Look what I have. 🙂
Usually when you hit a bestseller list, publisher sends you flowers. Instead the flowers came from my husband.
Flowers make everything better.
Gordon note: These pretty flowers can be purchased and next day delivered from Olive & Cocoa.
We have some questions to answer today, so let me get to it.
Where is the best place to buy your books that gets you the best returns for revenue/publicity? I’ve been buying my books through Amazon, but if there’s a better place to buy them from that’s better for you would you post them please?
This has cropped up repeatedly, so let me reiterate that we are grateful for every sale. If you buy it in ebook, if you buy it in print, or if you borrow it from the library, if you find it for a penny in a used bookstore, buy it, someone else did. We want you to enjoy our work in the way most convenient to you. The most important thing is that purchasing our books is easy and guilt-free.
We ask only that you don’t pirate. Pirating ebooks is stealing; it’s not a victimless crime. It costs us sales, but it also shortchanges other readers, because when the book is pirated in large enough numbers, the writer won’t continue the series. What’s the point of working on something for months and months if someone is just going to steal it? For example, right now we are reevaluating our Netgalley policy, because someone was given an ARC of BLOOD HEIR in epub format and uploaded it to a pirate site. So if you like a particular book, please buy it or legally borrow it.
But I digress. Back to the earnings. In terms of money earned per copy, ebooks are probably best. It doesn’t really matter in what format. Most ebook retailers pay us 70% of the cover price from each purchase. This doesn’t mean that you should feel guilty purchasing in print. We make money there too. 😀
So I’m guessing no big 5 {or 4, 3 however many there are now} contracts for a while?
Probably not. As we touched on during Zoom Afterparty, once we finish RUBY FEVER, we would like to take a year off to situate ourselves and deliver new installments in some of our self-published series. The only thing we would be willing to shop right now to New York is a possible Arabella series, which wouldn’t exactly fit into Avon’s lineup.
Romance is a great genre, but it comes with certain tropes, just like any other genre. One of the tropes is having the hero and heroine identified early on. People like to know who to root for. Arabella’s books would feature several possible love interests and we are not sure who she is going to end up with. We could do a series through one of Avon’s sister imprints, but right now we are not ready to discuss it. We need to get some things off our desk, like the second Iron Covenant book.
Ideally, we would like to remain hybrid, but and this is a big but (big butt, hehe,) we’ve just seen a self-published title explode onto the lists with a minimum of publicity. We do run a business, so let’s talk some numbers.
Disclaimer: we are authors with an established audience. If you are just starting out, not a lot of this will apply to you. Please don’t consider this a business advice.
A traditional publisher gives us 25% of the ebook receipts, that is, they give us 25% of their profits.
A quick breakdown before all expenses and agent’s cut of 15%:
Cover price: $4.99
Traditional royalty : $0.87
Self-Published: $3.49
You see, the publisher takes whatever we earn and keeps 3/4 of it. In perpetuity.
Now, the publisher takes on risks when they choose to publish us. They give a big chunk of money upfront, they provide editorial expertise, they shoulder production costs such as cover, design, formatting, and printing, and they provide us with a distribution network for print and publicity and marketing.
I should pause here and specify that publicity and marketing are two different things. People often confuse the two, so let’s define them.
Publicity team handles what’s called “earned” promotion. They send the book out for reviews, and they arrange interviews, appearances, conventions, and so on. They also do a lot of things that the author typically doesn’t see, like follow up with bookstores, make sure they’re advertising the appearance, enticing the bloggers to feature the book, and generally thinking out of the box on how to promote the book. They think in terms of individuals. What will appeal to this particular blogger? What will work for the audience of this TV show? Money doesn’t exchange hands.
The marketing team handles “paid” promotion. They work on paid advertisements, retailer placement (big banners you see on retailer sites, for example, or special displays in stores,) they handle the metadata, they make swag, and they are in charge of the giveaways. They are people who think in statistical generalities. What keywords will help the book reach a particular demographic? Money exchanges hands.
So if you are a self-published author, and you are hiring someone to promote the books, you may want to clarify who you are hiring. Is it a publicist or a marketing specialist?
In the past, going with the publisher made sense, because there was really no printing and distribution model available to a self-published author. You couldn’t get your books into Wal-Mart or your local grocery store. You couldn’t get them into independent bookstores. You were stuck. Similarly, you couldn’t really do your own marketing. You could hire a publicist, but you would have to look and long and hard to find someone with the right contacts in the industry. But the marketing specialists were out of our reach.
2020 has shown us that already low print sales have cratered. Now we have Ingram Spark, which allows us to print and provide printed copies to the independent stores. I am not broke up about our absence in the big box stores. Print now accounts for a very small percentage of total copies sold, and everyone likes to support small bookstores.
