Don't take the easy way out

Hey guys! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you’re sticking with me through this month’s topic—I know it’s been a little rough for some of you, but believe me, it’s all good to know.

Today, I’m talking about something a lot of authors don’t want to hear. Actually, it’s something I don’t really want to hear either, but something I’ve come to accept over the years.

Createspace is the easy way out, but that doesn’t make it the right way to go.

I know this not from personal experience, but from so many people I know who’ve published through Createspace: their system is incredibly easy to use, and feels like you’re doing something good, like you’re working toward an actual publication, like you’re finally moving forward with your book.

I know this, from personal experience as well as many of those accounts: you’re wrong.

I met an author over the weekend, at an event I went to, who was talking about how when she released book two a year after book one, it was too early. People were only just starting to discover book one by the time book two had come out. But Createspace authors will tell you that you have to be pushing out book after book after book, at least four a year.

Why? Because that’s what Createspace is.

It’s instant gratification for authors who weren’t patient enough to go about things the traditional (or “old fashioned”) way.

See, publishers know the market really well. That’s what they do, in general. Their primary focus is books, books, and more books. Logically then, they know what’s selling in the field of books and they know what to look for when they’re keeping an eye out for the next big thing.

Amazon doesn’t work like that. Createspace doesn’t work like that. Amazon has their fingers in so many pies that they cannot possibly focus even remotely on books themselves. Books are just something that they sell, and something they happen to be pretty good at selling. So they work their magic and keep selling, and keep authors putting out product because they’ve created a system of instant gratification that pleases the average American author.

Why’s that, you wonder? It’s because as a culture, we’ve grown very impatient, and we’ve stopped wanting anyone to tell us what to do.

Now, granted, I’ll be the first one to admit that a lot of publishers are wrong when they tell you what to write. They’re so focused on their niche that they might not notice anything else. But publishers, as a whole, have a far greater idea of what’s going to sell than Amazon does. Because publishers, you see, are built up of people like us. They’re readers, they’re writers, and they’re editors. So they know this field, they know what makes it up, and they know what will make it thrive. They also know what people want to read, because they have easy access to a reader focus group. They are a reader focus group.

That’s why we should listen to them in the first place. They know better than we do, and it’s okay to admit that. It really is.

Beyond that though, beyond just knowing the market and knowing what’s going to sell, publishers know books. Publishers are made up of editors who love to make books better, who love to work with authors to make a book all that it can possibly be. In the end, that’s what your book needs. 

Your book doesn’t need you to be instantly gratified by having it on the market. It needs you to love it, to nurture it and cherish it, to send it to someone who will mold it and train it and teach it to be all that it can be.

Your book is like your child, you know. It needs to learn, and not only from you. It needs an editor to look at it, to teach it how to be better.

Instant gratification, publishing via outlets like Createspace, is not what your book needs. Not every book is ready to be on the market. That’s a fact. What your book needs, before you even consider that stage, is to be better.

And honestly, the only way it’s going to get better, to reach its fullest potential, is through the editors in a publishing company. The freelancers, the ones who do it on the side just as a gig that pays, they don’t love your book like real editors do. The ones you can pay through a self-publishing firm like Createspace, they don’t love authors like real editors do.

You need to find a real publisher, a real editor, and get your book into the place where it really wants to be.

Instant gratification will never see the same dividends as putting the work in and taking the time to make your book reach its fullest potential.

Harsh? Yes. But true, nonetheless. 

[love]

{Rani Divine}

The Pricing Scheme

Hey guys! I hope that you enjoyed Tuesday’s post, or that it at least made you think a little bit about the company that we work with so often. It’s hard to find anyone these days who doesn’t shop with Amazon, or who doesn’t at least check their prices before buying something in store. But that’s part of the reason why we need to gain some knowledge about this business and about what they’re doing to the industry that we so love.

Let’s get to it.

Amazon sets their own prices for everything.

