Discussion:
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
(too old to reply)
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-24 20:55:25 UTC
Permalink
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm

"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."

Lynn
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-04-24 21:11:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Peter Trei
2018-04-24 21:15:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?

pt
Dimensional Traveler
2018-04-24 21:47:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
That was my immediate thought, they each got $100+ in royalties.
--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
2018-04-24 22:24:37 UTC
Permalink
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent
authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121
161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in
royalties in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible.
I wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that
much in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if
you sold the movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
If so, the report is deliberately deceptive.

They're talking $100 million is royalties to independent authors.
It's certainly *possible*, given that's about 1/20th of one percent
of their total revenue.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-24 22:27:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.

I have read several independent authors crowing on their websites that
they make six figures a year from their Amazon ebooks. Joe Konrath is
the loudest.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/100000.html

Lynn
Richard Hershberger
2018-04-25 13:07:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I have read several independent authors crowing on their websites that
they make six figures a year from their Amazon ebooks. Joe Konrath is
the loudest.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/100000.html
Lynn
My understanding is that when self-publishing broke out a few years back, quite a few authors did very well financially. These were the early adopters who caught the new wave. I also gather that it is a lot harder to break in to that level now, as the field is a lot more crowded.

I am reminded of those early adopters who cleaned out their attics and sold their junk on EBay. They were amazed at the response, and some of them quit their day jobs. Fast forward a couple of years and this doesn't work anymore.

As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of producing three or four novels a year. In other words, this is the modern equivalent of pulp fiction. Bully for them, but as a reader I take this as fair warning. I understand why writers don't want publishers as gatekeepers. As a reader, I most definitely want a gatekeeper.

Richard R. Hershberger
Ahasuerus
2018-04-25 16:17:18 UTC
Permalink
On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 9:07:37 AM UTC-4, Richard Hershberger wrote:
[snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out
the material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year.
Well, as Dean Wesley Smith wrote in the linked article:

"Selling one genre book a year is not enough to make a living writing."

Unless, I assume, you are a genuine bestseller or your definition of
"making a living" differs from Smith's ("$6,000 per month after taxes
needed to survive [for a family]".)
Post by Richard Hershberger
In other words, this is the modern equivalent of pulp fiction. Bully
for them, but as a reader I take this as fair warning.
As part of our effort to keep the ISFDB current, I have been exposed to
a fair amount of indie writing over the last few years. It ranges from
"professional quality" to literally "gibberish".
Post by Richard Hershberger
I understand why writers don't want publishers as gatekeepers. As
a reader, I most definitely want a gatekeeper.
Traditional publishers provide a variety of services -- editing,
printing, art, advertising, distribution, etc -- to readers and writers,
including gatekeeping. They basically offer a "bundle" the way cable TV
channels are bundled. As an author, you can't pick and choose which
services you want a traditional publisher to sell to you just like you
can't buy only the channels that you are interested in from a cable
TV provider. Or at least that's how it worked in the past, before the
indie, i.e. "a la carte", model became viable and created new pressures
on the traditional side. In a way, it is similar to how streaming has
disrupted the cable TV model.

As far as gatekeeping goes, I see two separate issues here. The first one
is simply a matter of finding the stuff that you are interested in. There
are thousands of new SF books added to the Amazon database every month,
so it's not feasible to check all of them out. There are numerous ways
around this problem, but things are still in a state of flux (vide
Amazon's continuing problems with fake and low quality reviews.) It will
be interesting to see how reviews will evolve over the next few years.

The other thing about gatekeeping is that it is a feedback mechanism
which (in theory) helps aspiring authors improve until they become
publishable. Perhaps the fact that authors no longer need to clear
this hurdle hurts some of them in the long run. I am not sure how we
could quantify the impact, though.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-04-25 17:34:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out
the material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year.
"Selling one genre book a year is not enough to make a living writing."
Unless, I assume, you are a genuine bestseller or your definition of
"making a living" differs from Smith's ("$6,000 per month after taxes
needed to survive [for a family]".)
Post by Richard Hershberger
In other words, this is the modern equivalent of pulp fiction. Bully
for them, but as a reader I take this as fair warning.
As part of our effort to keep the ISFDB current, I have been exposed to
a fair amount of indie writing over the last few years. It ranges from
"professional quality" to literally "gibberish".
Post by Richard Hershberger
I understand why writers don't want publishers as gatekeepers. As
a reader, I most definitely want a gatekeeper.
Traditional publishers provide a variety of services -- editing,
printing, art, advertising, distribution, etc -- to readers and writers,
including gatekeeping. They basically offer a "bundle" the way cable TV
channels are bundled. As an author, you can't pick and choose which
services you want a traditional publisher to sell to you just like you
can't buy only the channels that you are interested in from a cable
TV provider. Or at least that's how it worked in the past, before the
indie, i.e. "a la carte", model became viable and created new pressures
on the traditional side. In a way, it is similar to how streaming has
disrupted the cable TV model.
As far as gatekeeping goes, I see two separate issues here. The first one
is simply a matter of finding the stuff that you are interested in. There
are thousands of new SF books added to the Amazon database every month,
so it's not feasible to check all of them out. There are numerous ways
around this problem, but things are still in a state of flux (vide
Amazon's continuing problems with fake and low quality reviews.) It will
be interesting to see how reviews will evolve over the next few years.
The other thing about gatekeeping is that it is a feedback mechanism
which (in theory) helps aspiring authors improve until they become
publishable. Perhaps the fact that authors no longer need to clear
this hurdle hurts some of them in the long run. I am not sure how we
could quantify the impact, though.
I would say sales probably are a better feedback mechanism than the slim
chance of selling out of a slush pile. And if you are an awful writer
you at least know "I did it; I wrote the book and people had a chance
to look at it. I don't have to regret not doing it."

As you can tell if you glance at my "RI" posts, I am pretty far down
the indie corridor now aside from series or authors I was already following
and a few new ones pointed at my by Amazon.

I find that the worst stuff self-identifies in the actual blurbs and is
fairly easy to avoid. Stuff that is not immediately obviously bad
is harder, but when I find it, well, that's just a few bucks shot.

Then there's the stuff I have a tolerance for: Stuff with undeniable writing
flaws but which tells a coherent interesting story. I can't really
recommend it to an unsuspecting friend, but I enjoy it still.

As I've said before, I *can* recommend, forex, Lindsay Buroker, Debra Dunbar,
& Mark Henwick as writers as polished as any non-indies.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-05-02 14:36:47 UTC
Permalink
On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 1:34:05 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
[snip-snip]
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Then there's the stuff I have a tolerance for: Stuff with undeniable
writing flaws but which tells a coherent interesting story. I can't
really recommend it to an unsuspecting friend, but I enjoy it still.
When we last had this discussion (November 2017), I wrote:


In many cases the problem goes even deeper than non-existent editing.
Some indie authors simply have no ear for English grammar and usage.

The question, then, is why do customers buy their books? I can think of
the following three reasons:

1. They simply don't care about the quality of the writing.
2. They do care, but they are willing to overlook the defects because
of lower prices.
3. They find that these admittedly imperfect books have something to
offer that traditionally published books do not.

