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One question I get asked a lot is how the release of a new book affects sales of my backlist. I’ve said before that the only factor I’ve seen consistently and clearly improve sales of a book is the release of the next book in that series. I figured with Red Hood coming out, I could indulge my inner graph-geek and share a little data to back that up. (For legal/contractual reasons, I can’t share the actual numbers.) Let’s start with the princes series. The green line represents sales of Red Hood’s Revenge. You can see the first two books in the series were selling fairly steadily. Column 4 marks when copies of Red Hood started showing up in stores. Column 6 is the official release week. Sales of the older books are nowhere near as good as the new one, but those sales do increase significantly when the new book comes out. In this case, the sales in column 6 for Stepsister and Mermaid are about triple what they had been before.
But what about the goblin series? Sadly, a new princess book doesn’t do much to bump goblin sales. Because the goblin books are older and thus not selling as many copies these days, I stretched the graph a little so you could see them there at the bottom.
Looking at the raw numbers, I do see a slight increase in goblin sales in column six. Maybe five percent? It’s small enough I’d have to do a lot more work to determine whether there’s any statistical significance, and it’s been way too long since stats class. So at least in my case, a new book in a new series only moves an extra handful of copies of the old series. I do think new books help keep bookstores and readers aware of an author, and that readers who enjoy the books are more likely to eventually go back and buy the author’s backlist. But it’s not an immediate boost like I see for books in the same series. This has been Jim Geeks Out With Graphs. Tune in next week when Jim charts hair loss against number of books written, proving once and for all that publishing will make you go bald! # Totally unrelated, a few of you asked for pictures of Jig the runt guppy. I still couldn’t get the camera to focus, but for some reason it would focus in video mode. I like this, as the video is actually cuter. There’s only a brief glimpse of his kinked back about halfway through, and then at the end one of the other guppies comes along to give you a sense of scale. Most writers, both commercial and fanfic, have heard some version of the Marion Zimmer Bradley “cautionary tale” regarding fanfiction. In one version, Bradley was a generous, nurturing author who encouraged fanfiction until a greedy fanfic author tried to sue her, torpedoing a book in the process. In another, Bradley had was preying on helpless fanfic authors, using their ideas to perpetuate her publishing empire. If we’re going to toss this story around every time we talk about fanfiction, it would be nice to have a few facts to go with the fourth-hand accounts, guesswork, and rumors. Michael Thomas and opusculus have both posted about the MZB incident lately, and provided inspiration and starting points for my own write-up. But I wanted to dig deeper, and to avoid the wiki-style sources which in my opinion aren’t as reliable for this sort of thing. To put my own biases out there, one of my first sales was to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine. I later sold a story to Sword & Sorceress XXI. In addition, I’m published by DAW, which also published Bradley’s work. I’ll leave it to you to read and decide whether this influences my research and write-up. First hand statements are in red. I’ve included links wherever possible. In February of 2010, I began collecting information from professionally published novelists. My goal was to learn how writers broke in and made that first big novel deal, and to use actual data to confirm or bust some of the myths about making it as a novelist. My thanks to everyone who participated, as well as the folks at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Book View Cafe, SFWA, SF Novelists, Absolute Write, and everyone else who helped to spread the word. The survey closed on March 15, 2010 with 247 responses. For those interested in the raw info, I’ve posted an Excel spreadsheet of the data with all identifying information removed. You can download that spreadsheet here. I’ve broken my write-up into nine parts:
For this study, I was looking for authors who had published at least one professional novel, where “professional” was defined as earning an advance of $2000 or more. This is an arbitrary amount based on SFWA’s criteria for professional publishers. No judgment is implied toward authors who self-publish or work with smaller presses, but for this study, I wanted data on breaking in with the larger publishers. 247 authors from a range of genres responded. One was eliminated because the book didn’t fit the criteria (it was a nonfiction title). A random audit found no other problems. The results were heavily weighted toward SF/F, which is no surprise, given that it was a fantasy author doing the study. But I think this is a respectable range:
The year in which authors made their first sale covered more than 30 years, from 1974 to 2010. The data is heavily weighted toward the past decade.