And I do mean everything. They do their level best to have the lowest price available on every product they have, to keep people coming back to them time and time again. But that means that they’re not always working with the people behind those products, to make sure everyone involved is getting paid. (and if you're an author on Amazon, thinking "but they let me set my own price!"—they gave you price parameters, didn't they?)

See, like I said on Tuesday, Amazon is only out for Amazon. Their primary goal is to make money. They’re a big business, so of course that’s the way it is. Really, that’s the way every business is. Amazon has developed a system that gets them a lot of sales. A system of low prices and free two-day shipping, which is really hard to ignore. Thing is, on the vast majority of those products, Amazon sets the price. At the very least, they define how you have to set your price, to make sure that they’ll still be making a decent cut off your sales.

Here’s the real thing though: although Amazon is known to have competitively low prices, they’re not pushing low-priced sales anymore. I’d be willing to bet that there aren’t very many people who noticed when Amazon started pushing higher prices, because a lot of us stopped looking anywhere else in our shopping. Amazon has what we're looking for, so we’ll get it from them.

Bad idea, anymore.

Here’s an example, from my own experience:

I want to buy a game. It’s called Dominion, and it’s a lot of fun. Look into it if you don’t know what it is. Anyway, I found Dominion on Amazon, and it was a good price, so I put it in my cart and I left it there so I could buy it in a couple days. By the time I got to it, the price had gone up. Except that when I wasn’t logged into Amazon, seconds before, the price was lower that what my cart now showed.

That’s only one example. I’ve seen it happen a lot, in several people’s experiences. Amazon is quietly pushing higher sales by slightly bumping the price up on a product that they know you want, since you put it in your cart.

But I’m sure you’re thinking that that’s just for regular products, and not for books. Sure, they might be pushing higher prices for things, but wouldn’t that mean that authors would be making a larger portion?

Nope.

Because Amazon is known for having the lowest prices on books. They very specifically price their book products to be around fifty cents less than the same product at the Barnes & Noble website.

So, though Amazon is raising prices on products, they’re not raising prices on books, which means that the royalty earned on books is still as low as ever.

Let me explain a little bit.

If you’re a self-published author, and you’ve published through Createspace, you have options on how much royalty you want. So let’s say that you’re in the 70% royalty program. Okay, so that means you’ll get 70% of what Amazon makes off every sale. But here’s the thing: if you’re not a Createspace author, you still have to go through the same system. So instead of getting that 70%, you’re getting a percentage of that 70%, because publishers can’t pay you what they didn’t get paid in the first place.

And I’m sure this is making some of you see Createspace in a good light, but it really shouldn’t. Createspace is dangerous.

The big name authors that you know and love are being pushed out of their royalty by this company. New authors with amazing books are being prevented from earning what they should be earning, because of this company. Authors who didn’t settle, authors who went through a traditional publishing house, suffer because of the way Amazon runs their business.

But Amazon is smart, you see, because they made you think their system was a good one.

Here’s what it all really boils down to:

As a reader, and as a writer, you have to support the industry. If you don’t, then you’re a hypocrite. Yeah, I said it. You’re a hypocrite if you won’t support the industry you claim to be a part of.

The only way to support that industry, however, is to buy books (and read them, obviously). If publishers don’t make money, they close their doors. If they close their doors, thousands of authors lose their pay. Books end up collecting dust or being burned rather than getting into the hands of people who would love to read them.

And here’s the crux:

By buying through Amazon, instead of through bookstores or direct from publishers, you’re taking money from authors and the publishers who back them. You’re contributing to the collapse of the industry and the rise of an Amazon monopoly.

We cannot have that happen, friends. We can’t. If Amazon is the only company left through which we can publish, then there will be billions of authors on only one site, with no way for anyone to find them except to scroll through endless pages of books.

If you’re on page fifty, how many people do you think will even see your book?

That’s the problem. That’s why we need to find a way to do what we do without resorting to giving all our time and effort over to Amazon.

That’s why I no longer buy books from them.

That’s a big part of why I’m doing this series, this month.

