Grumpy Old Bookman: Earnings warnings
Aspiring authors continue to ignore the financial facts, as Michael Allen observes
GRUMPY OLD BOOKMAN
I have a friend who has just selfpublished an ebook on Amazon, and like most first-time novelists he is convinced that this one will sell in substantial numbers.
‘Christmas is coming!’ he reminds me. ‘People buy books at Christmas!’ Yes, George, I feel like saying. They do buy books. But probably not yours. Or mine either, I might add.
Now why did this particularly grumpy comment form itself in my mind? Because of the economic facts of life, that’s why.
Five years ago, an indie (selfpublished) novelist had a remote but possible chance of selling enough copies of her ebook to make a goodly sum of money. Amazon recently announced that forty writers have sold more than a million copies of their books in the last five years. But that’s not going to be an easy feat to repeat.