There’s the background information in a nutshell. With that out of the way, let’s get to the first myth. The Short Story Path to Publication
Back when I was a struggling young author in the late 90s, I received a great deal of contradictory advice about how to break in. Many writers told me I had to sell short stories first to hone my craft and build a reputation so agents and editors would pay attention to me. Others said this was outdated, and these days I could skip short fiction if I wanted and just jump straight into novel writing. So do you really have to sell short fiction first? I asked how many short stories people sold, if any, before making that first professional novel sale. Answers ranged from 0 to 400 short fiction sales. On average, authors sold 7.7 short stories before selling the novel. Next I looked at the median, the midway point in the sample. The median number of short fiction sales was 1, meaning half of the authors sold more than this many, and half sold fewer. But let’s make this even simpler. Of 246 authors, 116 sold their first novel with zero short fiction sales. Possible Data Quality Issue: The question was “How many short fiction sales, if any, did you have before making your first professional novel sale?” Several authors noted that they only included “professional” short fiction sales, which might reduce the numbers. But even so, the idea that you must do short fiction first appears busted. Not only that, but looking at a scatterplot of the number of short fiction sales and the year of the first novel sale, this appears to be busted going back at least 30 years.
I believe short fiction sales can help an author. One author noted that they were contacted directly by an editor who had read the author’s short fiction and wanted to know if the author had a novel. Personally, I found that short fiction helped me a lot with certain aspects of the craft. And of course, a lot of us just enjoy writing short stories. But it’s not a requirement to selling a novel. Self-Publishing Your Breakout Novel
For as long as I’ve been writing, some authors have been announcing the death of traditional publishing. Especially with the growth of print-on-demand and electronic publishing, I hear that self-publishing is the way to go. The idea is that if you self-publish successfully, you’ll attract the notice of the big publishers and end up with a major contract, like Christopher Paolini did with Eragon. One of the survey questions asked how authors sold their first novel to a professional publisher. The options were:
To those proclaiming queries and the slush pile are for suckers, and self-publishing is the way to land a major novel deal, I have bad news: only 1 author out of 246 self-published their book and went on to sell that book to a professional publisher. There was also 1 “Other” response where the author published the book on his web site and received an offer from a professional publisher. (It should be noted that this author already had a very popular web site, which contributed to the book being noticed and picked up.)
Just to be safe, I ran a second analysis, restricting the results to only those books that sold within the past five years. PoD is a relatively new technology, so it’s possible the trends have changed. But the results are pretty much identical.
This does not mean self-publishing can never succeed, or is never a viable option. (I.e., please don’t use this as an excuse for a “Jim hates self-publishing” rant.) However, for those hoping to leverage self-published book sales into a commercially published breakout book (a la Eragon), the numbers just aren’t in your favor. For the moment at least, the traditional pathways — submitting to an agent, submitting directly to the publisher — still appear to be the way to go. Also, please see below for Steven Saus’ graph showing the trend away from submitting directly to the publisher and more toward querying agents in recent years.
When I started writing, I figured it was easy. I thought anyone could do it. Having zipped off my first story, I assumed fame and fortune would soon be mine. And why not? How often do we see the movies where someone sits down at the computer, and after a quick writing montage, voila! They’re a published author. (Generally this seems to mean big book tours, winning awards, hanging with Oprah, and living the good life.) So how long does it take to sell that book? Of our 246 authors, the average age at the time they sold their first professional novel was 36.2 years old. The median was also 36, and the mode was 37. Basically, the mid-to-late 30’s is a good age to sell a book. But that doesn’t tell us how long these authors were working at their craft. So the very next question in the survey asked, “How many years had you been writing before you made your first professional novel sale?” The responses ranged from a single respondent who said 0 years, all the way to 41 years, with an average of 11.6 years. Both the median and the mode came in at an even ten years. You could argue that the single response from someone who had been writing for 0 years proves that overnight success can happen, and you’re right. It can happen. So can getting struck by lightning. Here’s the breakdown in nice, graphical form:
I also asked how many books people had written before they sold one to a major publisher. The average was between three and four. Median was two. I was surprised, however, to see that the mode was zero. 58 authors sold the first novel they wrote. Still a minority, but a larger minority than I expected. I’m still going to call this one busted. Not as thoroughly busted as I would have guessed, but the bottom line is that it takes time and practice to master any skill, including writing.