The third reason is the most interesting one. It reminds me of the pulp
magazines of the 1930s -- the writing was mostly bad-to-atrocious, but
the authors were doing things that no one else was doing at the time. In
time, better authors appeared (see the Golden Age) and took it to the
next level.

I wonder if we may be seeing something similar here. For example, the
mushrooming LitRPG subgenre is currently dominated by indie authors, but
there are some signs that it is beginning to attract more established
writers, e.g. see Eric S. Nylund's _Hero of Thera_
(http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2211075)
Kade Green
2018-05-02 22:06:59 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 2 May 2018 07:36:47 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
They find that these admittedly imperfect books have
something to offer that traditionally published books do not.
Species C1764 by C.G. William ( https://amzn.com/B071W12FL4/ )
is such a work. The spelling, grammar, and other errors top three per
page, yet I enjoyed the book enough that I sought out the sequel at
its source in the HFY (Humanity, F--k Yeah!) reddit.
Ahasuerus
2018-05-04 19:40:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kade Green
On Wed, 2 May 2018 07:36:47 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
They find that these admittedly imperfect books have
something to offer that traditionally published books do not.
Species C1764 by C.G. William ( https://amzn.com/B071W12FL4/ )
is such a work. The spelling, grammar, and other errors top three per
page, yet I enjoyed the book enough that I sought out the sequel at
its source in the HFY (Humanity, F--k Yeah!) reddit.
Power fantasies have been very popular lately, especially in the indie
world: HFY, Royal Road, Japanese light novels/anime/manga, Russian
LitRPGs, Chinese xanxia, Korean Web novels, English Web serials
(including English serials written by ESL authors like Domagoj Kurmaic),
MMO/RPG-inspired fiction and so on. Of course, we have always had power
fantasies, e.g. Eric Frank Russell would not be out of place on the HFY
recommended reading list, but the sheer volume and the number of
varieties is new. It will be interesting to see how they will influence
each other over the next few years/decades.
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-25 19:48:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out
the material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year.
"Selling one genre book a year is not enough to make a living writing."
Unless, I assume, you are a genuine bestseller or your definition of
"making a living" differs from Smith's ("$6,000 per month after taxes
needed to survive [for a family]".)
Post by Richard Hershberger
In other words, this is the modern equivalent of pulp fiction. Bully
for them, but as a reader I take this as fair warning.
As part of our effort to keep the ISFDB current, I have been exposed to
a fair amount of indie writing over the last few years. It ranges from
"professional quality" to literally "gibberish".
Post by Richard Hershberger
I understand why writers don't want publishers as gatekeepers. As
a reader, I most definitely want a gatekeeper.
Traditional publishers provide a variety of services -- editing,
printing, art, advertising, distribution, etc -- to readers and writers,
including gatekeeping. They basically offer a "bundle" the way cable TV
channels are bundled. As an author, you can't pick and choose which
services you want a traditional publisher to sell to you just like you
can't buy only the channels that you are interested in from a cable
TV provider. Or at least that's how it worked in the past, before the
indie, i.e. "a la carte", model became viable and created new pressures
on the traditional side. In a way, it is similar to how streaming has
disrupted the cable TV model.
As far as gatekeeping goes, I see two separate issues here. The first one
is simply a matter of finding the stuff that you are interested in. There
are thousands of new SF books added to the Amazon database every month,
so it's not feasible to check all of them out. There are numerous ways
around this problem, but things are still in a state of flux (vide
Amazon's continuing problems with fake and low quality reviews.) It will
be interesting to see how reviews will evolve over the next few years.
...

I suspect that Amazon will only allow reviews soon by people who bought
the item on their website. They are well on that path already as the
reviews are preferentially shown now by the "Verified Purchase" moniker.

Lynn
Default User
2018-04-25 20:15:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
I suspect that Amazon will only allow reviews soon by people who
bought the item on their website. They are well on that path already
as the reviews are preferentially shown now by the "Verified
Purchase" moniker.
One of the odd side-effects is the phenomenon of people getting
packages of stuff from Amazon that they didn't order. The most likely
explanation is that sellers make a faux purchase with a US address so
that they can post their own reviews as verified purchasers.


Brian
Kevrob
2018-04-25 20:50:52 UTC
Permalink
Post by Default User
Post by Lynn McGuire
I suspect that Amazon will only allow reviews soon by people who
bought the item on their website. They are well on that path already
as the reviews are preferentially shown now by the "Verified
Purchase" moniker.
One of the odd side-effects is the phenomenon of people getting
packages of stuff from Amazon that they didn't order. The most likely
explanation is that sellers make a faux purchase with a US address so
that they can post their own reviews as verified purchasers.
Don't forget the "Porch Pirates" shipping to unsuspecting people,
using stolen CC #s that have nothing to do with the addressee.
The "ship to" addresses are chosen for their suitability as "dead
drops," where the thieves can remove the packages at their leisure,
or drive off if they think they are being watched.

Website and catalog companies use software in combination with
humans checking addresses for plausibility t fight this sort of
thing, but blocking even a large percentage of fraudulent orders
still leaves beaucoup bucks worth of stock being stolen.

Kevin R
Jack Bohn
2018-04-26 13:06:29 UTC
Permalink
Well, as Dean Wesley Smith wrote in the linked article: 
"Selling one genre book a year is not enough to make a living writing." 
Unless, I assume, you are a genuine bestseller or your definition of 
"making a living" differs from Smith's ("$6,000 per month after taxes 
needed to survive [for a family]".)
Taxes still on my mind, I note the standard deduction (for a single person filing singly) is $6350. Related?
--
-Jack
Default User
2018-04-28 04:24:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jack Bohn
Well, as Dean Wesley Smith wrote in the linked article: 
"Selling one genre book a year is not enough to make a living writing." 
Unless, I assume, you are a genuine bestseller or your definition
of  "making a living" differs from Smith's ("$6,000 per month after
taxes  needed to survive [for a family]".)
Taxes still on my mind, I note the standard deduction (for a single
person filing singly) is $6350. Related?
Not anymore in the US. It's now $12,000 for single.


Brian
J. Clarke
2018-04-28 04:46:48 UTC
Permalink
On Sat, 28 Apr 2018 04:24:00 -0000 (UTC), "Default User"
Post by Default User
Post by Jack Bohn
Well, as Dean Wesley Smith wrote in the linked article: 
"Selling one genre book a year is not enough to make a living writing." 
Unless, I assume, you are a genuine bestseller or your definition
of  "making a living" differs from Smith's ("$6,000 per month after
taxes  needed to survive [for a family]".)
Taxes still on my mind, I note the standard deduction (for a single
person filing singly) is $6350. Related?
Not anymore in the US. It's now $12,000 for single.
They way they wrote the new tax code is a pain in the butt for us.
We'd already declared the 2018 dividend schedule when they changed the
law. Now we have to figure out what we're going to do about it.
Post by Default User
Brian
Ahasuerus
2018-04-30 20:56:01 UTC
Permalink
On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 9:07:37 AM UTC-4, Richard Hershberger wrote:
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
number that I have seen so far is 20ish a year:

"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.

