Forum: Author Hangout

Maybe next you'll try leaving it on park benches?

Heh. On the next book I'm limiting myself to two proof copies. If it doesn't work after the second round, tough, that's it. I'm doing it more to have my own printed copy rather than any hope of selling them, but there's a limit.

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That's only one percent alcohol. Not very intoxicating literature.

True, but as one Amazon reviewer said, "It's like 'How I met your mother' but with a much higher SPF factor." The other Amazon reviewer called it a girlie story, which I suppose it is. It's a favorite.

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On the next book I'm limiting myself to two proof copies. If it doesn't work after the second round, tough, that's it. I'm doing it more to have my own printed copy rather than any hope of selling them, but there's a limit.

It's hard selling print books online. Despite offering print copies of all my books, about the only ones I sell are person-to-person sales ("Oh, you publish books? Are there any I might have seen?"). I mostly offer them as giveaways to family and friends (Christmas presents so they can keep up on what I'm doing, and as gifts to my contributors (editors and photographers, artists and font designers of products I use in the books). It's more a 'public relations' than sales endeavor.

@awnlee jawking

Is that the same story you have here on SOL?

Bondi, Awnlee would like the address of your recycling center. 'D

And most of them will only take around 10-20 copies for an unknown author. Even then sales will be hard to estimate. Probably somewhere along the line of slim and none.

From people I know who've offered books to local bookstores, sales are largely limited to signings (typically only 3 or 4, up to 6 or 7 at an absolute maximum). The other issue is that independent bookstores typically are still pissed at Amazon and thus won't allow any books print by createspace--which Amazon purchased a couple years ago and is the most cost-efficient and widely used indie-publishing source--meaning mainly only vanity-press authors are eligible to sell to independent bookstores. I'm not planning to switch from CS to lulu or D2D just to sell a couple copies of a book.

Sales to bookstore are also very author-intensive efforts. You're best bet it to print 100 to 200 books at a time (typical vanity press volumes) and visit one book store after another, only selling a couple to a few books at each bookstore spread across multiple stores over several years. That's a hell of a lot of effort--time not spent on writing--and the poor return on investment from the vanity press medium means the authors receive tiny income for the effort.

Ideally, print through lulu and visiting every indie bookstore in a 100 mile radius would produce the best results, but again, you're not likely to earn much.

Several indie authors go this route, but I'm not convinced it's a cost-effective solution.

P.S. I'm not sure of the latest count, but I'm guessing my brother has sold close to 800 to 1,000 copies of his $20 book, however he only earns $1 for each copy he sells himself. It's taken him years to sell that much, he's benefited by selling the book at carving/hunting shows (it's a book about hunting), and he's never written any more as a result of the cost--in hours--in this single sales technique.

People don't want to steal worthless things. Give it a value and more people will want to steal it.

Heh. Somebody better tell that to the guys (and gals) hanging around the intake bin at the recycling center.

Besides, the theory may have an upper limit.I know an art photographer who prices his images in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, likely buyers in his local market are used to paying $25 max.

Oh, wait. You didn't say they would *buy* the books...

bb

Is that the same story you have here on SOL?

It is the same Sarah's Honeymoon. Eventually (it's second or third on my to-do list) I'll update the version on SOL. In the meantime, the ePub version is available free from Amazon, iBook Store, Lulu, etc. It's a little crisper than the SOL version.

(And, of course, please feel free to buy the printed copy at a mere $5.99---for a 32-page story---from Lulu.) FYI outside of SOL I'm listed as Joe "Bondi" Beach.

Cheers,

bb

Thank you.

I must admit that when I saw 'book', I immediately assumed a full-length novel and thought of various nefarious uses; doorstop, paperweight, child admonishment utensil, fuel for a wood-burning stove.

As an aside, I guess I'm showing my age here but the book reviews section of my newspaper recently reviewed a 'short novel' of 'less than 45,000 words'.

I'll add 'Sarah's Honeymoon' to my intended reading list.

AJ

As an aside, I guess I'm showing my age here but the book reviews section of my newspaper recently reviewed a 'short novel' of 'less than 45,000 words'.

The National Novel Writing Month folks call 50,000 words the threshold for a novel, so I guess "short novel" fits. Or it's a novella. My wife is working through Diana's Gabaldon's Outlander novels, at something like 600 pages each, at the other end of the spectrum.

I hope you enjoy Sarah's Honeymoon when you get to it. With any luck I'll update the SOL version this weekend, but for now only Lulu has the current version.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/joe-bondi-beach/sarahs-honeymoon/ebook/product-22705321.html

bb

The National Novel Writing Month folks call 50,000 words the threshold for a novel, so I guess "short novel" fits.

A novella has traditioanlly been defined as 30,000 words. "Short novel" works, but again, why bother classifying it? It's either a novel or it's not. With 'short novel' you'll soon have tiny novels, miniscule novels, gross novels (compilations of 144 short stories) and grand novels). If you need to qualify what size novel you wrote, you're wasting time trying to justify a too-short story. Either sell the damn thing or withdraw it: the readers will vote for whether the consider it a sufficient length or not.

