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Joe Konrath earns more from self published ebooks than from his Big 6 publisher

He just posted some interesting numbers over on his blog:

Since 2004, Whiskey Sour has sold about 60,000 copies in print and ebooks. That’s earned me about $54,000 not including foreign sales. (Not bad considering I got a $33k advance for it.)

Compare those numbers to The List.

In six years, I’ll have sold 108,396 copies. Almost double what Whiskey Sour has sold. And I’ll have earned over $200k–almost four times what I earned with Whiskey Sour.

I’d hope that this has the Big 6 worried. He’s a solid mid list author who can prove that he’s better off without them. They’d better come up with a pretty damn good reason why other mid list authors actually need a publisher. Otherwise, they’re screwed.

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Comments


Jane October 6, 2010 um 9:41 am

The problem is that his self published numbers are in the aggregate so you aren’t comparing apples to apples you are comparing a bushel of apple sales to one singular apple.

Nate the great October 6, 2010 um 10:00 am

I don’t see what you mean. He compares the sales of 1 title to the sales of another.


Jane October 6, 2010 um 10:27 am

Ah – I thought that his six years has to do with a number of different books rather than just one book. Sorry!


Shel October 7, 2010 um 2:28 pm

Well, I know of at least one mid list author who isn’t buying it. She posted the link to the same post you used on her Facebook – and basically saying, "That’s nice, but we NEED publishers!" However, as a reader, looking in from the outside, if you will, I have to agree with Joe. Seems to me publishers screw authors any which way they can get by with, and authors beg for more. It makes no sense to me.


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