His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-04-30 21:53:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
His "Tamer" books are fun, but I thought his _Wings of Justice_ had a great
setting and a reasonable plot. I'm guessing it didn't do as well as the
others since there hasn't been a follow-up.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Dimensional Traveler
2018-04-30 23:06:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
"guy lit"?
--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-04-30 23:15:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by Dimensional Traveler
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
"guy lit"?
I was unfamiliar with the term, but after reading the "Tamer" books,
it was what Ahasuerus meant was immediately clear: Guy kidnapped
to an alien planet, builds a harem of drop dead gorgeous alien
women, fights dinosaurs, fights *from* dinosaurs, starts building
civilization.

I don't think women are the target market.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Lynn McGuire
2018-05-01 00:10:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Dimensional Traveler
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
"guy lit"?
I was unfamiliar with the term, but after reading the "Tamer" books,
it was what Ahasuerus meant was immediately clear: Guy kidnapped
to an alien planet, builds a harem of drop dead gorgeous alien
women, fights dinosaurs, fights *from* dinosaurs, starts building
civilization.
I don't think women are the target market.
_Dinosaur Rider of Gor_ ?

Lynn
Wolffan
2018-05-01 10:36:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Dimensional Traveler
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
"guy lit"?
I was unfamiliar with the term, but after reading the "Tamer" books,
it was what Ahasuerus meant was immediately clear: Guy kidnapped
to an alien planet, builds a harem of drop dead gorgeous alien
women, fights dinosaurs, fights *from* dinosaurs, starts building
civilization.
I don't think women are the target market.
_Dinosaur Rider of Gor_ ?
only if the girls really needed, umm, ‘taming’.
Dimensional Traveler
2018-05-01 15:02:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Wolffan
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Dimensional Traveler
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
"guy lit"?
I was unfamiliar with the term, but after reading the "Tamer" books,
it was what Ahasuerus meant was immediately clear: Guy kidnapped
to an alien planet, builds a harem of drop dead gorgeous alien
women, fights dinosaurs, fights *from* dinosaurs, starts building
civilization.
I don't think women are the target market.
_Dinosaur Rider of Gor_ ?
only if the girls really needed, umm, ‘taming’.
Isn't that implied by the word "Gor"?
--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.
Robert Carnegie
2018-05-01 00:17:31 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Dimensional Traveler
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
"guy lit"?
I was unfamiliar with the term, but after reading the "Tamer" books,
it was what Ahasuerus meant was immediately clear: Guy kidnapped
to an alien planet, builds a harem of drop dead gorgeous alien
women, fights dinosaurs, fights *from* dinosaurs, starts building
civilization.
I don't think women are the target market.
So there's "chick lit", and then there's... a word which
rhymes with "chick".
Greg Goss
2018-05-02 01:15:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by Robert Carnegie
So there's "chick lit", and then there's... a word which
rhymes with "chick".
After several decades of sarcasm on the Web and its predecessors, I
saw my first example of Chick, uh, Lit in the wild today in a fast
food restaurant.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
Kevrob
2018-05-02 01:34:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by Robert Carnegie
So there's "chick lit", and then there's... a word which
rhymes with "chick".
After several decades of sarcasm on the Web and its predecessors, I
saw my first example of Chick, uh, Lit in the wild today in a fast
food restaurant.
--
Did the kitchen accidentally flambe the nuggets? :)

Kevin R
Richard Hershberger
2018-05-02 12:41:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.

First sentence, from the Look Inside feature:
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg almost to the floor."

Yup: absolutely dire.

Richard R. Hershberger
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-05-02 15:44:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life
where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body
and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg
almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
Richard R. Hershberger
Of his that I have read, I found _Wings Of Justice_ to be the best:

https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Justice-City-Light-Book-ebook/dp/B01N8TDTNG/

It's not "guy lit": Fantasy police procedural, interesting setting.
No sex, no romance. Fairly smoothly written as I recall.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-05-02 15:49:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life
where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body
and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg
almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
Richard R. Hershberger
https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Justice-City-Light-Book-ebook/dp/B01N8TDTNG/
It's not "guy lit": Fantasy police procedural, interesting setting.
No sex, no romance. Fairly smoothly written as I recall.
To follow myself up, I actually did post a review for that one.
I see that I did note a few tics at the time that I memory-holed by
the time I wrote the above, and that I thought it was probably a first
novel, which it was not, but in general, I stand by it:

======

Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) by Michael-Scott Earle
http://amzn.to/2kCSBbW

Anelia Orba is a rookie cop in Petrasada, the city of floating rock
hovering above the barren desert. Of course in Petrasada, the cops
are all women and are given magical wings by the Priestesses to
make patrolling the vast city more practical. An orphan, Anelia's
new job is her way out of poverty and she is determined to excel.
Unfortunately, he partner seems to hate her right off the bat and she
is almost immediately confronted with a string of murders leading
her into situations almost impossible for a Day 1 rookie to explain..

It's an interesting setting which puts me in the mind of Butcher's
Cinder Spires a little, though there are no other floating rocks to
compete with Petrasada. We are given no backstory for the building of
the city, or why (apparently) there is nobody on the surface, but we
do see enough to guess that all is not well. Although the Prestiess
we do see seems nice enough in general they are somewhat high handed
and ultimately own all the property in the city which they lease to
favored mundanes. This apparently does not sit well with all the populace
including the handsome and infuriating criminal Anelia catches and loses.

The author has a few tics I wish he would loose, most notably referring
to characters with well known names too many times as "the blond woman"
etc, or over-noting how pretty or handsome each character is, but I
expect that will come with practice.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-05-04 18:10:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life
where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body
and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg
almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Justice-City-Light-Book-ebook/dp/B01N8TDTNG/
It's not "guy lit": Fantasy police procedural, interesting setting.
No sex, no romance. Fairly smoothly written as I recall.
To follow myself up, I actually did post a review for that one.
I see that I did note a few tics at the time that I memory-holed by
the time I wrote the above, and that I thought it was probably a first
======
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) by Michael-Scott Earle
http://amzn.to/2kCSBbW [snip]
Michael-Scott Earle's is a peculiar case. I can understand 3-4 books a
year: Turtledove was able to maintain that kind of output for many
years even though most of his books were in the 400-500 page range.
I can even understand 10-20 books a year as long as the books are
very short. For example, some children's author claim that they have
written over 200 books.

However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.

Granted, there are additional considerations. First, some of his books
were already written when he began publishing. As he writes on his Web
page (http://www.michaelscottearle.com/about-me), "I wrote the first
four books in the Destroyer series while I was on planes or in hotel
rooms." Second, some of his books are co-written with other authors,
e.g. the first two _Space Knight_ books.

Still, the volume is so high that at one point I began wondering whether
there were more people involved. A few days ago I noticed that _Tamer_,
the first volume in the _King of Dinosaurs_ series, had two covers on
Amazon: Loading Image...
and Loading Image...
The first one credits Earle and "Brian King"; it's no longer available
from Amazon. The second one credits Earle alone. I then re-read his
autobiography (see the link above) and noticed the following sentence:

"I now own my own a small publishing company, and work with a few
other authors to get their work out to fans."