This one goes back to the idea that it’s nigh impossible to break in as an unknown writer. You have to have an in. Without those connections, editors and agents will never pay you the slightest bit of attention. This was a little trickier to test. I asked two questions: 1. What connections did you have, if any, that helped you find your publisher?
2. What connections did you have, if any, that helped you find your agent?
The most popular response in the “Other” category was “None” or “No connection at all.” Ignoring the “Other” category for the moment, all other responses were selected a grand total of 162 times. More importantly, 185 authors listed no connections whatsoever to their publisher before selling their books. 115 listed no connections at all to any agents, either. (62 others added that they did not use an agent to sell their first book.) Combining the agent and publisher questions, a total of 140 — more than half — made that first professional novel sale with no connections to either the publisher or the agent. Here’s the percentage breakdown: Met editor at a convention: 17% The “Other” categories also included a small number of authors who reported winning contests, short story sales that attracted interest, industry connections, and in one case, SFWA membership. My conclusion is that connections can certainly help. Agent referrals in particular — it’s always nice to check with other authors to see who represents them, and if you can get a referral, so much the better. But the idea that you have to have a connection? Or even that most authors knew someone before they broke in? Busted.
As has been pointed out (by my own agent, among others), while connections aren’t required, they can be helpful. I wanted to know what other steps authors took to try to improve their chances, and asked whether participants had done any of the following:
By far, the two most popular choices were conventions and writers groups, both of which were reported by more than half of our novelists. The least popular choice? The graduate degree in English/Writing. (As someone who holds an MA in English, I’m trying not to be depressed about that one.) The full breakdown looks like so:
Remember, this is correlative data, not causative. However, I decided to take a look at a few more correlations, taking the writers from each of these categories and examining how many years it took to make that first pro novel sale. I bolded the highs and lows. Full Group: Average 11.6 years, median 10, mode 10 I’m reluctant to draw too many conclusions from this, or to say that any one category will definitely help you break in. But looking at the “None” category, I think it’s safe to say that writers who are more actively trying to get out and build their careers — in any one of a number of ways — tend to break in faster than those who aren’t.
This was not a perfect study. It wasn’t meant to be. I wanted a large enough sample to start to see some trends, but I’m not qualified to run a full-scale, controlled study. Nor do I have the time. In the interest of full disclosure, here are the flaws I’m aware of. 1. Sample bias. I’m a fantasy author. When I announced the survey and asked for authors to participate, I knew the results would be heavily skewed toward SF/F writers in my network. I did some outreach to spread the word to other writing groups and blogs, but the results are still weighted toward SF/F and may not apply as strongly to other genres. 2. Question imprecision. Several questions were imprecisely worded. For example, one question asked “How many times, if any, was your novel rejected before it sold to a professional publisher?” I received enough comments and questions about this, asking whether I meant publisher rejections, agent rejections, or both, that I did not include the final data in my write-up. I’m also unhappy with one of the networking questions which asked if you were introduced/referred to your agent or editor. “Referral” is fairly broad, and could mean everything from a personal letter of recommendation to an author saying “Oh yes, Bob’s my agent and I think he’s open to queries right now.” 3. Can’t prove cause/effect. This is a weakness of correlative data. I think the data worked well for busting certain myths, but if I catch anyone saying things like “Jim Hines proved that if you get an undergrad degree in English, you’ll sell a novel faster,” then I will personally boot you in the head. See here for a good example of correlation =/= causation re: pirates and global warming. 4. Limited scope. I restricted this survey to authors who had published at least one novel with a professional ($2000 or higher advance) publisher. Not everyone shares the goal of publishing professionally. For those who prefer the small press, non-fiction, script writing, short fiction, or other forms of writing, the path to breaking in might be very different. I’m sure there are other flaws. However, it was my goal and my hope that even with these problems, the data I gathered would be useful in talking about how writers break in, and would be much better than the anecdotal “evidence” usually cited in such conversations. Steven Saus’ Analysis of my Survey Data: Steven ran my numbers through some heavy-duty statistical software and came up with all sorts of info, including this graph showing the apparent trend in how submissions have moved from direct-to-publisher more toward querying agents over the past few decades. For those who like to geek out on numbers and statistics, I recommend checking it out.