Bondi, I'm glad to see your pricing for your novel. I just published my shortest book, definitely a novella at 27,000 words. It's double your books size at 64 pages and I priced it at $9.99 simply because I'm tired of undercutting my own prices--which has never boosted sales. When I kept undercutting prices, trying to attract sales, I was tempted to shrink the font size producing unreadable novels. I'd rather have readable, quality books, even if they cost a little more. Readers will either pay what a books worth or they won't, but having the entire world trying to compete for the exact same $.99 price point (for ebooks) is for the birds.

By the way, my other 150,000 to 200,000 word books cost $14.99 (well under the mainstream presses traditional $20 - $24.99 price point).

A novella has traditioanlly been defined as 30,000 words. "Short novel" works, but again, why bother classifying it?

Because newspaper reviewers are loath to review solo novellas.

There don't seem to be any standards to story length categorisations. Older guidelines seem to be consistently longer than modern guidelines which correlates with the modern trend towards brevity. Being ancient, I would expect a novel to come in around 80,000 words, certainly no less than 60,000. Yet some modern guidelines start novels at 40,000, firmly in novella territory as far as I'm concerned.

AJ

There don't seem to be any standards to story length categorisations. Older guidelines seem to be consistently longer than modern guidelines which correlates with the modern trend towards brevity. Being ancient, I would expect a novel to come in around 80,000 words, certainly no less than 60,000. Yet some modern guidelines start novels at 40,000, firmly in novella territory as far as I'm concerned.

I was just looking at one person's commentary on novel length. Her post was 2009 so is dated, but she focused not on what was a "novel" or a "novella" or whatever, but what an editor would accept for publication and what a bookstore would agree to stock.

Central point: unless your name is King, Rowling, Martin (with G.R.R. in front) or Gabaldon (Outlander or the like, your chances of publishing anything over 100K are slim to none, and 80-90K a better range, in any genre.

bb

EDIT: Here's the post: http://jillmyles.com/tag/word-count/

The National Novel Writing Month folks call 50,000 words the threshold for a novel

this page has some of the more commonly accepted word count lengths:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count

Classification Word count
Novel over 40,000 words
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story under 7,500 words

although they do vary with some genres, and then you have sagas above that which usually start around the 100,000 words mark.

Science Fiction and Fantasy 110K

I found the following wikipedia (spit!) page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count

which claims:

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories:[9]

Classification Word count

Novel over 40,000 words

Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words

Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words

Short story under 7,500 words

As you can probably guess, a limbo bar would not be troubled by how hugely those figures whelm me.

AJ

The 110K is not a minimum, it is the average word count for dead tree published SciFi/Fantasy Novels.

The good SciFi stories tend to run out in the epic or saga range of over 100,000 words because of the need to build the society the story is built in taking up a lot of words. Stories set in current times or historical times do not need to detail many details of the society because the readers already know them, while SciFi needs to build the foundation of the society before they start the story proper. That need almost doubles the number of words needed.

Part of the backlash against traditional Science Fiction, now virtually extinct on the SciFi/Fantasy shelves of my local library, was because dead-tree publishers forced authors to write to a strict word limit and, as you say, a Science Fiction novel has all the overheads of other types of fiction plus the overhead of explaining the universe, so corners had to be cut.

There's a small but vehement group of SciFi haters in my local writers' group. They typically dislike SciFi novels because, to paraphrase, they're full of geeky stuff but short on story essentials like character and plot development.

Strangely enough, they seem to like the extracts they've seen of my work despite it being mostly SciFi, although since I count them as friends their opinions are not necessarily trustworthy.

AJ

When I was young, the SciFi shelves of my local library were awash with yellow. IIRC, L Ron Hubbard's works were a rare exception. I tried something else of his and really didn't like it so I gave the rest of his books a wide berth. That's a decision I really should have revisited because I'm one of the miniscule number of people who actually liked the movie.

AJ

That reference means nothing to me.

Gollancz (sp?)

I'm sure there's a modern technical term for what I term 'traditional'? Could it be 'hard'?

AJ

I may be wrong but space operas would seem to belong more to 'Science Fantasy' than soft. Perhaps other oldies would like to contribute - surely I'm not the only person here who used to be an avid Gollancz reader.

AJ

Battlefield Earth is the first novel he wrote.

Wrong - first saga he wrote, but he'd done novels before that. 18 going back as far as 1935.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard_bibliography

Have you seen Battlefield Earth,

Written by a very well established author, as is most of the extremely large scifi stuff; also, he was trying to establish an income after loosing control of the Scientology movement he established. Mind you, go back far enough and most scifi stories were more novellas than anything else because the only place they could get published were in magazines like Astounding.

There's a small but vehement group of SciFi haters in my local writers' group.

You're lucky, the Writers' Group nearest where I live have good government funding and don't even acknowledge anyone else in the area can write unless they do the artsy poetry crap that no one buys.

