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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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Сер Пітер Лорд

@RussInCheshire
Been there, done that. We didn't allow anywhere near enough budget for marketing the book: I'd say around and additional 60% of the production costs. Many evenings and weekends spent "getting the content right" for basically break-even returns. The result was well-received, but "never again"...