Published October 9, 2013
Well it has been a long time since I posted here. I’ve been busy working, as well as taking a break between drafts and finishing the 5th and final draft of my first novel. It’s done I’ve written all I plan to on my first book Legacy it clocks in at just north of 87,000 words and now it’s just a case of getting it ready for publication.
After spending a fair amount of time researching the subject I’ve decided to self-publish rather go through the process of trying to find an agent and publisher. Why? Well for one it seems like the only way an author can actually make a living at it. On a traditional paperback the author receives 6-8% royalties of that 10-20% goes to the agent which means off a £10 book the author receives 54p. Which is not a lot of money especially considering how much sweat and time goes into writing a book. And since a good advance on a first novel from a debut author is £5000 it would take about 10,000 sales. In fact doing the math to write for a living I’d have to publish a book that spends 13 weeks a year on the best seller list just to earn enough to do it full time. By contrast amazon gives 70% royalties which means I could support myself on 10,000 sales a year. Still a lot of books to sale but a lot more viable.
Now I’m just trying to get together that last few things before I can publish.
- An editor to proof read and copy edit the book
- A cover artist to make an attractive cover
- Sort out various admin details with my amazon account
It’s not a big list but it is proving more challenging then I first assumed. Cover artists are fairly expensive and can be hard to find a good one. While editors it’s hard to judge the quality of the job they are going to do from just a website.
Well I’ll keep you up to date on my progress.
The Aspiring Writer 