You're lucky, the Writers' Group nearest where I live have good government funding and don't even acknowledge anyone else in the area can write unless they do the artsy poetry crap that no one buys.

Robert G. Ballard loved to tweak the "artsy poetry crap" crowd. From an obit: "''Bob didn't have much time for the literary establishment and the feeling was mutual,'' wrote Funnell in a recent tribute. Well-known as a stirrer, he would appear at writers' festivals (reluctantly) with a stripper under each arm, or wearing a Helen Demidenko T-shirt soon after the young author and poseur had left the literati red-faced."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/larrikin-the-star-of-popular-fiction-20121002-26xfw.html#ixzz49QBqtpmp
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

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Mystery 80K

Mystery is an interesting exception. Wandering through bookstores (after writing my first mystery novel), I discovered that mysteries, as a whole, are the shortest books of any genre, except the best-selling authors all write HUGE mystery novels--their the only ones who seem to be able to get away with it. Thus I'm guessing the word count stats for mysteries are overly inflated by those exceptions.

On the other hand, 110,000 words for sci-fi stories seems to be seriously short, as the majority of sci-fi stories nowadays are huge. I guess it defends how they came up with these definitions (i.e. are they based on the actual average word count of books, or what the publishing houses count as what's 'acceptable' for submission?).

@Bondi

unless your name is King, Rowling, Martin (with G.R.R. in front) or Gabaldon (Outlander or the like, your chances of publishing anything over 100K are slim to none, and 80-90K a better range, in any genre.

That augments my point. Traditional publishers stress book length, since it affects their bottom lines, while ebook sales are constrained by such restrictions, and tend to be significantly longer yet still sell for substantially less--thus the entire word-count index is divided by traditional publishers/vs. Indie publishers. The two are worlds apart at this point--and not just in the sci-fi universes!

@Bondi *** Book Pricing Discussion ***

I am almost certainly the wrong person to look at for pricing. (I can't remember what Lulu's bottom price was, somewhere around $4.37 for a 36-page book including front matter.)

Before jumping on the 'give it away for free' bandwagon, you need to consider your books price elasticity (an economics term).

If your readers buy the same amount, regardless of the price, then there's no sense discounting it. However, if you're selling most of your books to complete stranger on Amazon, then they'll likely purchase more if you price it at nothing.

However, I've discovered that when you give books away for free, you're much less likely to sell any subsequent books simply because the people who collect free books won't purchase sequels.

My best returns haven't been my 'free book giveaways', but instead when I discount books by 75%. Those prices attract the serious readers who, if impressed will purchase more. Free book collectors generally won't purchase anything under any circumstances. Chances are, the people you're selling other books to for free would purchase the same books if you charged for all of them.

But the key is how your readers respond to prices.

Baen Books has something called the Baen Free Library,

This was established and supported by the founder of the publishing house, and he had some very impressive figures to support his claims. However, since his death those in charge at Baen haven't been so active in supporting the BFL, so it's not been expanding so much.

Note: Damn, Lazeez's crazy "matched tags" ate my response once again. Here's my best recollection of what I originally said--though most of it was permanently deleted.

That is what I personally believe causes some series. The story just doesn't want to end at the planned ending. That desire for more from readers is a good indication that today's readers and publishers would have insisted on at least one or more volumes. Some writers get frustrated when the demands for more takes over their creative lives.

In my case, I knew my planned ending for my 6-book "Catalyst" series when I first started. I didn't know how many books it would eventually take--since that was largely based on the focus of each. On the other hand, I'd intended my "Great Death" series as being a single book. It was only after I'd posted/published it that I saw a new creative direction for a sequel which made the story worth writing. Then again, the biggest criticism of my "Building a Legacy" wasn't the ending but the fact I killed off the main character--a major plot point hinted at throughout the story--because it cut off any additional sequels.

Publishers are now insisting that many first-time writers submit 3-book sequels instead of single books, but for most authors, we know when to end a story. Some authors fall in love with their characters as their fans (ex: Jason Borne or James Bond). The key is: if you can create something new with each book, it's worth continuing. However, if you're just churning out more books like the earlier ones, then it's generally not worth wasting your readers time. (My personal opinion.)

I think its the unexpected sequels that are the surprise and hardest on both the writer and the publishers. They can try and force that not to happen, but how many of those 3-book sequels really get published.

From what I understand (from people who've been offered the contracts), they aren't that uncommon. Instead, they'll be offered a potential contract and told to 'come back when you have a three-book sequence', though all they really need is the plan for the full three books, rather than a finished product (i.e. they don't need the books initially, but the contracts require a three-book sequence).

The gotcha, as always, is that few published authors ever make diddly. Traditional publishers publish loads of authors who then never sell more than they can personally push onto their friends and relatives. If the first book doesn't sell, the publisher is unlikely to press for subsequent books, but given the terms of the contract, they can't publish anywhere else until they complete their initial contract--meaning it's essentially a 'give up your career if the books don't sell' contract!

Granted, I've never been offered one myself. 'D