Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes a long article arguing that writers are better off self-publishing than taking the $5,000 advance usually offered by traditional publishers for the right to publish an author’s book. She writes, “You will make a lot more money on a lot fewer sales if you indie publish. [I loathe and despise the term “independent publishing.” It’s a euphemism designed to avoid the stigma of admitting that you are self-published.] “And your book will never go out of print. So you might not get those 5,000 or 10,000 sales in the first month of release, but you’ll have those and more in five or ten years.” [Oh, that’s terrific. 500 to 1,000 sales in an entire year. Get ready to retire.]

“Most of you are running around the internet, promoting your one novel, following some kind of crazy Get Rich Quick scheme.  According to Michael Cader’s figures, only 20 self-published ebook authors made the bestseller lists in 2011. Only 20, out of the hundreds of thousands published. [This runs counter to the spirit of what Rusch writes above.]

“You’re gambling on a wave that won’t ever reach you, wasting all your energy on one or two or three books rather than doing the one thing that will guarantee you more readers: Writing (and publishing) the next book.
“And even if you’re one of the fortunate few for whom lightning does strike with your 99 cent ebook, you won’t make much money. The bestselling ebook published in 2011 was by a self-published author, Darcie Chan. Her Mill River Recluse sold 413,000 units at 99 cents, which means she made roughly one-third of that (because under $2.99, most e-book sites only pay 35% or less). In other words, she made about $143,000. Not bad. [Rusch contradicts herself in this paragraph.]

“But if she had priced at $2.99, and sold half of those 413,000 units, she would have made around $432,000. (206,500 units times $2.99 times 70%)”

What strategy does Rusch advise? Write ten books and self-publish them at from $2.99 to $4.99. Rusch's advice is ridiculous. You can't expect to self-publish one book and have a hit. So far, I agree. So Rusch advises writers to write ten novels. And what do you do for an income while you're writing those ten novels, especially since you won't be getting even the admittedly small advance doled out by traditional publishers? Rusch doesn't say. Rusch’s advice is identical to that of her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, who calls “indie publishers” who write one novel and give up when it doesn’t sell more than a handful of copies quitters. Instead of one novel that generates minuscule sales, you need to write ten, each with minuscule sales. Then, in ten years, you might earn $5,000. That’s not a sustainable course of action. I also find it amusing when Rusch advises that Darcie Chan would have made much more money if she'd priced her book at $2.99 instead of $.99. Did it ever occur to Rusch that one of the reasons Chan's book was so successful was because a 99 cent ebook is an impulse purchase for readers and presents little or no sales resistance. If Chan had priced her book at $2.99, she might have sold only 206,500 copies. But she might also have sold far fewer copies.

It’s hard to take Rusch’s advice seriously when she writes this: “So is it worthwhile for me as a midlist writer to sell more books to traditional publishing? Hell, no. I see no advantages at all. Is it worthwhile for me to sell a book at what Publishers Marketplace calls “a major deal,”—$500,000 or more? It depends on the rights negotiation, it depends on my financial situation at the time, and it depends on how badly I think I need help in getting to major book markets at that point in time. Right now, I’d at least consider the offer on the table. Five years from now, who knows? I certainly don’t know, but if I had to wager on it, I’d bet I wouldn’t take the deal at all.”

When has Rusch ever been offered an advance from any publisher even remotely close to $500,000? Based on the evidence of Smith’s website, he and Rusch seem to make their money by running for-profit writer’s conferences where they dole out their self-help advice. Coming from someone who has a begging button on her blog so that readers can go to PayPal and donate money to her, her dismissal of a $500,000 advance is pretty laughable.

The awful truth about writing can be found in an article Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson wrote for Publisher’s Weekly in 2006. Anderson writes, “Here's the reality of the book industry: in 2004, 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies. Those blockbusters are a minute anomaly: only 10 books sold more than a million copies last year, and fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000.”

Just in case you missed it, here it is again. “The average book in America sells about 500 copies.”

http://kriswrites.com/2012/01/04/the-business-rusch-writers-will-work-for-cheap/comment-page-2/#comment-7151

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/6153-a-bookselling-tail-.html