8/8
And yes, it’s fucking soul-destroying. I deserve to be able to pay for the things I need with the work, the hard work, that I do.
I’m not writing this to shame anyone for buying cheap books. I’ve done it myself. I’m writing it because now I understand what it means. Now I can help you understand too. These numbers are usually invisible, and invisibility only benefits the system.
END
@kristiedegaris actually priniting and bookbinding (at times a piece of art) are the only way to survive in this madness. The impact of digital (either digital book or the distribution part) is huge especially for english as imternational format, so the only way is for us all to buy printed books at higher price via our local bookstore, if still existing. More difficult for english content, easier for us smaller countries/languages (in our case in greek, printed content is resisting somehow). Book should remain tangible and printed as it is something we touch, hold, bend, put in a suitcase, read on the beach, sofa...it is not just news or ephemeral content. Good luck, I will check your book and if possible get it in print.
@kristiedegaris I really wish I could buy your book, and ALL the books I like, as paper copies, but unfortunately I did that for many years, and have now run out of bookshelf space! So, alas, for most things now it *has* to be e-book.
@Knitronomicon I buy ebooks, I have nothing against ebooks at all. My issue isn't even with people choosing to buy cheap ebooks/books. My issue is with publishing and Amazon and how as societies what we value has become really skewed.
@kristiedegaris Oh, I do understand. I know quite a few musicians and artists, and know how little they can get paid too! And I'm a knitter - people expect to be able to get a hand-knitted jumper for under £50!! (Have they LOOKED at the cost of good yarn???) Alas, I'm pretty much stuck with Amazon for a lot of things, due to tech and age issues.
@Knitronomicon OMG YES!!! My grandmother knitted jumpers so I know the cost and time and skill that goes into them. People expect them to cost the same as what a machine knitted, non natural fibre garment costs! Also, farmers get absolutely ripped off when selling wool, and yet it is sold on to the consumer at a huge cost. I use Amazon too, in rural Scotland not everything is available here, or nearby.
@kristiedegaris This thread is timely for me because my dam broke this week, and I've bought two full-price physical books in quick succession. Ever since there have been Kindle and Apple Books apps, I've favoured them because of some notion of convenience: a library in my pocket.
But without thinking too deeply, without making lists of pros and cons, even vaguely, I just couldn't stomach it this week and ordered actual physical books, from actual, non-Amazon bookshops.
Just sick of it.
@kristiedegaris Amazon exploiting authors. Stupid price. Nothing to do with accessibility, it's much less than people pay for a coffee.
@annehargreaves Amazon definitely ledad the charge but publishing has so much to answer for as does how our society views what is valuable.
@kristiedegaris how do sales numbers change when it goes on sale there? Does it capture an audience that otherwise would not have paid for it at all?
@castaway Sales don't change that much, but they increase, and yes I am sure there are people buying it purely because it is on sale.
I think I covered my thoughts on that in my thread. I don't think there are many careers where you are paid £2500 for three years of work but it's fine because at least it's in the hands of readers who might not have engaged if it wasn't on sale?
@kristiedegaris @castaway Sadly, this problem is an open secret in publishing https://www.alcs.co.uk/news/why-writers-are-at-a-loss-for-words/: “The past 15 years have seen a sustained fall in professional writers’ real terms income from writing; this decline of around 60% has pushed median earnings down to minimum wage levels.”
If you haven’t done so already, register your works to earn extra income with https://www.alcs.co.uk and https://plr.bl.uk/
As well as the systemic and structural issues, part of the problem is that publishing is a numbers game: the number of people wanting to be published authors is more than the number that publishers and their markets need, so authors without a track record of success have a weak bargaining position and have little power to improve poor terms and conditions. (But it does sound like you have done relatively well with your publisher, did you have a literary agent?)
Also, a few big winners make up for the long tail of low-selling books, and editors *need* new untested authors and their books in the hope of finding their next bestselling author.
As others have said, some authors make more money from speaking engagements than their books, and use their books for credibility and to raise their profile.
#writing #book #author #enshittification #bookstodon #business
@foldworks @castaway Thanks for this.
Do you sell them directly, from your website or in person? I ask because it's my favourite way of purchasing books I like (and I like yours -and bought it from amazon UK, apologies for that-).
@oscarfalcon No need to apologise. This problem lies with publishing and places like Amazon. This is not an individual issue. I don't seel them in person. I wasn't sure how to purchase from my publisher without needing a large amount of up front cash (which I don't have) and also my ADHD can make organisation and getting things in the mail difficult.
@kristiedegaris It's truly awful - but take heart, Kristie. Quite a large percentage of people will buy the physical book if they loved it as an eBook.
Personally, I can't wait to read it, but I like to start with the paperback edition, and then I wait for a kindle discount to get the eBook as well if it is an Important Book - because digital is so handy if you quickly want to search for something. Can't do that on paper...
@HI_Greens I love to read ebooks too and I love being able to collect all the highlighted sections in one place. Plus I can have so many books in my pocket at one time. I hope there is a PB edition because so many readers prefer it. As do I. Thank you for this kind comment. I really appreciate it.
