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R.R. Bowker, the U.S. bibliographic identifier franchisee, a division of ProQuest, tracks and reports publishing statistics.
For year 2012, self-published titles topped 391,000, 40 percent electronic books, 60 percent print. Eight Do It Yourself firms accounted for 80 percent of all self-published books for the year: CreateSpace, Smashwords (top e-book firm), Author Solutions (Penguin Group), Lulu, and four others holding less than 10 percent market share. Self-published print titles accounts for 45 percent of total titles, including small presses that publish fewer than ten titles per year; 55 percent of all published print titles came from conventional print publishers.
Self-published e-book titles are the fastest growth sector of the publishing industry, dominated by Smashwords (only e-publishing), holding 47 percent of market share. CreateSpace is the industry leader for self-published print titles, accounting for 39 percent of the self-published print marketplace.
No stats available for conventional publisher e-book breakdown.
General perceptions of self-publishing as a vanity practice with production value, mechanical, and craft quality issues continues. General perceptions of conventional publishing as a meritocracy declines and leans more toward revenue-driven, hidebound elitist practices.
For me, as a publisher, all the above means that a best self-publishing marketing practice offers a title in numerous formats for maximum consumer convenience: print (trade paperback preferred), e-book with and without Distribution Rights Management, and multiple online outlets.
Self-publishing quality issues are another matter. Ninety-nine out of a hundred self-published title formats I've sampled at any online source exhibit basic production value faults: improper book typeface (usually Times New Roman, a newspaper and magazine typeface), no column justification, excessive line leading, too narrow line width. I could go on; however, the general production value faults are lack of knowledge about Standard Publication Format principles and from using wordprocessor default settings.
The caliber of self-published writing is another quality matter. Too much use of everyday, informal conversational language with little or no overriding rhetorical function, limited reality imitation, excessive narrator mediation, unsettled narrative point of view, and basic craft issues (mechanical style, dramatic structure, content and organization, expression) predominate.
In partial defense of self-published writing issues, everyday conversational language is at least familiar to potential consumers, though generally unimaginative and lackluster to the point of calling undue attention to the language.
Other general publishing culture statistics report a general decline in reading media consumption, readership, and reading overall, yet exponential growth in ambitious writers entering the marketplace overall: more and more ambitious writers entering the culture, especially ambitious writers who rarely read, and fewer readers overall. Not to mention, only a rare few self-published titles earn noteworthy revenue.
Several sources report e-book sales overall are in the low hundred-million dollar range, and self-published print in the low hundred million-dollar range, while conventional publisher print revenue overall is in the ten-billion dollar range. A ratio of 1, self-published, to 50, conventional publishing, revenue-wise.
391,000 self-published titles divided into two hundred million dollars, less roughy average fifty percent bookseller fees, averages out to a few thousand dollars per title. The majority of self-published titles, however, earn less than a hundred dollars, also according to various sources.
Self-publishers, I conclude, generally are still oblivious toward writing caliber for the sake of audience appeal, ease, and comprehension, more often typically rushing, prematurely, to enter the marketplace.
The Digital Age is still in its infancy. Technologies making self-publishing convenient have come of age, though still needing a few adjustments to make publishing format production values comparable to conventional audience expectations. Maybe in another generation or two self-publishing culture will settle out into a genuinely competitive and reasonably quality-driven market.
quote: Several sources report e-book sales overall are in the low hundred-million dollar range, and self-published print in the low hundred million-dollar range, while conventional publisher print revenue overall is in the ten-billion dollar range
I would think this stat is skewed. Of the ten-billion dollar range, how much of that is made by a handful of authors: J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Dean Cooks, Stephenie Myers, etc?
I'm willing to bet that the average author who publishes the traditional way makes about the same or *less* from the sales of their book than a self-published author. Of course, the traditional author doesn't have the same costs associated with their titles, so there's that. And also, traditional publishing is significantly more helpful in employment opportunities (though mostly in the field of education).