Tobias Buckell’s Author Advance Survey: Data from 108 authors about novel advances, showing trends over time and over the course of authors’ careers. Megan Crewe’s Publishing Connections Survey: Data from 270 authors on whether you need connections to break in. Her results tend to match my own on this one. SFWA’s Online Information Center: Includes essays, resources, and advice for new writers from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. (Thanks to Charlie Stross for the link.) My thanks once again to everyone who participated in the study, who spread the links to other writers, and for all of the support and encouragement. I’m quite pleased with the way this turned out, and I hope it’s helpful to others. In conclusion (and in true Mythbusters style) I present you with this artistic rendering of my editor when she learns how much time I’ve spent on this survey instead of working on my next book:
Update: The full survey results and the raw data are now posted at http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/ Last month I collected information from 246 professionally published novelists on how they made their first pro novel sale. This was rough, Mythbusters-style science. It’s not a perfectly controlled study, but it provided much more data than I usually see when we talk about these things. I’m wrapping up my results, and will be working on compiling everything into a single essay, to be posted on my web site along with the raw (anonymized) data. Today I’ll also be examining the weaknesses of my survey, as well as other data sources for those looking to learn more. Can You Boost Your Odds? Update: The full survey results and the raw data are now posted at http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/ For those of you just tuning in, last month I collected information from 246 professionally published novelists on how they made that first pro novel sale. This is rough, Mythbusters-style science. It’s not a perfectly controlled study, but it provides a lot more data than I usually see when we talk about these things. Today I’m looking at two more myths about the writing process: The Overnight Success Update: The full survey results and the raw data are now posted at http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/ Last month, I began collecting information from professionally published novelists. The goal of the survey was to learn how writers broke in, and to use actual data to confirm or bust some of the myths about making it as a novelist. My thanks to everyone who participated, as well as the folks at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Book View Cafe, SFWA, SF Novelists, Absolute Write, and everyone else who helped to spread the word. The survey closed on March 15, 2010 with 247 responses. There’s a great deal of information here, so I’ll be breaking the results into several blog posts. At the end, I’ll combine everything into one big write-up and post it on the web site for future reference. So let’s bust some writing myths. Today I’ll be looking at: The Raw Data The Raw Data: For this study, I was looking for authors who had published at least one professional novel, where “professional” was defined as earning an advance of $2000 or more. This is an arbitrary amount based on SFWA’s criteria for professional publishers. No judgment is implied toward authors who self-publish or work with smaller presses, but for this study, I wanted data on breaking in with the larger publishers. 247 authors from a range of genres responded. One was eliminated because the book didn’t fit the criteria (it was for a nonfiction title). A random audit found no other problems. The results were heavily weighted toward SF/F, which is no surprise, given that it was a fantasy author doing the study. But I think we’ve got a respectable range here:
The year in which authors made their first sale covered a range of more than 30 years, with the earliest being 1974. The data is heavily weighted toward the past decade.
