Is there still money in books?

Thanks to the democratisation of publishing - through self-publishing on Amazon and Kobo and similar platforms - readers are buying more books, for less. So the profits are spread around a bit more than they used to be. As a writer, however, is it a worthwhile investment to spend your time writing? Prolific writer and editor Nerine Dorman weighs in:

Is there still money in books?

Yes... And no. Yes, if you can tap into a market that has great demand, for instance ghostwriting celebrity biographies or penning the next big thing in self help since Deepak Chopra. There's no accounting for readers' tastes – just look at the runaway success of Twilight, The Hunger Games or the Fifty Shades books. The problem is, that once a book is trending in traditional publishing, you're going to see dozens, if not hundreds of other, similar books in the genre, all trying to cash in on what's hot. 

Some may be more successful than others. Others will fade into obscurity without making any impact whatsoever. But the market will be flooded, and reader saturation will mean that the knock-offs may meet with a lukewarm reception.

Certain genres are perennial moneymakers, like romance, which will have as many sub-genres as you can throw a stick at, be it medical romances, LGBTI, paranormal, erotica, BDSM... The list is endless, and its titles ephemeral. Just go look at the best-sellers on Amazon. Depending on readers' whims, different subgenres will do better than others from time to time. Career-focused authors will push aside their personal preferences and write to spec, and a good portion of them will see a decent income. Granted, the ladies I've spoken to treat this like any nine-to-five job, and they work hard, sometimes releasing a book every two to three months. They endlessly self-promote on blog tours and attend conventions. It's hard work.

Nowadays it's easier than ever before to get your book published, but in many ways it's never been more difficult to get your voice heard. Book reviewers are bombarded with daily requests, often from self-published authors who don't have access to professionals for editing, formatting and design – and in many instances it shows. That said, some of the bigger houses are also guilty of letting through mediocre titles purely because the authors are proven sellers. 

Readers have nearly unlimited choices, but the trick is of course to find the golden wheat among the chaff. And there's a lot of chaff.

Authors who can carve out a niche for themselves, and keep at it while providing a quality product, can make a living wage, but it is a full-time job – and they are very much in the minority. For most it's a case of selling anywhere between zero to a dozen copies of a book a month, and for money to trickle in. The long and short of it is: don't quit your day job any time soon. If you want to make money, write for genres that popular, but don't hold your breath that you're going to be an overnight success. Don't try to copy what the successful authors are doing, but be aware of the elements of storycraft that strike a mark with readers. There are no guarantees in this industry, because sometimes even clearly derivative works end up being a bestseller.

What do you think? What has been your experience? 

See the list of books Nerine's had published here including the book Wordsmack Publishers published, The Guardian's Wyrd.

Fan fiction. Why?

Fan fiction. Why? 

When I was a kid, I read Narnia over and over and I played in that world and imagined myself as the fifth Pevensie kid... And this is true of a few other books too. So I understand  why you might write fan fiction - that you might want to immerse yourself into a world further. 

What is fan fiction? Briefly, it's writing a 'new' story within an already created world. 

But my question is, why would anyone read it? Why is it so big? As someone who just can't stay ahead with my reading list, who always has at least 10 'real' books lined up to read, I just don't get it. 

On one platform, Wattpad one story set in the Hunger Games world, Pregnant in the Hunger Games (yes, I kid you not), has been read 992 000 times!! Almost a million times! 

One of the biggest fan fiction worlds is Harry Potter. On Fanfiction.net  there are over 657 000 stories and on Harry Potter's Fanfiction site there are over 80 000 stories and this site gets over 30 million hits a month… The top read story has been read 1 585 108 times! This particular story is set in the next generation - i.e. the Potter and Weasly kids are the main characters. 

So, clearly this is something massive. My question though, is why? Will someone explain it to me please?  

But as always, if it gets people reading, what's wrong with that? 

Self-publishing vs traditional publishing

Self-publishing versus traditional publishing

The blogosphere is full of articles about self-publishing versus traditional publishing. And I love how self-publishing has shaken up the (very) cobwebby industry, so here are my two cents worth:

Firstly, let me quickly explain what I mean by traditional publishing. Traditional publishing is done by either a large publishing house (think Penguin, Pearson, Pan Macmillan, etc.) or a smaller independent publisher (like Wordsmack). These publishers pay authors a royalty. The royalty percentage differs from publisher to publisher, but most pay 10%-15% although this is changing with the advent of epublishing. There are also vanity publishers who publish your books for a fee – this is a completely different form of publishing that is not being discussed here.

So, what exactly does a publisher do for you? 

Firstly, you get a brutally honest answer about whether your story is worth publishing or saving. Fear of rejection, I guess, is why a lot of people self-publish … I had a long conversation with an author who said that all authors should self-publish because publishers take too big a cut.  A few weeks later, I see she has found a publisher …

Secondly, if your book is accepted, you have a company who backs you, who believes in you and who wants to make you the best writer you can be.  A lot of very big publishers might not cultivate young talent, but there are small publishers, like us, whose goal in life is to develop new authors and a writing community in Africa. That, and winning the lottery, the European lottery.

Thirdly, and this is the most important, there are all the costs that the publisher carries: editing, proofreading, cover design, typesetting, illustrations/photos, marketing, etc. You don’t pay for anything and if you do, you are with a vanity publisher. Therefore, publishers have a vested interest, they want your book to sell and sell well. If your book doesn’t sell, the publisher makes a loss.

This article on one of my favourite websites explains it quite well: http://io9.com/the-7-most-common-misconceptions-about-science-fiction-1189361443

So, marketing, how hard can it be? There seems to be a lot of self-published authors who do really well. Every day there is at least one author who comes out and says how well they’ve done, how easy it was, what worked for them and tells everyone that they should do it too. However, I am sure that for every successful author, there are at least ten who aren’t successful. This could also be because their writing sucks, but often that has nothing to do with it. Some people are born self-marketers. They write blogs, are extremely active on social media, have time in the evenings to punt their books and they have connections. Most authors aren’t like this though – they love to write in their little corners at night after a long day of work, but they don’t have time or the energy for all the rest.