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Somehow I doubt any of those guys have generated a billion in revenue individually---I'm sure they, personally, didn't net that much. (I exclude film revenue in my calculations.)
The only anecdotal evidence I have about the monetary worth of self-publishing to the writer is from the allied field of music---the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince has said that, since he walked away from his contract with a traditional recording company, and started self-releasing his own work, he made more money than he did within that contract. (Gasps for breath at the long sentence.)
Of course, he had already established his reputation...
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I've always been told that literary authors shouldn't complain about the J.K. Rowlings and Stephenie Myer's of the publishing world because publishers actually lose money on most books they produce. It's the success of these big names that even allows many of the smaller authors to get their books into print.
I don't have the stats, but I do think that it's a small number of authors making the bulk of all the profit in the publishing industry.
I've been meeting published authors since I was 17, and one thing they don't tend to have is money. I remember speaking to an author associated with the National Book Foundation in the late 90s, and she made a point of saying how proud she was that finally, if she wanted to, she could live completely off the money she made from publishing her YA fiction.
Personally, I think that perhaps that year and the next she could, but I still keep in contact with her through social networking, and I know she still teaches at a university. So I wonder if her claim is still a fact.
I have personally never met an author that got rich off their writing, or even comfortable, or even able to quit their job if they so choose. However, I have almost exclusively met literary authors, so who knows. Genre authors don't have the prestige, but they definitely make up for that financially.
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Roughly ten thousand full-time, self-employed, U.S. prose writers earn a living income from writing related activities, roughly $40,000 net income average. On a Bell curve, they are the apex group. Outliers on both side slopes range across the income gamut. Wealthy and financially independent writers are part of my writing community; several have numerous books and films in the public eye.
Only one writer is at the top tier, the first ever billionaire writer, J.K. Rowling. Second tier writers include King, Koontz, Meyer, Collins, Leonard, Cornwell, Grisham, Clancy, and hundreds of others. A few-thousand third tier intervenes between them and the Bell curve apex tier. The curve is weighted on the other side toward thousands of second-income writers and most heavily trivial- or no-income writers ranging in the low nine figure millions.
Many conventional publishers make their bread and butter revenues from backlist publications, up to twenty percent, mostly from works for which copyright has expired. Educational publications are also in the twenty percent range. Few conventional publishers anymore are as alturistic as past eras' publishing philosophy; that is, high revenue performers support low revenue performers. The age of publishing meritocracy has passed and been replaced by bean-counter mentalities. The large conglomeration of publishing dynasties is the cause, also in part caused by emergent Digital Age technologies.
Why keep meritorious and altruistic philosophies when technology has come along to serve those markets? Why not only strive for profitable performers, since meritorious works have more convenient and approachable, accessible market outlets? No reason at all.
Blockbusters like the Potter epic saga come along very rarely. Maybe once per generation, if not once per century or so. Technology and culture and each to each other appreciably influence popularity. Charles Dickens was the standout nineteenth century first tier writer. Many readers today cannot understand that phenomenon, nor appreciate his writing as fully as the readers of the time. J.K. Rowling's writing is this era's standout, because the language and the writing is most universally accessible for this time. L. Frank Baum and J.R.R. Tolkien were the standout early twentieth century first tier stalwarts. Yet many readers today cannot access them as easily as Rowling. Different language and writing.
For any writer writing today, Rowling is a, if not the, model to emulate, not per se milieu or even genre, but language and craft, voice and distance, manner and structure, expression.
The rhetoric principle decorum is most on point, besides, of course, craft and other aesthetic considerations: Suit writing and subject matter to each other and both to the occasion (kairos, in this case the language of the era) and the audience, its sensibilities and sentiments.
Note audience, write in the discourse of the audience. That is the discourse community which the audience comprises, be that grammar, rhetoric, and expression mode. Number one is an audience desire for progression toward close and closer narrative, aesthetic, and emotional distance. We who read and those who might or will read want intimate companionship from reading. evermore intimate companionship. Digital Age technologies have laregly depersonalized emotionally meaningful, personal interactions. What could be more natural for a meaningful private reading experience to substitute for real personal interaction, that is nonetheless comparably impersonal next to reading.
quote:...the first ever billionaire writer, J.K. Rowling.
