It's discouraging being a writer. You pour your soul into your words, and as limited as your ability may be, they are your words and your soul. So you send your soul out into the world where they are rejected, ignored, disliked ... It's hard not to wonder if you're just being foolish to pursue this dream.
I love my four books: Floozy and Other Stories, Murder by the Acre, Murder by Dewey Decimal, and even poor neglected EndlesS. Reading them you can get a fairly clear picture of the type of person I am and how I approach the world. Those books are me, and they haven't been accepted or read as much as I like them to be.
I held no illusions that I would be a "best-selling" author. That takes the support of huge publishing house that's willing to put the advertising dollars into your book. I knew that when I self-published. And I have been pleased for the most part with my sales, sales that I didn't expect and money I never thought I'd receive. (I say for the most part because sad little EndlesS did quite poorly for a variety of reasons. Still love the book, though.)
Still ... I keep thinking I should have more readers. Admittedly, they're not the best books out there. I write as well as I can, but I still have a long way to go to word mastery -- not that anyone ever really achieves that -- but they're a good sight better than many books I do read.
Is the only secret of success to those books is that they have a large publishing house behind them? And maybe they're not as successful as I think. If you look at the stats on the average published book in the USA, you realize that most books receive a print run of between 5,000 to 10,000 copies, with most receiving around 7,000 or so. Figuring in a return rate of say 10 percent, and you soon realize the reason most authors can't do as a full time job is simply because their books never received a large enough print run in the first place.
Of course, you don't write just for the money. It's dream, it's ambition, it's a creative urge, and everyone knows such things are a force unto themselves. But as I consider my dwindling bank account, money is much on my mind these days.
What's on your mind? Let me know. Talk to you later.
Buy Floozy and Other Stories in paperback at Lulu.com
Buy Floozy and Other Stories in hardcover at Lulu.com
Buy Murder by Dewey Decimal at Amazon.com
Buy Murder by Dewey Decimal at Barnes&Noble.com
Buy Murder by Dewey Decimal at BooksAMillion.com
Buy Murder by Dewey Decimal at Lulu.com
Buy Murder by the Acre at Amazon.com
Buy Murder by the Acre at Barnes & Noble.com
Buy Murder by the Acre at BooksAMillion.com
Buy Murder by the Acre at Lulu.com
Buy Murder by the Acre in HARDCOVER at Lulu.com
Buy Floozy, MBTA & MBDD items and more at Oakleaf Harbor
3 comments:
From what I've been hearing, that return rate (10%) is quite low. I think it may be closer to 50%. Of course, there are many variables.
Jean, I looked on the Net and found return rates from 10 percent to 50 percent. Whatever the real number is, it means a lot of books are being returned.
I think it also means I'm doing okay. Not getting rich by any means, but my little books are holding their own.
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