Money, money, money

[julesjones]

Received my cheque for the story that was accidentally dropped from an anthology. Also received my royalty statement from Loose Id, which included a pleasing milestone -- Dolphin Dreams has now earned over $2000 in royalties, in its first nine or ten weeks on sale. Yes, that's still small press level, but it's also the level RWA has set in place as a requirement for individual authors to be considered for professional membership. They've been reworking some of their membership requirements, and PAN membership now requires an author to earn $2000 from a single title within a two year period. Getting that amount in the book's first quarter is rather gratifying.

Comments

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

Congrats! :)

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-)

[hafren.livejournal.com]

That's pretty damn good!

[julesjones]

It's still "don't give up the day job", but I'm pretty happy. :-)

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing the trick is to get several of those in the pipeline dribbling long-term residuals at you and encouraging people to checkout your backlist with every new one. :P

[julesjones]

Spot on. My backlist books keep on selling a dozen or two of each title every month (and I know people writing in higher-selling genres who are shifting 40-50 copies of month of individual backlist titles). Put out a couple of titles a year with a decent small press that has a good reader base, and after a few years your backlist is happily generating significant sums of money when you add it all up.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

The anthology thing is bad luck - I compulsively check Interzone's acceptance page just to make sure I'm not missing something. How many copies does that equate to? Because, it seems to me, that these are impressive figures by any standard, and ones that ought to be on any future agent/publisher submissions.

The RWA requirements seem weird. I understand that they want to have a 'pro' category, and sales are the way to go - but to tie it in to money sesms just as odd as the requirement they had for 'serious writers' to show rejection slips as proof of their seriousness.

[julesjones]

775 copies so far, which is not as good as you can get in epub, but is a respectable number for small press. It's tailing off now it's not on the "recent releases" page.

That may not look as if it adds up to people who think in print terms, but the royalty rate is higher -- 35% of cover on copies sold direct from the publisher. Even 50% of received revenue on sales through distributors like Fictionwise amounts to a good royalty when it's a publisher that actually does pass on 50% of what it gets from the distributor. (There is net, and then there is net...)

RWA's professional requirements -- well, SFWA do it on money as well, and they're tighter -- they require that the publisher pay an advance, on all new books. A minimum level of money's an easy way to measure whether you're making money. I don't really have an issue with them having pro requirements like this -- the problem is that it's being used as a cover to keep people out for *other* reasons.

There are a couple of things playing into this. One is that the pro group within the organisation wants to discuss stuff that is of interest to pro-published authors, and they really do need some sort of entrance requirement. RWA is open to anyone who is interested in writing romance, and includes the whole range people who are still working on their first manuscript to people who've been living off their books for decades. Apparently PAN was set up in the first place because *anything* that was set up to discuss stuff that the pros were interested in was promptly swamped by baby authors asking the same newbie questions over and over again. Things like panels at RWA National Convention to discuss changes in contracts being flooded by people asking how to format a manuscript. So they needed something with an entrance barrier, where you couldn't get in unless you'd already got past that newbie stage.

Of course, you then have the small press/vanity press issue. Some published authors might as well be newbies, when it comes to the specific problem PAN was set up to address. There have been authors talking about being published now, and how their publisher is pleased with them because they have really good numbers -- and it turns out that they think that 5 copies sold in a quarter makes them a pro author.

And things have been further complicated by the epublishers, where the house overall can qualify as RWA-recognised through the sales figures of its big name authors, but the sales figures of many of its titles may not be good by small press standards, let alone mid-list. So they've gone down the route of requiring an individual author to show pro-level sales for PAN membership, which in itself isn't so daft.

Alongside this, there is an astonishing level of bitchiness and snobbery towards erotic romance, gay romance, poly romance and epublishing, with a great deal of "that's not romance" and "those aren't real books". So there's been a history of writing the pro recognition requirements in a way that purely by coincidence excludes the unwanted riff-raff, or at least makes their life a lot harder; including such charming details as telling one publisher that their trade paperback that had met the tpb sales figures requirement wasn't *quite* the right size, so it had to meet the much higher sales figures requirement for mass market paperbacks.

Because Harlequin and most of the other New York houses offer a minimum $2000 advance, anyone who has a contract with those houses can prove they've met the requirement just by showing a contract with those houses. The rest of us will have to provide full itemised royalty statements.