Similarly, our agency does a fantastic job at marketing our self-published releases. They did negotiate some nice placement for us with Apple Books. They are always looking at new avenues to distribute our work. We have some interesting things coming up, which I can’t talk about yet. We seem to be doing okay with our own publicity, although I will mention that Pam Jaffee, the former publicist at Avon, was worth her weight in gold. Still, we were able to coordinate signed copies with bookstores, we had ARCs available, and we successfully hosted our own Zoom webinars.
Which brings us to the huge burning question: what will the publisher do for us that will be worth giving up 3/4 of our money forever? A publisher would have to make a very compelling argument and that argument can’t be just “We will give you a big advance.” Here is why the advance argument falls flat on its face.
Let’s say we get an advance of $100,000 for a book price $4.99. The book sells 30,000 units in one year.
Traditional model: the publisher earns $3.49 off each copy, and then pays us 25% or 87 cents. Self-published model: we get $3.49.
Traditional : 30,000 units will bring in $26,100 for us. A little over 1/4 of our advance.
Self-published: 30,000 units will bring in $104,700. We have made as much as the advance given to us by the publisher without strings attached.
Math is our friend. 🙂
If we are negotiating another contract, I want to know what we will be getting. What is it they are contributing that’s worth giving up that much income?
For this and other reasons, we are going to take the year off from traditional publishing. This will also mean changes to the Release Schedule page of the website. There will be no release dates for upcoming projects until these projects are complete and ready to the first editorial pass.
Just as a question to toss out there for whenever is convenient for you to answer: Assuming you end up in a good headspace for working on the Iron Covenant series, would Iron Covenant titles come between entries in Blood Heir, is it being abandoned, or is it postponed indefinitely?
We are not ready to discuss it at this time. We need to get RUBY FEVER finished. 🙂 We are not dropping Iron Covenant, but how exactly our schedule will pan out remains to be seen. It depends on RF new publishing date, etc.
Phew! I have knocked it out. I am going to go try to figure out what to unfreeze for dinner and then go write. Happy Friday!
I’m just a reader and I have always been annoyed at the disparity in monies divided between publishing companies and the authors. Authors do the hard work, without them, there would be no publishing company. I can’t believe that an author does not get some sort of royalty from future sales. Who came up with that one? The music business sure has it right. The publishing industry needs a shake-up. We are in a new era of technology, where unfortunately, sales for paper print are diminishing, because of ease of reading, you just download, or ease of buying, you sit in the comfort of your home and buy, or ease of reading, I don’t need a lamp to read at night and bother my husband, who can’t sleep with it on, or ease of storage, I don’t need huge bookshelves. Why are the publishing companies so top heavy? Why haven’t they diversified? Downsized? Or used technology to more efficiently breakdown their workloads? Many other fields and companies have to do this. Maybe they have/are, but not passing on the savings. Good on you Ilona Andrews for being self-publishers. Hopefully the times of no recognition and writing being a side-line job a lot of authors has finally come to a halt. You are lucky you are established authors, but this also means you should get more. I thank you for your wonderful hard work, I’m glad I paid for my ebooks and you got more money in your pocket. I hope more ebook type companies pop up and support authors and give the publishing companies a big shake-up. Thank you for your wonderful stories and I will always support you and like authors as much as I can.
I’m trying to post a moment and keep getting that it’s a duplicate one, when it’s not.
Hello Carmen,
I have your previous post. It may not show to you if your browser caches.
Your flowers are beautiful!
Thank you for the self publishing explanation. I learn so much from your blog about your experience.
I’m defrosting a ham my aunt gave me to make dinner. “Why a full size ham?” you ask. Because I don’t have freezer space for a full sized ham no matter how well meaning my aunt is ????.
Well done Gordan! Can I just ask if you’re ever going to do box sets? I read all your books electronically but I love love love the sight of book sets.
Whats for dinner?
Hi IA
This is a little off-topic… and I hear you when you say that you don’t have any release schedule after Ruby Fever. But I was wondering about Innkeeper series!
I see so many comments asking about Hidden Legacy and KD world, but I really miss Sean and Dina. I am so looking forward to solving the mystery of the cat! You have not mentioned this series for a while… I really, really hope that you are planning something of that series, too!
Looking forward to the next book in the series,
A
Hello Aurialis
The Innkeeper series was mentioned earlier this week in this post https://ilona-andrews.com/2021/bestseller-lists-and-blood-heirs-future/ as well as in depth during the Zoom release party which was recorded and posted here https://ilona-andrews.com/2021/answers-to-blood-heir-burning-questions/ . I hope this helps ????
This comment is actually for the next blog post where you are talking about how people misunderstood your taking a year off from traditional publishing, but of course those comments are locked.
I have a refrigerator magnet that says “Do you sometimes wonder if we give God a headache?” I thought it very appropriate-lol.
Also, Congratulations on your sales for Blood Heir!
