Friends ask How’s the book doing? I respond that I wish I knew.
I just received my first royality statement from Wiley. In four months on the market, 1,149 copies have sold, 959 in the U.S. and 192 beyond our borders, for total revenue of $25,406.
My commission rate is 10%, so my royalty is $2,820. Wiley keeps 20% of that as a reserve to protect itself should droves of people return books. Also, Wiley charged me $722 to index the book. (I think that is the first time I’ve seen that figure.) My net is $1,589, something less than $1/hour for my effort.
I opened an Amazon Bookstore when Informal Learning came out, and I’ve sold 100 copies from the site. Amazon pays a commission of about 6%. Happily, people bought another 80 things through my bookstore.
I’ve sold five copies of Allison’s book and five copies of From Counterculture to Cyberculture. People bought four copies of Lance’s and my Implementing eLearing, 7 DVDs, 10 CDs. and one copy of Caterpillars of Eastern North America. A big thank you to the individual who purchased the $380 watch . All told, I have sold $5,212 worth of stuff for Amazon, earning referral fees of $329.
Have you been reading this blog all these years for free?
Would it warm your heart to put a little something in Jay’s Christmas stocking?
Go to Amazon via this link whenever you buy a book. It will do wonders for your karma.
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So why bother with Wiley? Publish yourself through Lulu and keep everything except the printing cost. I’m writing a book as we speak and I just can’t bring myself to talk to a publisher – I’m happy to do it all myself, including the desktop publishing.
Of course, you know and everyone knows that there’s no money in trade books, except for the publishers. But if you write a good book -and you certainly did – your reputation (and hence your consulting fees) should show you substantially in profit. Even if not, think of the help you have provided to countless readers.
OK then, since you knew this was the likely result, why’d you do it? What motivated you to work on something for thousands of hours at a rate of return somewhere around a dollar an hour?
I suspect the answer lies in your other post: you need a ‘calling card’ that will be cited on people’s ‘must read’ lists. A successful book is that foot in the door you need to get speaking gigs and consulting jobs.
I personally am torn by all this. I am often urged to write a book, but I don’t particularly need fame to prosper (one of the perks of a nice government job) but on the other hand recognition for my work would be nice. But not so nice that it’s worth caving to the publishing industry and playing the less-than-minimum wage lottery like that.
Dear Jay,
these are bad news and I feel sorry for you. I myself am planning to buy the book but since I am living in Europe your Amazon-link does not work for me – is there a international button too?
Why don’t you add a PayPal button to your homepage so your readers would be able to send you a little something directly. I like to pay the author directly and I hate feeding the publishing machine:-)
Best wishes
Andreas
PS: Is your improved InfoFlow in Google Reader doing well? I am working on the next step already: making interconnections between newsitems and storing the whole information… (my post for this topic are in german but I will write a summary as soon as I have found a solution).
Clive, and Stephen, if I had it to do over again, I would. In a heartbeat. I am not purveying sour grapes. As you point out, I get rewarded by more opportunities and higher fees. Also, as Clive notes, it’s good karma. I believe in what I write and hope that spreading the word improves people’s lives. Nonetheless, it feels unfair that publishers get so much for doing so little.
A published book gives my words a certain cachet. After establishing credibility with the first one, the self-publishing alternative is probably faster, better, cheaper.
Andreas, it’s probably easiest to go to whatever Amazon site works best for you. My book’s on Amazon.de. True, I don’t get an extra bump from Amazon, but we’re only talking about a couple of Euros, so I can live without. I think of Pay Pal tip jars as only one step up from street urchins begging for space change. The Google Reader filtering is the best I’ve found. Keep us informed of your new discoveries.
Your book is available on amazon.fr (and I’ve just ordered a copy for myself).