I am not sure if this means anything, but it's food for thought.
Kevrob
2018-05-04 18:30:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life
where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body
and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg
almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Justice-City-Light-Book-ebook/dp/B01N8TDTNG/
It's not "guy lit": Fantasy police procedural, interesting setting.
No sex, no romance. Fairly smoothly written as I recall.
To follow myself up, I actually did post a review for that one.
I see that I did note a few tics at the time that I memory-holed by
the time I wrote the above, and that I thought it was probably a first
======
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) by Michael-Scott Earle
http://amzn.to/2kCSBbW [snip]
Michael-Scott Earle's is a peculiar case. I can understand 3-4 books a
year: Turtledove was able to maintain that kind of output for many
years even though most of his books were in the 400-500 page range.
I can even understand 10-20 books a year as long as the books are
very short. For example, some children's author claim that they have
written over 200 books.
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in wordcount? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words ayear for a long time.

http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ahasuerus
Granted, there are additional considerations. First, some of his books
were already written when he began publishing. As he writes on his Web
page (http://www.michaelscottearle.com/about-me), "I wrote the first
four books in the Destroyer series while I was on planes or in hotel
rooms." Second, some of his books are co-written with other authors,
e.g. the first two _Space Knight_ books.
Still, the volume is so high that at one point I began wondering whether
there were more people involved. A few days ago I noticed that _Tamer_,
the first volume in the _King of Dinosaurs_ series, had two covers on
Amazon: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1XmZYZJL.jpg
and https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ybLpyDRcL.jpg
The first one credits Earle and "Brian King"; it's no longer available
from Amazon. The second one credits Earle alone. I then re-read his
"I now own my own a small publishing company, and work with a few
other authors to get their work out to fans."
I am not sure if this means anything, but it's food for thought.
Kevin R
Ahasuerus
2018-05-04 19:21:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life
where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body
and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg
almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Justice-City-Light-Book-ebook/dp/B01N8TDTNG/
It's not "guy lit": Fantasy police procedural, interesting setting.
No sex, no romance. Fairly smoothly written as I recall.
To follow myself up, I actually did post a review for that one.
I see that I did note a few tics at the time that I memory-holed by
the time I wrote the above, and that I thought it was probably a first
======
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) by Michael-Scott Earle
http://amzn.to/2kCSBbW [snip]
Michael-Scott Earle's is a peculiar case. I can understand 3-4 books a
year: Turtledove was able to maintain that kind of output for many
years even though most of his books were in the 400-500 page range.
I can even understand 10-20 books a year as long as the books are
very short. For example, some children's author claim that they have
written over 200 books.
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in wordcount? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words ayear for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
[snip]

It depends on the format and on the font. A 40K word novel (<40K words
would be a novella for award and ISFDB purposes) can be anywhere from
<100 pages to 200+ pages.
Torbjorn Lindgren
2018-05-04 20:08:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in wordcount? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words ayear for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).

It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.

This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.

As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.

Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
Kevrob
2018-05-04 20:26:52 UTC
Permalink
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in wordcount? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words ayear for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
Gibson had to whack that out on manual typewriters, as many as
9 of them going at a time, in different rooms.

See: "Walter B. Gibson and The Shadow"
By Thomas J. Shimeld p 128

https://preview.tinyurl.com/WBGibson-Typing OR

https://tinyurl.com/WBGibson-Typing resolves to:

https://books.google.com/books?id=vYlHgkDINlEC&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=walter+gibson+typewriters&source=bl&ots=CUCT-LmR62&sig=XOJHAZ9kPVihTiMvUn_BlX7v66Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinrtW28OzaAhUvTt8KHeZABe8Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=walter%20gibson%20typewriters&f=false

Having word processing software on computers removes at least one
of the challenges to such a high output.

Gibson endorsed typewriters, which was logical, like the Masters
winner endorsing golf clubs.

Kevin R
Ahasuerus
2018-08-04 15:41:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-08-04 15:48:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Kevrob
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-08-04 16:08:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Kevrob
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
says:

"He [Earle] just posted this on his facebook:

Great news guys.

Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."

I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
Ahasuerus
2018-08-09 03:32:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Kevrob
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-08-09 03:38:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Post by Ahasuerus
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ah, cool!

Now I take the ones I have off "hold" and read them with some
expectation that the series will have an actual conclusion.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-08-09 04:09:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's...
impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Post by Ahasuerus
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ah, cool!
Now I take the ones I have off "hold" and read them with some
expectation that the series will have an actual conclusion.
I am impressed by the fact that books written in 8 days can be
so popular in 2018. I should probably try him one of these days.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-08-09 04:50:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
On Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 11:48:38 AM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though
some of his
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's...
impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Post by Ahasuerus
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ah, cool!
Now I take the ones I have off "hold" and read them with some
expectation that the series will have an actual conclusion.
I am impressed by the fact that books written in 8 days can be
so popular in 2018. I should probably try him one of these days.
Well, pulp was pretty popular. Not sure just how long it took Lester Dent
or Walter Gibson, but it wasn't too long.

Other than his "Tamer" books, which are fun popcorn, the only other
I've read is clearly much better and deserves a follow-up:

_Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1)_
https://amzn.to/2vseiQK

I reviewed it last year, although I evidently wasn't aware of how many
other books he had written by then:

Anelia Orba is a rookie cop in Petrasada, the city of
floating rock hovering above the barren desert. Of course
in Petrasada, the cops are all women and are given magical
wings by the Priestesses to make patrolling the vast city
more practical. An orphan, Anelia's new job is her way out
of poverty and she is determined to excel. Unfortunately,
he partner seems to hate her right off the bat and she is
almost immediately confronted with a string of murders
leading her into situations almost impossible for a Day 1
rookie to explain..

It's an interesting setting which puts me in the mind of
Butcher's Cinder Spires a little, though there are no other
floating rocks to compete with Petrasada. We are given no
backstory for the building of the city, or why (apparently)
there is nobody on the surface, but we do see enough to
guess that all is not well. Although the Prestiess we do
see seems nice enough in general they are somewhat high
handed and ultimately own all the property in the city which
they lease to favored mundanes. This apparently does not
sit well with all the populace including the handsome and
infuriating criminal Anelia catches and loses.

The author has a few tics I wish he would loose, most notably
referring to characters with well known names too many times
as "the blond woman" etc, or over-noting how pretty or
handsome each character is, but I expect that will come
with practice.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-08-10 16:34:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Kevrob
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's...
impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Post by Ahasuerus
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ah, cool!
Now I take the ones I have off "hold" and read them with some
expectation that the series will have an actual conclusion.
And now they are gone again, reportedly taken down by Amazon.
Hopefully you were faster on the draw.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-08-10 16:41:52 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
On Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 11:48:38 AM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though
some of his
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's...
impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Post by Ahasuerus
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ah, cool!
Now I take the ones I have off "hold" and read them with some
expectation that the series will have an actual conclusion.
And now they are gone again, reportedly taken down by Amazon.
Hopefully you were faster on the draw.
Well, I got to repost one review, but that's it.

