Mastodawn

RussInCheshire Nov 9, 2022

I made my first foray into publishing. It's ... weird.

First: pre-orders for my book exceeded £120k, and top 10 in Sunday Times, which is lovely.

But then I find out that translates to about £8k income for me because

- Amazon take 60%
- Distribution takes 10%
- I have to fund any additional prints of the book
- Publishers take half of what's left
- And I don't get anything - ANYTHING - for a year.

How do people make a living at this? Seriously? How?

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RussInCheshire Nov 9, 2022

I'm seriously considering self-publishing from now on. I can design promo and sales websites, design covers, typeset the book, market it via social media.

All I need is a printer and a warehouse, and how hard can it be to get that? Or just do it digital-only.

The entire industry seems swamped with needless delays, needless expenses, and needless layers of managers and editors.

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Ted Smith #ProEU

@RussInCheshire There are plenty of short run publishers about now. I’m sure you’ll sell shed loads, but what you might lose on the more expensive printing costs you might easily make up by not needing somewhere to store them. Nice dry warehousing facility don’t come cheap.