Tim Greaton’s Comments

• Jan 31st, 2012 @ 8:26am

  math

  on Author Says eBooks Will Hurt Authors Because Of Royalty Rates
  I'm not sure why John Locke or Amanda Hocking must be considered the only successful examples. Many of the people on this thread make substantial sums as indie authors. I have personally sold over 2,000 e-books since November 15th. If the trend continues, I'll sell a minimum of 12,000 books this year...though I hope that number quadruples or more with the new titles I have coming out. I know several dozen indie authors who have sold a lot more books than I have in the same period of time.
  
  In short, NO WAY would a legacy publisher be willing to pay me an advance that rivals the income I'm just now starting to see.
• Aug 25th, 2011 @ 3:51pm

  (untitled comment)

  on Author Says eBooks Will Hurt Authors Because Of Royalty Rates
  Hi, Rob. I honestly have no idea what the pirate rate will be (or is) though I'm sure substantial. Here's the problem, however: the technology is already here to pirate even books that come out in paper form. There are services now that will copy a book by scanner for $1.00, and since you own that book you will then have a legal digital copy. Unfortunately, that copy can then turn into thousands of copies sent all over the world, and so on.
  
  The problem is that currently the technology doesn't exist to stop it. If it did, the music industry would not be on its knees, and there's a reason that Hollywood has cut back to half the productions and half the pay levels for major talent. It's because people are turning to streaming and they can no longer sell DVD's at a high level (it used to comprise half of a movie's gross income). That means that movie profits, too, are being chewed up by piracy.
  
  Ultimately, I fear that we have to accept that piracy exists and make as much money as is available in the legal market. And I think the point is that the Big Six can't protect authors from that piracy any more than self-marketing authors can protect themselves.
  
  Let's face it, one third of the entire retail book business just filed bancruptcy and went bye-bye. Big Six can't replace those stores, and even if they did the readers are going digital.
  
  So the question remains, where do authors best fit in the new digital economics? It's my opinion that both can exist, and that the one will force the other to find a better business model. The old model of contracting a hundred authors to two or three books and then waiting for the market to weed them out just doesn't work. Maybe this new system, where the authors vet themselves and then get picked up, like Hocking and Locke, is the solution.
  
  Rest assured, Rob, I understand the concern in all corners of the argument. The problem is that most positions that people are taking do not allow for change as a factor. If change is a tidal wave, then authors are the surfers and the Big Six represents the professional sport sponsors. It seems to me allowing the surfers to surf sponsorless cannot be a bad thing. Those that make it to shore might have a contract waiting, and those that don't can keep paddling as best they can. No harm, no foul.
• Aug 25th, 2011 @ 2:27pm

  (untitled comment)

  on Author Says eBooks Will Hurt Authors Because Of Royalty Rates
  Rob, I certainly understand the concern but a friend of mine is a New York Times bestselling author who earned a quarter million dollars in royalties one year. However, that performance was never repeated. Before he lost his last contract a few years ago, he was earning barely 10,000 which amounted to approximately 20 cents per paperback. Even at the 99-cent mark on ebooks, he would earn more than the big six were paying him.
  
  Just a thought.
• Aug 25th, 2011 @ 4:07am

  (untitled comment)

  on Author Says eBooks Will Hurt Authors Because Of Royalty Rates
  It's hard to imagine a more ridiculous argument than to say, "Only by sharing the profit can I make a profit," at least in the publishing industry as it currently exists. It is true that those authors at the top of the legacy industry have and continue to make boatloads of money, but for 95% of all authors with traditional publishers, it has been a miserable slog at best. I have friends who struggled for a decade or more in the midlists, giving up real livelihoods, homes, and even families so that they could cling to their dream of growing out of the quagmire of ever-shrinking audiences and zero promotional dollars...alas, only to ultimately find themselves with no contract and no prospects.
  
  If legacy publishers did, in fact, do substantial promotions as well as guide and grow writers' careers, Mr. Swift's premise of fear might hold more weight. However, the real state of publishing over the last couple of decades (before the ebook revolution) is quite different: an author had to play craps with her time, talent and desired life path, and then in the unlikely case that she landed a contract with the Big Six, she had to either luck into the top 5% of success stories or join the slog of other midlist writers whose prayers rested with an industry that shares only a tiny pittance of profit before ultimately discarding most writers so they can "throw their next author at the wall."
  
  As an indie author who passed the thousand-sale mark a while back, I can only say I'm excited that my crap game is directly between me and whatever audience I can manage to reach. So far I like my odds and my cut a whole lot better than the four years I spent with two hardworking but ultimately unsuccessful New York agents :-)