Granted we only know Earle's side of the story, and not much of that,
but not liking how a publishing monopoly can destroy a man's livelihood..
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-08-10 17:35:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
On Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 11:48:38 AM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though
some of his
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Post by Ahasuerus
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's...
impressive.
What is that in word count? Walter B Gibson, aka "Maxwell Grant"
kept up a million words a year for a long time.
http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-million-words-year-for-ten-straight.html
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
Despite having a very large elibrary I have no Earle books in it but
random-sampling a bunch of books in my library in similar page-count
ranges they were all were between 250 and 300 word per page using word
count from the Calibre editor and page count from Amazon (paperback or
virtual).
It definitely can go go both much higher and much lower but several
web-sources also mentioned the 250-300 word/page range for published
books as "good guess" so lets go with that for now.
This converts that pagecount above to on the order of 1.3-2.2 million
words/year, though that is a VERY rough guess.
As mentioned later, he likely had some old stuff lying to bolster the
output but I think it does strongly suggest a 1M+ word/year output.
Which is way, WAY high but as your example show not unprecedented. The
Shadow example is helped by the formulaic nature of the genre,
I have been following the story of Amazon banning (and then possibly
unbanning) Earle and J. A. Cipriano ever since Ted's original query.
Some Reddit comments shed a certain amount of light on the discussion
above
Post by Torbjorn Lindgren
MSE [Michael-Scott Earle] tried the co-author thing in an attempt
to reduce the writing time per book (usually around 8 days [sic]
per book). This was done afaik with Tamer 1, Space Knight 1 and
SK 2. He told us during the last twitch live stream that it didn't
work out in the end because it was taking too much time (MSE is way
too fast at writing). So he decided to stop and went back to writing
solo. With Space Knight, he also didn't like some things, so he went
back and re-wrote portions of the story.
Dude's a fucking beast. He says some days he can pump out 10,000
words.
I don't see anything on that thread to substantiate an unbanning, and
in fact, his Tamer books still do now show up on Amazon (except in
the audio editions, which seem not to have fallen under the "Kindle" ban).
The original post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/943srs/michael_scottearle_got_unbanned_kind_of_and_is/)
Post by Ahasuerus
Great news guys.
Amazon is allowing me to go with another publisher. I've been
talking with a few on the side, so I'll figure out which one I'm
going to go with either tomorrow or early next week. It will probably
take a few days to get all the lawyering done, rights transferred,
books re-uploaded, reviews moved over, series stuff added, etc...
I'm thinking Death Ship 4 will be out the 12ish and Tamer the week
after. Might be an additional week depending on all the paperwork."
I guess we'll find out in a week or two.
He is back. Or at least some of his Kindle books are --
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B07G8JMGW9/
Apparently the rest are still being finalized.
Ah, cool!
Now I take the ones I have off "hold" and read them with some
expectation that the series will have an actual conclusion.
And now they are gone again, reportedly taken down by Amazon.
Hopefully you were faster on the draw.
Well, I got to repost one review, but that's it.
Granted we only know Earle's side of the story, and not much of that,
but not liking how a publishing monopoly can destroy a man's livelihood..
I am not familiar with the specifics of the MSE/Cipriano/etc cases, but
-- generally speaking -- there are a number of interesting issues here.
The most obvious one is the way Kindle Unlimited works and how KENPC
(Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count, which is up to v. 3.0 now), KU
downloads, etc can be manipulated via "book stuffing", bots and other
techniques -- see
https://www.bookworks.com/2018/06/book-stuffing-scams-kindle-unlimited/ ,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2018/04/07/amazon-has-filed-suit-to-stop-the-six-figure-book-stuffing-kindle-scam/#103218807344 ,
etc.

Since all KU authors share the same pool of money that KU readers
contribute to, content creators who abuse the system directly affect
all other content creators. By undermining the system, they drive
honest creators out of the program, thus increasing the chances of a
KU "death spiral".

Another potential issue is Amazon's market share across many market
segments, which makes it more susceptible to non-market pressures.
To use an SF example, suppose an interest group tried to get Amazon
to stop selling werewolf/yeti/etc erotica because it viewed it as a
form of bestiality. With a smaller retailer, it would be just an
inconvenience as authors migrated elsewhere, but at this point most
indie authors apparently do not have an economically viable alternative
to Amazon.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-05-04 18:40:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 9:07:37 AM UTC-4, Richard
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life
where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body
and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg
almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Justice-City-Light-Book-ebook/dp/B01N8TDTNG/
It's not "guy lit": Fantasy police procedural, interesting setting.
No sex, no romance. Fairly smoothly written as I recall.
To follow myself up, I actually did post a review for that one.
I see that I did note a few tics at the time that I memory-holed by
the time I wrote the above, and that I thought it was probably a first
======
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) by Michael-Scott Earle
http://amzn.to/2kCSBbW [snip]
Michael-Scott Earle's is a peculiar case. I can understand 3-4 books a
year: Turtledove was able to maintain that kind of output for many
years even though most of his books were in the 400-500 page range.
I can even understand 10-20 books a year as long as the books are
very short. For example, some children's author claim that they have
written over 200 books.
However, Earle manages almost 20 books a year even though some of his
books are in the 500-800+ page range. That's a lot of pages. Even
assuming 300-400 pages per book and 18 books per year, he publishes
5,400-7,200 pages per year or 15-20 pages per day. That's... impressive.
Granted, there are additional considerations. First, some of his books
were already written when he began publishing. As he writes on his Web
page (http://www.michaelscottearle.com/about-me), "I wrote the first
four books in the Destroyer series while I was on planes or in hotel
rooms." Second, some of his books are co-written with other authors,
e.g. the first two _Space Knight_ books.
Still, the volume is so high that at one point I began wondering whether
there were more people involved. A few days ago I noticed that _Tamer_,
the first volume in the _King of Dinosaurs_ series, had two covers on
Amazon: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1XmZYZJL.jpg
and https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ybLpyDRcL.jpg
The first one credits Earle and "Brian King"; it's no longer available
from Amazon. The second one credits Earle alone. I then re-read his
"I now own my own a small publishing company, and work with a few
other authors to get their work out to fans."
I am not sure if this means anything, but it's food for thought.
Yeah, I noted that in my review:

Interestingly, the cover of the ebook, and I'm sure the
Amazon cover at the time I bought it, lists the authors as
"Brian King & Michael-Scott Earle". The current Amazon
cover and the "Look Inside" preview lists only "Michael-Scott
Earle" as does Book 2. I don't know if they fell out or
what, but King has been apparently made an unperson here.

and it definitely does read differently than _Wings of Justice_.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Robert Carnegie
2018-05-02 20:27:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Richard Hershberger
Post by Ahasuerus
[snip-snip]
Post by Richard Hershberger
As for those indie authors, the key is that they are cranking out the
material. The discussions I have read among them talk in terms of
producing three or four novels a year. [snip]
Three or four novels is pretty common in the indie world. The highest
"Michael-Scott Earle is a New York Times, USA Today, and top 100
Amazon bestselling author of adult fiction.
His debut novel, ''The Destroyer'', was published in February of 2016,
and has earned critical acclaim. He has currently published 39 novels
spanning the genres of dark fantasy, epic fantasy, space opera,
cyberpunk, horror-comedy, and guy lit."
(https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1987626613/)
It all sounds absolutely dire. The thing is, I am at a point in my life where "kill a few hours" is not what I am looking for in a book.
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg almost to the floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
Richard R. Hershberger
Indeed, the word "long" is almost certainly unnecessary -
although dwarfism occurs. On the other hand, she needs
a safety-pin or duct tape or something to keep that dress
from descending too soon. And probably, uh, those nipple
cover things, they're called... oh, "nipple covers"
apparently. Or "Women's Breast Petals"... odd.
I mean, she may want to flash what she's got, but a rapidly
descending dress is going to sting those sensitive parts.

