Top authors 2008

"The statistics, revealed for the first time in The Bookseller this week, show that book sales remain top-heavy. Around 2,000 authors sold £100,000-worth or more of books in 2008. Those 2,000 authors together sold £930m-worth but, within that, the top 50 authors accounted for around £250m-worth of sales. At £645m, the sales of the top 500 authors, out of 120,000 authors in all who sold books last year, accounted for a third of all book sales last year."

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A third of all book sales (£645m) was shared among the top 500 authors. Two thirds of all book sales (£1290m) was shared among 119,500 authors.

If 10% royalties were paid at a discount of 50% (£1290m x 0.5 = £645m) those 119,500 authors would average £64.5m (10% of £645m))/119,500 = £539.75

If 8% royalties were paid at a discount of 40% (£1290m x 0.6 = £774m) those 119.500 authors would average £61.9m (8% of £774m))/119.500 = £517.99

Although this is probably ten times the amount a PA author might receive in a full year's royalties, it isn't going to add much to the household budget.

While I accept that receiving just under $1000 in yearly royalties is considerably better than receiving just under $100 (two six-month royalty checks of just under $50), it isn't the kind of money that would impress anyone. You could pick up $1000 dollars extra cash stacking food in a supermarket for what? Two or three weeks work or less?*

What's my point? It doesn't really matter if you sell one hundred books or one thousand books in a year. No one gives a s***. If it matters to you, rethink your life. Go out and have some fun. There is more to life than worrying about selling a few thousand books.

*Salary Median—varies by position from $7.90 per hour to $15.08 per hour
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Oh, by the way, I wrote The Power of Persuasion (literary fiction for anyone in doubt) in six weeks (seven days a week, seven hours a day).

Total number of hours spent writing = 6 (weeks) x 7 (days in week) x 7 (hours in day) = 294 hours.

At the lowest hourly rate of $7.90, I would receive 294 x $7.90 = $2,322.60

Considerably more than the average of £539.75! ($902.215 at today's rate).

Did I mention that it took a year to edit before I self-published? Of course, if I had signed with a commercial publisher, I would have received an advance to pay for all those hours: estimated at three hours a day, five days a week for a year: 780 hours x $7.90 = $6,162. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't an advance of $5,000 for a first-time author considered to be quite good these days? (print run of 10,000, $10 rrp 50% discount 10% royalties nets $5,000 for the author leaving $45,000 for the publisher's costs).

Shelagh,
interesting statistics.
The information confirms much of what has been discussed on various threads. Writing, but keeping your day job, is sound advice. However, writing without the expectation of some reward makes no sense to me. The type of reward varies. If it is purely monetary, then the approach to writing is like going to college for a degree where the expectation of gaining a better income is dependent on the proficiency in the chosen field of study. Even with that, there is still no guarantee that one will land a good job. As for the writer, the expectation of landing a good contract with a major publisher falls into the same category. However, being prepared, becoming proficient in what you do, is not a waste of time. Without self-esteem we are an empty shell.

I try to follow advice given in business books: Create value and money will follow. I don't think too much about all the hours I spent writing my books, because the end goal was to create something of value in hopes it would eventually bring the money. The hours I spent was what was needed to create the product, no more, no less. I knew it was a risk with no guarantee.

I read an interview with Vera Wang a long time ago, when her collection for Kohl's (a low-end department storeo) was released. She was asked if she thought her clothes would be successful there (God, reporters ask such stupid questions). Her answer was great; she said that as a creative person all you can do is throw your work out there and hope people like it.

While writing professionally may not garner top pay in today's market - whether writing a newspaper article, short story in a magazine or anthology, or a novel - it's still a profession and I treat it as such. Therefore, the pay does matter to me.

Not everyone who works 9-5 each day is happy with his or her work or the wages involved, but that doesn't mean they quit or shouldn't try harder to advance. Some will and some won't.

As I've said many times, it depends on personal goals.

I like LC's statement, except for her calling Kohl's a low end department store. I like Kohl's and buy clothes there, perhaps some of those were Vera Wang's who threw her clothes out there and hoped people would like them. I like their senior discounts as well.

Carol

Shelagh, did my name happen to come up in that story?

In The Power of Persuasion? There's a Richard ... but he's Richard Mills and his wife is Ingrid.

Carol Troestler wrote:

I like LC's statement, except for her calling Kohl's a low end department store. I like Kohl's and buy clothes there

Kohl's used to be good, and I bought clothes there, too, esp. during back-to-school time for the kids. But in the past few years their merchandise has just gotten gross. I never checked out the Vera Wang stuff. If I want to treasure hunt through junk, Marshall's provides more opportunities, lol.

Wow, LC an I agree. Marshall's is cool. I haven't been to Kohl's since I moved to SA in 2002, since there isn't one that's convenient, but I liked it when I lived in Houston.

Jamie Oliver, huh? My son-in-law will be pleased. I suppose if Brenda and I were to put our best Louisiana recipes together in a cookbook, we probably wouldn't make it to the list, though, because nobody knows who we are.

Bummer.

Ann

Ann,

I wouldn't exactly say nobody. I know you, but not Jamie Oliver. The last cookbook I bought was Famous Dave's Barbecue Cookbook.

Carol

Ann, LC says it doesn't matter about being unknown. How are your cooking credentials?

That son-in-law who reads jamie Oliver's books makes moaning sounds every Sunday when he comes to dinner. That could mean he thinks its pretty awful, I guess, but he sure eats a lot of it.