Again, I doubt if Rowling has taken in a billion dollars---film revenue excluded.
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Also I wouldn't classify Tolkien as an early 20th century writer---The Hobbit was published in 1937, The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954-1955 (3 vols.), and his great breakthrough to mass popularity came later than that.
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Charles Dickens and J. K. Rowling share one thing in common---serial publication. Dickens wrote and published a chapter at a time and his books were gathered in book form after he finished. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series was, in some ways, a single novel published in seven parts. (One could make the case for Baum and Tolkien---but, by and large, the "Oz" series books had little to do with each other, and, as mentioned above, Tolkien's great popularity came later.)
Dickens and Rowling, essentially, built interest in their work till the would-be readers hung on every word, and waited eagerly for further installments.
One could also include other writers who "stood out." If memory doesn't fail me (and the Wikipedia entries doesn't help), Dostoyevski published and was embraced in Russia in a manner similar to that of Dickens in the English-speaking world. (Dickens was popular in Russia, too.)
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quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Several sources report e-book sales overall are in the low hundred-million dollar range, and self-published print in the low hundred million-dollar range, while conventional publisher print revenue overall is in the ten-billion dollar range. A ratio of 1, self-published, to 50, conventional publishing, revenue-wise.
How do these figures stack up after being adjusted for the cost of doing business? because the physical manufacture of books is a relatively large expense.
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quote:Originally posted by Robert Nowall: Again, I doubt if Rowling has taken in a billion dollars---film revenue excluded.
Per Wikipedia, total copies sold of all HP books combined is around 400 million. It doesn't state how many were hardback vs paperback, but if we arbitrarily put the royalty at $1 each ... Trouble is, this doesn't account for what was very likely a 6-figure advance on the later books, and probably a disproportionately hardback sales chart, compared to other books.
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At the top range of six figures, it would take just over a thousand of them to make a billion dollars.
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I suspect Rowling's royalty contract was more complex than usual. Probably a sliding scale rate up to twenty percent due to high volume demand and economy of scale production benefits. Film rights are part of a copyright release, as are foreign rights, translation rights, merchandising rights, etc. The Potter brand is a fifteen billion dollar property, not counting any residuals from the Disney park sale, which is likely to add another billion over the next decade. Even ten percent of fifteen billion, that's one point five billion.
At the tens of millions copy production run the later Potter installments delivered, economies of scale reduce per copy manufacturing and distribution costs markedly. A standard copy cost of half cover price lowers to a fourth for that quantity.
E-book cover prices are shaking out into the half of print cover price range for conventional publishers. Bean counters are involved. Standard keystone business models apply: grossly thirty percent materials costs, thirty percent labor costs, thirty percent overhead costs, ten percent gross profit. E-publishing skews labor and overhead costs higher than print, which skews materials costs higher. E-publishing materials costs include content royalties and server and infrasctructure hosting costs (for in-house server side).
However, all the statistics really show is gross generalizations. I posted these stats to show how technology and culture influence each other. Drilling down into the numbers shows each product performance varies from each other uniquely.
For me, dwelling on revenue performance prior to having a marketable product is counting birds before eggs hatch. The poultry industry has standard formulas for production forecasts anymore. Though any individual bird's survivability odds are slightly improved, and chicken and turkey products are vastly improved from one hundred years ago, a significant number of hatchlings nonetheless are lost.
I do follow publishing culture, watching for anecdotes and paradigm shifts. However, the realities of the culture ground me again and again in the fact that the culture overall is still one of meritocracy, The writing quality that suits the audience matters first, between, and last. Critics indict Meyer, Collins, and other writers of young and early adult literature for language issues, not Rowling noteably, yet each writes in the language milieus of the audience and in the audience's moral and social criteria. For as hot as the young adult marketplace is, later adult fiction still overall outsells younger age genre, because more older adult readers are reading consumers.
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