[love]

{Rani D.}

p.s. I had some questions yesterday, about whether this means my books will be leaving Amazon, and RAD will no longer be working through them. Let me assure you, my books won't be leaving Amazon. As always, whatever views I express in Too Many Books to Count are solely my own, and have nothing to do with RAD Writing. 

We have something to talk about

Hey guys! Thanks for joining me!

This month, I’ll be talking about something that is important both to writers and to readers. It’s something that I really want to draw your attention toward, and something that I think you all will benefit from, in the end. It might be a little rough; fair warning. I’m going to be explaining some things that you might not want to know. But, if you stick it out to the end of the month, you’ll learn something, and you might even have an idea of how to combat what’s going on.

What are we talking about, you ask?

Amazon.

Told you it might be a rough topic.

I’m a semi-frequent Amazon user. I have a Prime account, which I primarily use for watching occasional movies and listening to music when I’ve already outspent my music budget for the month. I buy a lot of music.

Know what I don’t buy from Amazon, on principle? Books.

Allow me to explain. Actually, I'll be explaining all month. I’ve done my research, and I have a lot to tell you about Amazon and their effect on us as writers and readers, along with the publishing industry as a whole. I guarantee that it’ll be an interesting month, and I hope you’ll stick it out.

Createspace is sucking the life out of publishers and writers

Why? How? Both very good questions, and very valid ones. And it’ll take a bit, to answer them.

See, Createspace is Amazon’s publishing company. Their self-publishing company. And because Createspace belongs to Amazon, anything published through Createspace will be pushed a little harder by Amazon. It’s actually a really good business strategy on their part, because it means they get far more profits. If Amazon sells a book published by Random House, Amazon only gets a small cut. If they sell one published by Createspace, the majority goes to Amazon (of course).

See, if you’re not making money for Amazon, you might as well not try to work with them. They’re a business, and they’re in it for the money. Of course they are. That’s what they are and what they have to do. I’m not saying they’re wrong in how they do things. They’re actually brilliant.

Know who’s wrong, to be working with them?

You guessed it: us.

Createspace is taking a lot of business from publishers, of which there are hundreds if not thousands in the United States alone. Trouble is, when you publish a book through Createspace, you’re settling for self-publishing.

Yes, I just said that. Self-publishing is settling. If you didn’t already know that, then you haven’t done your research. And I can say that it's settling, because my first book was self-published. Soon to be off the shelves, by the way.

I digress. 

See, publishers, traditional publishers, are the ones who know publishing. Duh. It’s what they do. They’re a business that deals in books, more books, and nothing but books. And they’re a business that’s also out to make money—by selling your book at a price that gets you a royalty, too.

The thing is, with Amazon controlling so much of the book market, with writers turning to Amazon at every corner to publish through Createspace, real publishers are suffering. They’re not getting the books they could be getting. They’re not getting your book. Besides that, if a publisher wants to work through Amazon to sell their books, Amazon is going to take as much of the sale price as they can get away with, which means the royalty for the author drop to diddly squat.

For now, trust me on that. I’ll explain in more detail later on in the series.

Publishers are the ones who want to take your books and make them amazing, make them a bestseller, something that might even be turned into a movie. A book with a cult following. A beloved book that people won’t ever forget.

Amazon is the company that wants you to publish through them so they can make a little money off you.

Harsh? Yeah. But it’s the truth.

Here’s more truth for you:

For every time you buy a book from Amazon instead of a publisher, instead of a bookstore, instead of nearly any other venue, you’re hurting the publishing industry. You’re giving more power to the biggest business around these days, and you’re hurting the people behind those books. Authors suffer because of Amazon. Most of them won’t admit it. Many don’t even know it. But for every book you buy from Amazon, for every sale you give Amazon that could’ve been given to another venue, you’re hurting the people behind the books you love so much.

This month, I’ll tell you all about it.

We’re only getting started, and by the end of the month, believe me, we’ll have only scratched the surface.

[love]

{Rani Divine}