I don't think that would count very much, though.

Ann

There are so many cookbooks out there. Being as I just make the same five things over and over, I don't need them, lol, but have you checked the back covers to read about the authors? Surely they're not all celebrities.

Ohhhhhhhhhh.

All the bestseller cookbooks in the UK are by television chefs/cooks.

How doctors rate celebrity cookbooks:

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There are thousands of cookbooks on Amazon. Some are written by celebrity chefs. Most seem to be by ordinary people. Here's one written by four college students, targeted to college students, and it has a ranking of 1,000 right now. If four college students could find a successful niche, why can't someone else who is truly interested in writing a cookbook?

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<< All Williams College students in Williamstown, Massachusetts, during the production of the first edition, Alexandra Nimetz, Jason Stanley, and Emeline Starr are self-taught cooks who enjoy cooking and eating healthfully. They researched the numerous recipes passed on to them by family and friends, taste-tested each dish, and judged them all according to preparation time, effort, taste, and expense. >>

And look at their market. Moms and grandmas bought this for their family college students. College students bought this book. The authors probably originally did it for a class project and expanded it.

I think food is a good topic for a book as it is something we all need. I have written one poem, a silly poem about cooking, and it has gotten more traffic on my website than anything else with great comments.

Carol

I'm waiting for cooking to become an olympic sport. With all the twisting, turning and flip-flopping, on what is good and bad, the competition is keen.
Some people live to eat while others eat to live. Is there any middle ground?

Abe, can you get The Food Channel in Germany? If you can, try watching Iron Chef America. Your idea isn't that far off track.

Ann

Williams is a prestigious, not to mention expensive, college in a part of the country where such things matter. Naturally the students could write a great cookbook aimed at a specific audience. The school also has a pretty good Division III football team that plays other prestigious, expensive schools such as Hamilton, Bowdoin, Middlebury and arch-rival Amherst. The point being, football is more fun than cooking.

LC wrote:

There are thousands of cookbooks on Amazon. Some are written by celebrity chefs. Most seem to be by ordinary people. Here's one written by four college students, targeted to college students, and it has a ranking of 1,000 right now. If four college students could find a successful niche, why can't someone else who is truly interested in writing a cookbook?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

<< All Williams College students in Williamstown, Massachusetts, during the production of the first edition, Alexandra Nimetz, Jason Stanley, and Emeline Starr are self-taught cooks who enjoy cooking and eating healthfully. They researched the numerous recipes passed on to them by family and friends, taste-tested each dish, and judged them all according to preparation time, effort, taste, and expense. >>

Do you work at being obtuse, L.C., or does it come naturally? The rank, as of this minute is #1,782. The rank goes up and down as books are bought. It is ranked #13 in some category or other. I have a snapshot of Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine ranked #2; Betty's Wooffer made it to #1!

"Here's one written by four college students" -- it is over a decade old! The book has been revamped and updated. So, what's your point?

What's Mr. Planemaker's Amazon rank? What's the Power of Persuasion's? Did either of them ever get to 1,800? OVERALL (not in specific categories). Did they get to a second edition?

Point being that ordinary people do, indeed, write books that reach an impressive level of success. They write things in their circle of competence.

You wrote an authoritative self-help book outside your area of expertise and, predictably, couldn't find a publisher. You keep repeating it's because an author must be "known." Yet when shown an example where this isn't the case, where it's been in print for years and still doing well, with tons of good reader reviews, you get all pissy and angry. Oh well, carry on.

I've never written a self-help book in my life! You really should read the first chapter of my novel.

I'll save you the bother. Here's the blurb on the back cover:

Beth Durban is persuaded to write a letter to the editor's page of a
national Sunday newspaper in response to a film critic's prejudice
against adaptations of Jane Austen's novels. When she receives an
unexpected visit from the newspaper's critic, F. William D'Arcy, she is
bemused but, after several sightings of the inquisitive journalist,
she's neither pleased nor amused. Beth is so distracted by the
unwelcome interest from such an arrogant man she fails to see that a
close work colleague is falling in love with her. As a scientific
researcher in a Scottish University, she has led a varied life
travelling the world, spending time in New Zealand, Canada, Australia,
America, Singapore and Israel. With such a full life, she has had
little time to form any serious, romantic attachments that might lead
to a permanent relationship. When she decides to take driving lessons,
Beth opens up new opportunities for herself and realises that perhaps
she isn't too old to find love after all.


...me angry? LOL! I'm so laid back I can hardly stand upright!

The quick skimming I did of the excerpt you posted yesterday read like self-help. I said at the time I could be wrong. But that was my impression. Editors give unsolicited proposals even quicker skims. They might have gotten the same impression.

For whatever reason, it didn't find a home and you seem to think that it's because you're unknown. You point to bestsellers by celebrities as proof. Of course celebrities have an edge on us, and of course their stuff is more likely to be a bestseller. So what? There's a lot of space between failure and bestseller, and ordinary folks can carve out perfectly good niches in it.

L.C.

You are all wrong about just about everything. The Power of Persuasion is literary fiction, I didn't say that unknown authors can't find agents/publishers -- I said that books put out by unknown authors are difficult to sell without proper marketing. Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine has just aired on Preston FM community radio for a total of ten weeks and aired for over thirteen hours. Preston has a population of 131,900, and lies at the centre of the wider Preston sub-area, which has a population of 184,836, and the Central Lancashire sub-region, with a population of 335,000.

If I wasn't known before the serialisation, I should be known by now!