March 21, 2005
First Paycheck
This weekend I received my first ever income from my first ever book, Downtown Dandelions. The royalty check came in the mail from CafePress, a whopping $44.60. While my first sale came way back in January, this is the true moment to celebrate. When you have something you can put in the bank. It amounts to 10 copies of my book and a Monkey Outta Nowhere t-shirt (thanks to my sister-in-law).
It's really the definition of starving artist, but it is cool to see even a tiny return on so much work. If you haven't checked out Downtown Dandelions yet, what are you waiting for? You can check out a preview for free.
Posted by kevin at 7:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 13, 2005
Cafepress Coupon Code
BEANSMUTTON
(thanks to another one of my heroes, Jeremy Keillor, for sharing the love)
Posted by kevin at 9:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 11, 2005
First Weekend Sales
The economics of writing is really rather depressing. When you do the math it becomes quite clear that you don't become a writer to get rich.
Let's look at my potential haul from this attempt at self-publishing.
I make about $4 in royalties when someone buys a copy of Downtown Dandelions (which you can do right here--hint, hint!). I set that price myself, and it's actually quite a bit more than an author could expect to receive in a real publishing contract (10% is fairly standard).
Now when you start adding up the people who say they want a copy, it starts to look rather pathetic. There's my parents. My grandparents. My in-laws. We're up to what, $12? Mostly based on guilt and duty.
Of course I've got some marketing savvy up my sleeve, so I e-mailed a whole bunch of people who expressed some mild degree of interest in the fact that I wrote a book (and some who could care less), and told them that the book was now available. That e-mail went out to 95 people.
Let's take the best case scenario: 100 people buy a copy of the book. We'll ignore the fact that the e-mail bounced back from a hand full of addresses. And we'll ignore the fact that most of the people on that list won't buy a copy for whatever reason (and I don't really expect them to buy a copy; they supported me in writing the book, and that's more than I could ask for in the first place).
So do the math: 100 implausible purchases nets me $400. That should just about take care of my January heating bill. Woohoo!
It's not a lot of money, especially considering it took me a very concentrated 20 days to write the book, countless hours of sub-par editing and proofing, more hours of design and layout, etc.
In the end it's not a very profit-driven venture. I can't exactly quit my day job and become a full time novelist.
These are the economic realities of publishing. To make a living you have to get thousands and thousands of people to buy your book. Which is why there are very few full time authors. Yet I'd venture that everyone of us does these kinds of calculations in a dreamish fantasy to hope that just maybe we can make it.
Sales as of today: Three. See what I mean?
(though don't think I'm ungrateful. Those three people? My heroes.)
Posted by kevin at 4:51 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 8, 2005
Cafepress Coupons
If anyone is considering buying a copy of Downtown Dandelions from Cafepress, I'd encourage you to share the coupons. When I bought my copy they gave me a chance to send $5 off coupons to five friends. I'd encourage you to pass those coupons around. And if you can't think of a friend to send them to, send them to me and I'll redistribute them.
I've also been told you can often find online coupon codes just by using Google.
The $5 off coupons required spending a total of $20 (not including shipping), and it gave me a very fiendish idea: What if I marked my book up to $20, just so coupon users could get the $5 off without having to find some $2 item just to save a few bucks? Net result: I get a higher royalty ($7 instead of $4), the user gets a cheaper book ($15 instead of $18), and I can only assume Cafepress gets screwed.
Fortunately, I have enough ethics not to try that one. Unfortunately, I'm not so ethical that the idea didn't cross my mind.
Posted by kevin at 4:41 PM | TrackBack
January 7, 2005
Buy My Novel!
You can consider this the official announcement: Downtown Dandelions is now available for purchase. You can choose from two paperback versions and a PDF preview.
The cheaper paperback is $12.99 and comes from Lulu.com. The nicer version is $17.99 and comes from Cafepress.com. I get the same royalty from both versions (about $4.00), so you just have to decide which version is for you. Cheapskates should go with Lulu, those who care about aesthetics should go with Cafepress. I'm offering multiple versions because I couldn't decide between cheaper and uglier, or more expensive but nicer. I'll make you decide.
You can also download a PDF preview at no cost just to check it out. If you're really a cheapskate and you just want to read the PDF version (this would be me), I ask that you make an appropriate donation. I will consider in-depth feedback or telling lots of people about the novel as a proper donation.
