How Many Pies til I Break Even?

This from Amanda  Hocking’s blog, the overnight best selling author of young adult, paranormal kiss and bite books….

“There is so much stress in doing it all yourself. The editing is never good enough. And finding an editor isn't as easy everyone thinks. People thinking an editor is just having someone read through it a few times, checking for basic grammar and spelling, and while that is part of it, it's also much larger than that. It's helping tighten up sentences, watching repeated phrases, helping with flow, etc.

And it is really, really hard (or at least, it has been for me) to find an editor that can do all that. My books have all been edited - several times, by dozens of people with varying backgrounds - and people still find errors.”

And, she’s just talking about the writing.  Not the marketing part. Fortunately, I worked with three good editors.  Just when I thought the world was my oyster, Suitcase Filled with Nails, was finally published and the orders would come rolling in, the pearl fell out of the shell and landed in my lap.

 I never planned on being in the book business.  Now, I  am and doing the math and facing the reality that I might pocket a buck, maybe less from my book which retails for $16.95.   It’s like an author is a pastry chef and she or he works really hard making the best pie possible and in the end she or he  receives  the smallest piece cut from the whole.

Blue Hole

Last night’s reading at Pacific Mist Books in Sequim, Olympic Peninsula’s alleged blue hole, was a cozy affair.  Chairs were already filled when I arrived ten minutes early. Lots of educators and some old friends were there.  Surrounded by books and people buying books, I read and fielded questions and signed the books people bought. 

This was the third reading/signing in one week, not as large as the one drawing over a hundred people and requiring me to use a microphone.  But in this intimacy, the audience sitting in chairs only feet away, I felt appreciated.  This supportive audience, unlike some reviewers, like dark holes, did not make allegations they would not defend.

No One Has Promised me a Rose Garden

In the past three weeks I’ve started three different blogs, all shedding light upon and lamenting this book business.  But, I’ve gotten  bogged down with bad barcodes,  distracted by distribution, sell at cost, sell at a loss- publishing problems I want no part of but must face. 

The only high point in all this mind-boggling brouhaha is getting to meet some of the bookstore owners who sell Suitcase, three different book stores with three different and personable book store owners.   In all three cases the stores were busy with buyers.

I love book stores.  I love books.  By the time I was ten I had my own library, a check out desk, the whole wad, all shelved in my bedroom.  This was years before my mother said to me “You can always afford to buy a book.”  This came after I said I wanted to buy “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” but I didn’t have enough money when I saw it in the book store.  The next day, when I came home from the 7^th grade a new copy of “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” was waiting for me on the kitchen counter.

If only the give and take of the book business was this simple and direct.