It so happens that some of the top-selling authors in epubs also have New York contracts anyway, so won't have to go through this. But the line between the BNAs and the rest of us isn't as clear-cut as some of the antis might think. I fully expect the rules to change again in a couple of years time if it turns out that there are too many people like me who can make $2000 off a single erotic gay romance ebook without ever going near New York.

It's annoying, because there are *good* reasons for requiring a minimum level of sales, but RWA always manages to give the impression that it's more about finding ways to exclude The Wrong Sort Of People.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

What I've heard about RWA makes me glad I don't write Romance...

I gather there's a certain prejudice against male writers, too, and as for 'gay relationships can't be romantic' well, that's just totally idiotic.

Another thing I find doubtful is the contest culture that seems to exist in the genre - where people polish three chapters, pay money to enter contests, and attach great value to being even in final . I'm not saying occasional constests are bad, but some writers appear to make a career out of it...

Her's hoping for many more sales.

[julesjones]

It's a minority of members. It's just a very *loud* minority. Fortunately there are also a lot of people, including some of the big names, who are loudly and publicly "WTF?" in response to outbreaks of blatant bigotry. I know plenty of people who get a great deal out of their local chapter -- and if I could join a chapter without having to join the national organisation, I'd do so in a flash. One of the owners of my publisher lives in the same area as me, and says our local chapter is very supportive of the erotic romance writers.

The contest culture is weird if you're coming in from sf, but it does make sense in its own context. Most of them include judge's comments so it's a way of getting feedback, and if you make it to the finals your manuscript is in front of a judge who's in a position to buy/agent it if she likes it enough -- though it's important to check that the editors and agents who are on the finalist judging panels are ones you'd want to see your manuscript. Personally I'd rather spend the money on querying agents and editors directly, but it can be a way to bypass the slushpile, and apparently agents and editors also take note of a query in the slush that has won one or two contests (but not more than that, or they'll wonder why nobody's bought it already).

The real problem is, as you say, the authors who keep polishing the first three chapters and entering contests instead of buckling down and actually writing a full manuscript of publishable quality. It's a recognised problem.

[strix-an-stones.livejournal.com]

Damn fine sales! Congrats! psst...what's your secret?

[julesjones]

In all seriousness, a publisher people like, and a track record so that I have my own small but real fan following, as far as I can tell. A pretty, pretty cover certainly doesn't hurt either.

And possibly the following warnings on the catalogue page, which are more like a giant neon "come and get it" sign in some quarters. :-)

Publisher’s Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: m/m/m male ménage, D/s, sex while in shifted form.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yay! That is fine sales, in so short a time. Congrats!

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-) I said something about RWA, because that is a recent topic of interest; but of course it is also a number that appears in SFWA regs, even if the press itself is still a small press. So feeling very pleased, especially as it's actually earned more than that -- it was only $10 short after the second royalty statement, five weeks after it went on sale.

The usual pattern is a big hit of sales in the first month, then it drops away over the next three months or so, and eventually settles down into a fairly steady trickle that just keeps on going.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Only sorry that there won't be the possibility of royalties for the accidentally dropped one.

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-)

There probably wouldn't have been royalties anyway -- anthologies are often flat fee. But it would have been nice to get the trib copies -- I didn't like to pester, given that it's partly my fault for not following up.

[samcdermott65.livejournal.com]

Awesome news, Jules! Congrats!

shari

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-)

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

Super!

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-)

[hypatia.livejournal.com]

congrats! Is this your best overall in sales/reads so far or the best in terms of making some actual cash?
Its good to be building up a regular fan base even if small but steady - it has to start somewhere.

[julesjones]

Best in terms of total hard cash (a combination of copies and royalty per copy), and best in terms of number of copies sold in the first month and first quarter. But some of the books that have been out longer have sold more in total, simply because they've got two or three years of backlist sales after the initial spike on release, plus Fictionwise sales as well. (I've got 13 titles now, but only had four at Fictionwise until last week.)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Go you!

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-) How goes yours, or are you too busy moving to think about it?

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Mostly I've been busy moving, but I'm hoping things will calm down enough soon for me to start thinking again about sending it out to agents. In the meantime I've got someone giving it a final proofread, and I've also had some feedback from a new person (hopefully with more to come from her) that might just give me a better idea of how to pitch it.

[whitemunin.livejournal.com]

That is brilliant! Congratulations to you!

[julesjones]

Thanks. :-)