@kristiedegaris
Is Hivebooks better for you as the author ?
@sticklandtim Yes, Hive and bookshop.org both work with and support Indy bookshops!
@kristiedegaris what cut do you get if we buy from Bookshop.org for £14.24?
@kristiedegaris We authors are the least valued part of the publishing industry. My editor gets paid way more for editing my book over a couple of months than I will earn in the many years my book is available for sale.
Amazon even uses our books to lure in more Prime subscribers by giving them away for free. Mind-boggling!
I've always assumed that the "$1.99 today!" offers were something that publishers agreed with Amazon. Have you asked yours whether they were on board with this?
@bodhipaksa I'm pretty sure they know what's happening, yes. I am genuinely surprised. My book isn't selling millions but it's not doing badly for a debut from an indie. 1200 copies in 4 months. That's mostly my work to be fair but it's OK. I don't understand.
@kristiedegaris I think I'll have a wee word with my publishers and let them know I wouldn't be happy for them to do this.
1200 copies in 4 months is well above average. You're doing great!
@bodhipaksa I think when a publisher works with Amazon, they have to sign all sorts, likely including something that means Amazon can do what they want discount wise. It feels quite unstoppable. Let me know how you get on.
@bodhipaksa And yep, my editor is earning twenty times what I am. It makes no sense.
@kristiedegaris Just preordered it here in Germany—with a local bookstore because fuck the Bezoses of the world.
@kristiedegaris I’d been meaning to order it from my local bookstore and am now making sure I do that next week.
@theseliminaldays Thank you SO MUCH!
@kristiedegaris Is it possible to withdraw your book from Amazon's catalogue?
I know an artiste who has none of their albums available on streaming sites, yet they can nonetheless sell 80% of seats at the London Palladium when they do a concert there.
@dissident My publishers decide that. And Amazon are the fucking worst but publishing has so much to answer for here too. I'd rather give people my book for free than them buy it for 2 quid on Amazon (Sadly I am legally prohibited from doing that too)
@kristiedegaris Sorry to hear that. It sounds like your publishers are complicit arseholes.
@dissident All publishers are. Mine are an indy so honestly, slightly better.
@patrickhadfield I agree BUT this is also publishing and our general attitude as societies towards the value of things.
2/
I want to be very clear about what that number represents. It’s not symbolic, it’s not a rhetorical flourish. It’s the actual amount I earn when a book I spent years writing is sold on the world’s largest retail platform. I see other authors shouting about this: ‘Best time to buy my book is now, cheapest it’s ever been.’ Fuck no. Don’t buy my book now. Don’t buy it from Amazon. Buy it from an indie bookshop at full price.
@kristiedegaris hey, but at least you will be contributing to some megalomaniac sending his wife-to-be and a pop star into "space" and such worthy projects. Well done.
I write with the same irony, because my book was put on Amazon by my publisher and they do no publicity for it. If asked I would have said "NEVER on Amazon" but I guess we cannot stop that. But unless you are Harlan Coben, you will not make money from such books. Probably better to self-publish.
@ArchaeoIain Haha! Yes, I've probably sent at least a thousandth of a pop star into space at this point ;)
Yep, there is no choice. Publishers decide and similarly I've done most of my my promotion for my book.
@kristiedegaris nailed it. Well, a toe nail, at least
@kristiedegaris That's why I ship physical books from a local bookstore. I'd buy them directly from you if that's possible
3/
I put my whole life into my book. Not in a romantic way, in the literal sense. It was written alongside parenting, illness, recovery, physical labour, money stress, and, for the first time, understanding my life as a very difficult whole. I put my kids second more often than I’d like to admit (they dread me writing another book). I sacrificed social life and mental health. It contains real wisdom, lessons learned the hard way, the kind that cost time, relationships, health, and certainty.
4/
We’re encouraged to think paying an author 20p is normal. At least it’s accessible, at least it’s out there reaching more readers. Of course I want people to read the book. I didn’t write it to sit untouched on a shelf.
5/
No one would suggest a therapist should be paid pennies because it makes their work ‘more available’. No one expects to go to work for a year and be told they’re being paid in exposure. Yet writers are routinely told that the trade-off for visibility is the acceptance of being underpaid to the point of absurdity. And publishing is almost completely unregulated in this way. In what other industry could this happen in broad daylight? And it’s not just Amazon, although they lead the charge.
6/
This isn’t about unrealistic expectations or ingratitude. I didn’t expect my book to make me rich. I don’t expect every reader to pay full price, or to buy it at all. I do expect that years of skilled labour should not be reduced to a figure that is truly disgusting. And to be clear, what I earn at full price is just over £1, so it was pretty disgusting to begin with.
7/
We live in a culture where people will spend £4.50 on a coffee without thinking twice. I was charged £9 for a filled baguette the other day. But we hesitate over paying for a book that took years to write, a book about a life that took years to live. This doesn’t just devalue books. It devalues the act of making them.