When I do the final write-up, I’ll also include a spreadsheet of the raw data (with all identifying information stripped out). So there’s the background information in a nutshell. With that out of the way, let’s get to the first myth… With 11 days to go, the First (Pro) Novel Survey is up to more than 200 responses, which is wonderful! But it’s also generated some interesting feedback in comments and e-mails. Some people are upset that small press, self-published, and e-book authors can’t participate. Others say advances are part of a dying publishing model. There’s been worry that advances can actually harm an author who doesn’t earn out. To top things off, I’m told I’m completely out of touch with the current state of publishing. Let’s start with the basics. An advance is an advance against your royalties. When I sold Goblin Quest to DAW, they paid me $4000, half on signing and half on publication. (Slightly lower than the average, because Goblin Quest was a reprint of a small press title.) For the sake of easy math, let’s say I got 50 cents in royalties for every copy that sold. So for the first 8000 books, I got nothing — I had already received that money up front. But once we sold book 8001, I officially earned out the advance and began receiving royalties. Even if I never sold those 8000 copies, I keep the advance. Nor would I be blacklisted for failing to earn out. A lot of books never earn out their advance. Understand that the publisher doesn’t necessarily lose money on those books. The math is a little messy, but publishers can and do still make a profit on books that don’t earn out. Will publishers get a little cranky if they pay you a six-figure advance and you only sell 10,000 books? Well, sure. It might mean smaller advances in the future. You might need to adopt a pseudonym (as many others have done), or change to a different publisher. But it doesn’t mean the end of your career. Remember the advance represents an investment on the part of the publisher, and I want my publisher as invested as possible in my book. There are never any guarantees, but which do you think will get more of a sales push, the book where they paid the author $5000 up front, or the one where they paid $50,000? Finally, there’s the fact that royalties take a long time to show up. Let’s assume your book is going to earn out, which means you’re eventually going to get the same amount of money either way. Would you rather get that money today, or wait and get it in a year or two or more? Writing is not a hobby to me. It’s a career, one that helps me pay the mortgage and feed my family. My advances mean I know I’m going to receive a certain minimum amount on each book. I can start to plan and budget, meaning I’m better able to make a living with this. (Now if only my publisher would offer a health plan for its authors…) As for the frustration and anger that I’m shutting out small-press and self-published authors with this survey? Yes. Yes I am. I’ve got nothing against small press and self publishing. (Please see above, where I first sold Goblin Quest to a small press.) But that’s not what I was interested in for this survey. I wanted to learn more about how authors break in with bigger, advance-paying publishers. If you have a problem with that … well, it’s your problem. Deal with it. I’ve been thinking about e-books a lot lately, for some reason. (Amazon still hasn’t restored Macmillan titles, last I checked.) In particular, there’s a debate in the SFWA Lounge about the shift from printed books to electronic. I think we’re in a very dynamic time. E-books are changing, and we’re waiting to see who’s going to be the dinosaurs and who’s going to follow the superior evolutionary path of the platypus. Will multipurpose devices (iPad, smartphones) do away with single-purpose readers (Kindle)? Will Cory Doctorow single-handedly throw DRM into the abyss forever? Will e-books approach 100% market share, doing away with all but a handful of print-on-demand artifacts? It occurred to me that there’s an element of privileged assumption going on with some of these predictions. I’ve had this conversation online with people who obviously have stable Internet access and a fairly high degree of tech-savviness. I also see it at conventions, where people whip out their Kindles and iPhones to compare features. The thing is, these are luxuries. If you’re in a financial position to afford the latest toys, great. But to project near-100% dominance of electronic books assumes that either the reading devices will drop to a price where all readers can afford them, or that if you’re poor, you simply won’t/don’t read. Tobias Buckell jokingly called for a boycott of Kindles until they bring the price down below $99. (He’s trying to break Amazon’s “monopoly” on the Kindle.) But even $99 is a lot of money, and not everyone is in a position to invest that much extra money every few years (because the technology keeps advancing) in their reading. I do think e-books are going to be a larger part of the market. We’ve seen cellphone novels take off in other countries. E-books make tremendous sense for certain markets — universities, for example. And the technology keeps advancing. But I don’t think you can assume everyone is going to switch to electronic books any more than you can assume everyone is going to get flat screen plasma TVs. Printed books are relatively cheap. $7-8 for a new mass market paperback. A buck or less for a used one. I don’t see that going away any time soon. What do you think? |
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Copyright © 2010 Jim C. Hines - All Rights Reserved |
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