Now, when that's sorted out, what next?
David DeLaney
2018-05-03 10:27:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Richard Hershberger
"She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body and
breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg almost to the
floor."
Yup: absolutely dire.
Might be salvageable if it were a noir detective novel. But I'm quite sure,
without reading either one, that Moore's recent _Noir_ blows it out of the
dark, whispering depths of the local Bay, Sound, or Harbor.

Dave, where it keeps company with several unsolved-as-yet homicides
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
my gatekeeper archives are no longer accessible :( / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Scott Lurndal
2018-04-26 14:23:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017. Not that they made that much in a single
year.
Ahasuerus
2018-04-26 15:55:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017. Not that they made that much in a single
year.
I interpret "over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in
royalties in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing" to mean that over
a thousand indie authors made over $100K in royalties in 2017 alone.

It's a well-known and much discussed subset of indie authors, e.g. see
https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/2017/06/07/100k-author/
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
2018-04-27 00:18:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017. Not that they made that much in a single
year.
No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made $100k in that year.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.dreamwidth.org
Robert Carnegie
2018-04-27 00:25:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017. Not that they made that much in a single
year.
No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made $100k in that year.
But $100,000 isn't what it was.

Maybe then they deduct things instead of giving you $100,000?

And then you pay tax...
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
2018-04-27 15:07:27 UTC
Permalink
On Friday, 27 April 2018 01:18:42 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent
authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/0001193125
18121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties in 2017 through Kindle Direct
Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible. I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties? I think
of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017. Not that they made that much
in a single year.
No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made
$100k in that year.
But $100,000 isn't what it was.
Maybe then they deduct things instead of giving you $100,000?
And then you pay tax...
Hey, dude, if you don't want your hundred grand, I'll take it.
(USD, that is, not the Monopoly money used in Oz, where a hundred
grand will barely buy you a cup of coffee.)
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-27 01:12:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible.  I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties?  I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent authors
EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that much in a single
year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!

Lynn
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
2018-04-27 15:08:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent
authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/00011931251
8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling"
authors get that much in royalties?  I think of 100K as
what you might get if you sold the movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent
authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that much in a
single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a scale,
yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute numbers.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-27 17:55:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent
authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/00011931251
8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling"
authors get that much in royalties?  I think of 100K as
what you might get if you sold the movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand independent
authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many years
reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that much in a
single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a scale,
yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing themselves on
Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions. It very well could be
in the tens of millions.

Lynn
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
2018-04-27 18:04:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
pt
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute
numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
2018-04-27 18:29:50 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute
numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago, so
it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a million
yet.

The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out several
books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling and
earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds of
titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)

I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
2018-04-27 19:49:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
On 4/27/2018 10:08 AM, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about
independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/0001193
12 51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny,
tiny piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that
vast a scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in
absolute numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than
one tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors
publishing through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile
ago, so it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's
topped a million yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out
several books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep
selling and earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might
have hundreds of titles working to produce that much. (How many
titles does Chuck Tingle have?)
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994,
I think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd
guess it's closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but
I can't back that up.
The bottom line is, retardless of the actual numbers, it's an
entirely plausible claim.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
2018-04-28 03:24:48 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 12:49:06 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
On 4/27/2018 10:08 AM, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about
independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/0001193
12 51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny,
tiny piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that
vast a scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in
absolute numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than
one tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors
publishing through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile
ago, so it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's
topped a million yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out
several books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep
selling and earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might
have hundreds of titles working to produce that much. (How many
titles does Chuck Tingle have?)
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994,
I think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd
guess it's closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but
I can't back that up.
The bottom line is, retardless of the actual numbers, it's an
entirely plausible claim.
Yes indeed.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml
David DeLaney
2018-04-29 08:20:49 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
The bottom line is, retardless of the actual numbers, it's an
entirely plausible claim.
Yes indeed.
i c wut terry did thar

I do not seem to be approaching even the $1K mark as a reader. I probably just
need to up my volume.

Dave, and acquire a working car :(
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
my gatekeeper archives are no longer accessible :( / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-27 20:08:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute
numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago, so
it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a million
yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out several
books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling and
earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds of
titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
Jerry Pournelle said that he bought a beach house in Malibu and put all
four of his kids through college with his share of the proceeds from
_Lucifer's Hammer_. Sounds like well over a million dollars to me. I
stopped routinely seeing the book in airport bookstores about a decade
ago so I figure that it had a 30 year run in that forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/

Lynn
Kevrob
2018-04-27 20:20:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
Jerry Pournelle said that he bought a beach house in Malibu and put all
four of his kids through college with his share of the proceeds from
_Lucifer's Hammer_. Sounds like well over a million dollars to me. I
stopped routinely seeing the book in airport bookstores about a decade
ago so I figure that it had a 30 year run in that forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/
Didn't N&P get a healthy advance against royalties? That's something
the self-publishing authors can't depend on. Advances aren't always
earned back, and in recent years, authors who don't deliver marketable
MSs are facing claw-back provisions in their contracts.

Kevin R
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-27 20:38:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kevrob
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
Jerry Pournelle said that he bought a beach house in Malibu and put all
four of his kids through college with his share of the proceeds from
_Lucifer's Hammer_. Sounds like well over a million dollars to me. I
stopped routinely seeing the book in airport bookstores about a decade
ago so I figure that it had a 30 year run in that forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/
Didn't N&P get a healthy advance against royalties? That's something
the self-publishing authors can't depend on. Advances aren't always
earned back, and in recent years, authors who don't deliver marketable
MSs are facing claw-back provisions in their contracts.
Kevin R
_Lucifer's Hammer_ was their first book together so I doubt that they
got a healthy advance. Pournelle blogged about getting regular royalty
checks for years on his website in the 2000s. Since _Lucifer's Hammer_
was carried by most airport bookstores for 30+ years, it was a steady
income stream for them.

On self-publishing, don't quit your day job until you have several books
earning royalties. One of the guys that I read, Angery American, did
not quit his day job until his self published 4th or 5th book.

https://www.amazon.com/Going-Home-Novel-Survivalist-American/dp/0142181277/

Lynn
Robert Woodward
2018-04-28 04:45:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Kevrob
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
Jerry Pournelle said that he bought a beach house in Malibu and put all
four of his kids through college with his share of the proceeds from
_Lucifer's Hammer_. Sounds like well over a million dollars to me. I
stopped routinely seeing the book in airport bookstores about a decade
ago so I figure that it had a 30 year run in that forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/
Didn't N&P get a healthy advance against royalties? That's something
the self-publishing authors can't depend on. Advances aren't always
earned back, and in recent years, authors who don't deliver marketable
MSs are facing claw-back provisions in their contracts.
Kevin R
_Lucifer's Hammer_ was their first book together so I doubt that they
got a healthy advance. Pournelle blogged about getting regular royalty
checks for years on his website in the 2000s. Since _Lucifer's Hammer_
was carried by most airport bookstores for 30+ years, it was a steady
income stream for them.
It was their THIRD collaboration (_The Mote in God's Eye_ was their
first, and _Inferno_ was their second).
--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward ***@drizzle.com
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-30 20:18:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Robert Woodward
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Kevrob
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
Jerry Pournelle said that he bought a beach house in Malibu and put all
four of his kids through college with his share of the proceeds from
_Lucifer's Hammer_. Sounds like well over a million dollars to me. I
stopped routinely seeing the book in airport bookstores about a decade
ago so I figure that it had a 30 year run in that forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/
Didn't N&P get a healthy advance against royalties? That's something
the self-publishing authors can't depend on. Advances aren't always
earned back, and in recent years, authors who don't deliver marketable
MSs are facing claw-back provisions in their contracts.
Kevin R
_Lucifer's Hammer_ was their first book together so I doubt that they
got a healthy advance. Pournelle blogged about getting regular royalty
checks for years on his website in the 2000s. Since _Lucifer's Hammer_
was carried by most airport bookstores for 30+ years, it was a steady
income stream for them.
It was their THIRD collaboration (_The Mote in God's Eye_ was their
first, and _Inferno_ was their second).
Thanks for the correction !

