Hey, there! (Yeah, I'm still here...)

Holy schmoly, has it really been two months since I've posted here?! What a slacker I am! LOL Yeah, right. I assume most of you follow me on my main author's blog (www.KristieCook.com) so you know what I've been up to - blog tours, Genesis release, holidays, pulling Devotion together for its upcoming release... Yeah, not much slacking going on here.

I really haven't had much to say in regards to writing, but I thought it was time to at least drop in and say "Hi!" and let you know that I'm still here.

I'm in the midst of editing Devotion, so not many new words being written, and I get tired of complaining talking about revising and editing. So I just kind of kept quiet here. I'm slowly making my way through a book on dialogue that I'm determined to finish, though I'm not sure why. I guess I'm hoping there's still something I might learn from it. I'll let you know soon what the book is and my thoughts.

The big talk in the self-publishing circles seems to be about production, production, production. Everyone who's making decent sales is pushing out book after book after book. I can't say that I completely agree. Yes, the more books you have, the more you'll sell overall. Each book plays a role in sales of the others. You can't just put one book out there and expect to become a bestseller. However, my experience proves that you don't have to put out a book every two months, either.

I have three books out, one of which just came out a month ago and had little to do with my sales numbers. And my sales numbers are fantastic. If you didn't see, Promise made it into the Top 100 of all Kindle paid. It's a national bestseller. That was before I even had three books, when my most recent release had been nine months prior. So, no, you don't have to push out a book every 2-3 months to find success in this industry.

Now, if you want to produce that many books that quickly and it doesn't cause you to lose all of your hair, scream at your loved ones until your voice runs out or result in your home being a disaster area that makes the houses on Hoarders look clean...well, then, that's your choice. I'm just saying you don't have to. Just make sure that you're producing the absolute best books you can that have been edited and polished to a shine. The goal should be to be proud of your work, not just throw something out there because you think you're in some big numbers game.

Ruth Ann Nordin wrote about how to write 4+ books a year and she has some great ideas. I know I can't do it like her - I need more than one draft. Like 4 or 5 or 6...or 10 is more like it for me. And that's before the final proofread! But as she says, just as we all plot and plan (or not) differently, we all write on different schedules, too. So it is possible. Not for me, but possible.

What I liked most about the post: her emphasis on the subjectivity of quality. Because she's absolutely right when she says quality is in the eye of your readers. If enough people think you're producing high quality work to keep buying and telling their friends about it, then you're producing quality.

Just keep in mind the "enough people" part. Because you may get a few thousand or even ten or twenty thousand people who think your quality is good, but that's not enough. Not enough to make you a bestseller. Not enough to make you a full-time writer earning a decent living. Even if you do produce 6-8 books a year. Because people's attention wanes. We're easily distracted. What we thought was good for the first 3 or 4 or 5 books might not impress us anymore in book 6 or 7. We might have moved on to something new - another series, another author. And there aren't enough new readers who accept that same quality to make up for the ones who've moved on.

Again, produce something you're proud of. Nothing less than your best. When you're proud of your work, everything else just goes better, from promotions to your response to reviews to, yes, sales. And trust me, readers notice when your quality doesn't reach your potential.

That's my two cents. What's yours? What are your thoughts on producing 6-8 books a year? And I mean actually writing and producing, not pulling out past pieces that are already finished and just need edited. Is that something you can do? Is it something you'd want to strive for?

My Personal Mission

So Monday I wrote about what it takes to put a book together – as in a physical book, with cover, pages with words, etc. One person commented. I know it’s not exciting stuff and it can be overwhelming. I also know most of you don’t find it relevant at all, but, honestly, you should.

If you’re a writer, you might be thinking that your publisher will do all this for you. If you have a good understanding of what it takes to produce a book, though, you can see why the publisher wants a fair share of your pie. You can also sound more knowledgeable when you communicate with your publisher and agent. And if you consider self-publishing, you need to know exactly what you’re getting into.

If you’re a reader – as in you read others’ stories, but don’t write your own – I think it’s also important to know these things. In fact, I’ve made it a personal mission to inform readers of all that goes into a book so you can understand why they’re not free or next to free. I know we can’t all afford to go out and buy every single book we want to read and, instead, we borrow from friends or the library. But it bugs the crap out of me when someone broadcasts on the Internet that “I’ll never pay $10 for a book! I’ll wait to buy it at a garage sale, even if it is my favorite author.”

Side-note: It really, really burns me. A book brings hours of entertainment. People will willingly pay $10 to see a movie that might be two hours long. They’ll pay $20 to buy a DVD they might watch a few times, so two to eight hours. But they balk at $15-$20 for a book that provides hours of entertainment, something to look forward to every evening for a few days (or longer, depending on your reading speed) and, if it’s really good, many more hours of daydreaming about the characters and the story. And you’re actually using your brain! Bonus!!)

But that favorite author won’t be around forever if he or she isn’t supported and that even applies to the big ones. Because nobody gets paid for re-sales, trades, sharing, etc. If stores and distributors aren’t making money, publishers aren’t making money. If publishers aren’t making money, authors are the ones that suffer. They get mid-listed, fewer resources are invested in their projects, which means even fewer sales…and the downward cycle continues. They get stuck in a deep rut in their careers.

Most authors don’t write for the money, but most of us would like to be able to write full-time. But we all have bills to pay. Unfortunately, nobody makes much money off a book – not publishers and especially not authors. You have to sell millions of copies to make millions of dollars. Seriously. An author is doing well to bring in about $1 per copy sold. Obviously, borrowed, traded, found, stolen and garage-sale books don’t count.

Numbers may vary but since an author gets paid as a percentage of sales, the more the book’s price, the more the author receives. So they might get $1.50 instead of $1. On a $15 book. You’ll find discussions in many places of higher royalty rates, but royalties are complex. A 20% royalty is not usually 20% of the list price. There are all kinds of calculations that go into it. No matter how we’ve crunched the numbers, from major publishers to indie presses, it basically comes down to about $1-$1.50 per book.

Surprising? It was when I first figured it out. Depressing? It can be. Discouraging? Maybe, but only if you let it be.

My point is that I hope more readers will be less likely to complain about book prices if they understand that 1) nobody makes a ton of money unless the book sells a ton of copies; and 2) the author gets a tiny amount of each sale.

I also hope that writers take the initiative to learn about the industry and all of their options. Everybody wants a piece of your pie. It’s just the way it is. All you can do is write an amazing book and then market, market, market.

That was supposed to be today’s post – what goes into marketing a book. But I went off on a tangent. Sorry. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

What are your thoughts? Anyone want to join me on my mission to educate readers?