustrating.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Thanks for this. We were discussing e-books v print with a Penguin rep at our recent Writers' Circle meeting. It would be useful if there was a date at the top of each report (written out by the actual month as some of us use day-month-year and others month-day-year.) 02/07/2014 could be 2nd July or Feb 7th.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Most interesting statement in that report "The Big 5 have no books in KU" - that is very telling, IMO.


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