Lynn
Lawrence Watt-Evans
2018-04-28 03:33:50 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 15:08:39 -0500, Lynn McGuire
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute
numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago, so
it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a million
yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out several
books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling and
earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds of
titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)
I made $100k from traditionally published work one year. 1994, I
think it was. I'm not exactly a big success story, so I'd guess it's
closer to 1% than 0.1% of authors who manage it, but I can't back that
up.
Jerry Pournelle said that he bought a beach house in Malibu and put all
four of his kids through college with his share of the proceeds from
_Lucifer's Hammer_. Sounds like well over a million dollars to me. I
stopped routinely seeing the book in airport bookstores about a decade
ago so I figure that it had a 30 year run in that forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/
Sure, but that was a major bestseller; surely, nobody thinks Jerry
WASN'T in the top 1% of writers, by sales?

He probably made at least a million off _Hammer_, especially when you
include the movie options. And King and Rowling are both filthy rich
off their writing. But the average royalty earnings for a novelist,
last I heard, was still only $12k a year.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml
Lynn McGuire
2018-04-27 20:16:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Peter Trei
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute
numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago, so
it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a million
yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out several
books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling and
earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds of
titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)
I thought that you were kidding about Chuck Tingle so I looked him up.
That was a mistake. Butt, there are 162 books listed there.

https://www.amazon.com/Commentator-Hannity-Pounded-Disclose-President-ebook/dp/B07C7V4KB2/

Lynn
Cryptoengineer
2018-04-28 01:51:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand
authors made $100k in that year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago,
so it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a
million yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out
several books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling
and earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds
of titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)
I thought that you were kidding about Chuck Tingle so I looked him up.
That was a mistake. Butt, there are 162 books listed there.
https://www.amazon.com/Commentator-Hannity-Pounded-Disclose-President-e
book/dp/B07C7V4KB2/
Chuck seems to be really nice guy, and totally aware of the absurdity of
his way of making a living.

Vox Day and Rabid Puppies made him a Hugo Nominee a couple years ago in an
effort to destroy the integrity (what there is of it) the award. His
reaction was utterly classy - he announced that if he were to win, Zoe
Quinn had agreed to accept the reward on his behalf. Quinn is the female
game developer who was the initial target of Gamergate.

pt
Lawrence Watt-Evans
2018-04-28 03:29:20 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 20:51:34 -0500, Cryptoengineer
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties?  I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made that
much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand
authors made $100k in that year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago,
so it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a
million yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out
several books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling
and earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds
of titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)
I thought that you were kidding about Chuck Tingle so I looked him up.
That was a mistake. Butt, there are 162 books listed there.
https://www.amazon.com/Commentator-Hannity-Pounded-Disclose-President-e
book/dp/B07C7V4KB2/
Chuck seems to be really nice guy, and totally aware of the absurdity of
his way of making a living.
Vox Day and Rabid Puppies made him a Hugo Nominee a couple years ago in an
effort to destroy the integrity (what there is of it) the award. His
reaction was utterly classy - he announced that if he were to win, Zoe
Quinn had agreed to accept the reward on his behalf. Quinn is the female
game developer who was the initial target of Gamergate.
Making absurd nominations rarely does any lasting damage. A couple of
decades back we got a porn film, "The Uranus Project 2," on the Nebula
ballot for best dramatic presentation; people still take the Nebulas
seriously.

And yeah, Chuck Tingle is cool.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml
Ninapenda Jibini
2018-04-28 05:53:41 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
On 4/27/2018 10:08 AM, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about
independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/00011
9312 51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible.  I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties? 
I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in
royalties in 2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017.  Not that they made
that much in a single year.
    No, I'm pretty sure they mean a
thousand authors made $100k in that year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny,
tiny piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that
vast a scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in
absolute numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the
millions. It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less
than one tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors
publishing through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had
~400,000 "independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That
was awhile ago, so it's probably much more by now. Don't know
if it's topped a million yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out
several books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep
selling and earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might
have hundreds of titles working to produce that much. (How
many titles does Chuck Tingle have?)
I thought that you were kidding about Chuck Tingle so I looked
him up. That was a mistake. Butt, there are 162 books listed
there.
https://www.amazon.com/Commentator-Hannity-Pounded-Disclose-Pres
ident-e book/dp/B07C7V4KB2/
Chuck seems to be really nice guy, and totally aware of the
absurdity of his way of making a living.
Vox Day and Rabid Puppies made him a Hugo Nominee a couple years
ago in an effort to destroy the integrity (what there is of it)
the award. His reaction was utterly classy - he announced that
if he were to win, Zoe Quinn had agreed to accept the reward on
his behalf. Quinn is the female game developer who was the
initial target of Gamergate.
And, of course, he has (at least) two books that reference it in
the title:

"Slammed In The Butt By My Hugo Award Nomination"

and

"Pounded in the Butt by Chuck Tingle's Hugo"

Not what I'd call classy, but funny as hell (as is "Slammed In The
Butt By My Handsome Laundry Detergent Pod").

Note: I refer to the titles only. While I'm sure Mr. Tingle is a
skilled, accomplished writer, his work does not seem to be my cup
of tea (nor so I wish to be slammed in the butt by a cup of tea,
his or mine).
--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
David Goldfarb
2018-04-30 03:38:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Chuck seems to be really nice guy, and totally aware of the absurdity of
his way of making a living.
Vox Day and Rabid Puppies made him a Hugo Nominee a couple years ago in an
effort to destroy the integrity (what there is of it) the award. His
reaction was utterly classy - he announced that if he were to win, Zoe
Quinn had agreed to accept the reward on his behalf. Quinn is the female
game developer who was the initial target of Gamergate.
And note that Chuck Tingle got a Best Fan Writer nomination the NEXT
year -- and with no help from any Puppies at all. That was a fan reaction
to his epic trolling of the Puppies.

I read his submission to the Hugo voters packet for that, by the way,
and it was *elegantly* written and thoughtful. If you've seen his tweets,
they're an act: nobody whose natural expression is those tweets could
possibly have written that packet submission.