I have almost all your books electronically. Now I want paper! Love you both! Keep doing what you do so well!!
I feel particularly dense (sorry). Does a break from traditional publishing for a year mean a self-published Blood Heir sequel could still be released during that time?
I ask knowing we don’t get to demand answers. I just like drooling over your books. 🙂
Dear Ilona Andrews,
I want to congratulate you both on your success for Blood Heir! It was a fantastic read and I cannot wait to read the sequels and walk in Aurelia’s shoes.
After devouring the Harry Potter series in my teenage years, I did not run across another book or series that I wanted to devour more than all of your series – Kate Daniels, Hidden Legacy, Innkeeper Chronicles, and Edge. I am thankful to have been introduced to your books. The storylines with compounding character development and rich/vibrant fantasy worlds have left me thoroughly excited to see where your imagination and creativity will take me. Your books give me as much a thrill as solace to walk through parallel worlds where the protagonists’ hearts are filled with love, dignity, and decency as they embark on their thorny yet consequential and transformative legacies despite their circumstances and forseen/unforseen challenges.
Thank you so much for what you do and I am grateful that you were able to overcome the grueling challenges of your early writing career.
Warm wishes and kind regards,
Suma
Thanks so much for showing us how the (e) sausage is made. Since with ebooks there is no intermediates distributor and there is no expense for paper/printing/shipping, I’ve been worried that all of that “savings” wasn’t making it to the authors, especially when a behemoth like Amazon is involved. I’m so glad to hear that the majority of the money makes it to the creators.
Even if you hire professional editors and artists, it sounds like a transition to self-publishing will net you a much better income. Here’s hoping you get all the millions you deserve!
Are you contractually not allowed to sell stories with Kate Daniels because they were traditionally published and the publishers have a claim on it?
If you decided to write a new KD book and wanted to self publish, could you, would you be stopped because of contracts?
I think an authors good Name is the best Marketing and Publicing.
I read all of your books and when I see that you published a new one, I buy it without the need to read the cover. Because I know that you a very good writers and that every book of you is very good. So I think the main thing is that the people see that there is a new book out.
Thank you for making my life happier because I can read your books!
Hi, I just read your post about self publishing for a year and I wish you the best of luck and hope it works out. Personally I was just so excited that you are continuing the Covenant series, I love Hugh.
Now-a-days when buying a book I look through Amazon and see what is coming out, except for my favourite authors such as yourselves who I comb through their websites waiting for new releases. I no longer go into bookstores as I read everything on my ipad. The last last great new author I found was through your recommendation. It was T. A. White, so thank you very much. You guys are at the top of my list of great authors.. Please stay safe during this tragic time. Or better still move to Australia ????
I so enjoy reading your perspective on publishing. I know nothing about the publishing world and I love learning more about it, albeit of course I know this is only one POV… this is one reason why I keep coming back and back to this blog! I would read your books anyway because they are incredible, but I just love the other insights you provide (yarn, kids, house, pets, publishing, books, Russia, relationships, friendship, living space, writing)…. Thank you.
Whatever else is said writing is your profession. You should use your tremendous talent to provide the best lifestyle you can for yourself and your children. It seems to me that you have reached the admirable position in your profession where YOU call the shots! It is definitely time for you to reap all the rewards! I can assure you I will keep buying until the Lord calls me home no matter what avenue you choose.
I am very curious-I am in the Amazon program where I pay a nominal monthly fee each month and then I read selected titles for free. It is just as though I borrow them from the library! When I am done I return the book and go on to another. Do the authors get anything but exposure from this? Why would they allow it? There seems that there is no way there is any financial profit for the author.
I want to add that I am a speed reader and am elderly and sleep very little so I read literally hundreds of books a month!
Congratulations on all your success. I’m with you 100%. It’s a lot of work no matter which publishing path you choose.
I just wanted to respond to the part about Arabella’s story not fitting a standard romance trope – screw it. Most of life doesn’t fit a trope no matter how much we want it to and that’s what makes it beautiful and such a fun ride. I think for Arabella, she’s the youngest and most openly heartfelt and passionate in her actions. She’s had that freedom and so I can very much see her struggling to figure out who her “true love” is. It makes sense that you/we wouldn’t know where she will end up. The Riley Jensen series by Keri Arthur doesn’t follow a standard love story … we think we know but there are so many twists and turns… I loved it. I will love Arabella’s story too.
I love your books because they stand up even without the romance. The romance just makes them juicier. Please write her story… eventually… no pressure. With a publisher who gets it or on your own, I’ll be waiting to read it.
p.s. the flowers are gorgeous <3
Hi, I have a question that I hope someone can answer. A lot of my family likes all of the books in their series to have matching sizes on the shelf and bought all of the Kate Daniels books in mass market paperback. Does anyone know whether a mass market paperback (6.75 inch) book for Magic Triumphs will come out and when? Thank you for any help.