Supposedly, for April Fools last year, Mary Robinette Kowal was going
to pretend to be Chuck Tingle. I'm not convinced that "joke" wasn't
really the truth.
--
David Goldfarb |"'Shut up, shut up, shut up,' says the stranger
***@gmail.com | from the stars!"
***@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- _Norstrilia_
Lawrence Watt-Evans
2018-04-30 06:41:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Goldfarb
Post by Cryptoengineer
Chuck seems to be really nice guy, and totally aware of the absurdity of
his way of making a living.
Vox Day and Rabid Puppies made him a Hugo Nominee a couple years ago in an
effort to destroy the integrity (what there is of it) the award. His
reaction was utterly classy - he announced that if he were to win, Zoe
Quinn had agreed to accept the reward on his behalf. Quinn is the female
game developer who was the initial target of Gamergate.
And note that Chuck Tingle got a Best Fan Writer nomination the NEXT
year -- and with no help from any Puppies at all. That was a fan reaction
to his epic trolling of the Puppies.
I read his submission to the Hugo voters packet for that, by the way,
and it was *elegantly* written and thoughtful. If you've seen his tweets,
they're an act: nobody whose natural expression is those tweets could
possibly have written that packet submission.
Oh, not all his tweets stick to the same persona. He's obviously
smarter than he wants people to think he is.
Post by David Goldfarb
Supposedly, for April Fools last year, Mary Robinette Kowal was going
to pretend to be Chuck Tingle. I'm not convinced that "joke" wasn't
really the truth.
I can't absolutely rule it out, but it doesn't feel right to me.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml
Wolffan
2018-05-01 10:33:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:04:01 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Scott Lurndal
Post by Lynn McGuire
On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent
authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312
51 8121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed
$100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost
impossible. I wonder how many "New York Times
Bestselling" authors get that much in royalties? I
think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the movie
rights..
Maybe its in aggregate?
I think that statement means that over a thousand
independent authors EACH surpassed $100,000 in royalties in
2017.
I think it means that their aggregate royalies over many
years reached 100,000 in 2017. Not that they made that
much in a single year.
ÂÂÂÂNo, I'm pretty sure they mean a thousand authors
made $100k in that
year.
Each author made $100K in royalties in 2017!
Implausible as it might seem at first glance, it's a tiny, tiny
piece of Amazon's business. When you operate on that vast a
scale, yeah, the very lucky outliers add up in absolute
numbers.
I not sure of the number of independent authors publishing
themselves on Amazon but I suspect that it is in the millions.
It very well could be in the tens of millions.
Indeed. Even if it's "only" in the millions, 1,000 is less than one
tenth of one percent. I suspect that 0.1% of authors publishing
through traditional channels make $100k/year, too.
Last time I heard a fairly reliable number, Amazon had ~400,000
"independent" (i.e., self-published) authors. That was awhile ago, so
it's probably much more by now. Don't know if it's topped a million
yet.
The people who take in $100k are almost certainly churning out several
books a year to do it, and remember, books can keep selling and
earning indefinitely -- some of these folks might have hundreds of
titles working to produce that much. (How many titles does Chuck
Tingle have?)
I thought that you were kidding about Chuck Tingle so I looked him up.
That was a mistake. Butt, t
I saw what you did there.

I looked him up, too. My Amazon recommendations are gonna be quite...
interesting... for a while.
Post by Lynn McGuire
here are 162 books listed there.
Thee vast majority of which have ‘slammed’, ‘butt’, ‘gay’, some
kind of large predatory dinosaur, or some combination of the above, in their
titles. (I think that one was about being slammed in the butt by a gay biker
allosaur, which might be interesting to see if only to find out how he
managed to arrange that combination.)
Post by Lynn McGuire
https://www.amazon.com/Commentator-Hannity-Pounded-Disclose-President-ebook/dp
/B07C7V4KB2/
Lynn
David DeLaney
2018-05-03 10:24:49 UTC
Permalink
The[] vast majority of which have ???slammed???, ???butt???, ???gay???, some
kind of large predatory dinosaur, or some combination of the above, in their
titles. (I think that one was about being slammed in the butt by a gay biker
allosaur, which might be interesting to see if only to find out how he
managed to arrange that combination.)
I'm pretty sure he's someone who was influenced at some point by Making Light's
dinosaur sodomy meme.

Dave, making money off meme is Step 3, right?
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
my gatekeeper archives are no longer accessible :( / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Greg Goss
2018-04-25 01:15:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
Lynn
Not going to read the link, but that sounds almost impossible. I
wonder how many "New York Times Bestselling" authors get that much
in royalties? I think of 100K as what you might get if you sold the
movie rights..
I didn't read the article. The headline could be read as them geting
a hundred bucks each.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
Ahasuerus
2018-04-25 04:28:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Amazon 2018 shareholder letter metric about independent authors
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm
"and over a thousand independent authors surpassed $100,000 in royalties
in 2017 through Kindle Direct Publishing."
A few years ago Dean Wesley Smith wrote a series of articles about the
business side of writing, including indie writing. The most relevant
part is at
https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/killing-the-top-ten-sacred-cows-of-publishing-8-you-cant-make-a-living-with-your-fiction/
b***@gmail.com
2018-09-26 07:14:25 UTC
Permalink
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting for the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading the 1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh in my mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other series he has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga first.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-09-26 07:40:41 UTC
Permalink
Post by b***@gmail.com
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting for
the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading the
1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh in my
mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other series he
has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga first.
Last time I looked, there was no update to the Reddit thread that had
been discussing this, and for some reason the author has never put anything
about it on his facebook page or web site.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Ahasuerus
2018-12-19 13:19:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by b***@gmail.com
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting for
the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading the
1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh in my
mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other series he
has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga first.
Last time I looked, there was no update to the Reddit thread that had
been discussing this, and for some reason the author has never put anything
about it on his facebook page or web site.
An excerpt from his December newsletter was posted on Reddit the other
day -- https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/a6z772/another_update_from_michael_scott_earle_still/

The part that I found interesting was:

"I can write 2,000 words an hour, have a team of editors, cover
artists, and proofers.
[snip]
I can push a book out every week.
[snip]
some of you finish an 80,000 word novel AN HOUR after I publish it."

It's an interesting world that we live in. Fritz Leiber's _The
Silver Eggheads_ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1212)
comes to mind.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
2018-12-19 18:36:15 UTC
Permalink
On Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 3:40:44 AM UTC-4, Ted Nolan
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by b***@gmail.com
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting for
the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading the
1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh in my
mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other series he
has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga first.
Last time I looked, there was no update to the Reddit thread that had
been discussing this, and for some reason the author has never put anything
about it on his facebook page or web site.
An excerpt from his December newsletter was posted on Reddit the other
day --
https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/a6z772/another_update_from_michael_scott_earle_still/
"I can write 2,000 words an hour, have a team of editors, cover
artists, and proofers.
[snip]
I can push a book out every week.
[snip]
some of you finish an 80,000 word novel AN HOUR after I publish it."
It's an interesting world that we live in. Fritz Leiber's _The
Silver Eggheads_ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1212)
comes to mind.
Wow, he may have Fanthrope and the pulp guys beat!

Interesting info on KU.

I see that J.A. Cipriano is also still banned, or at least Jasmine Walt
republished a book they had co-written as by her alone with no mention
of him(?).

Still have not read the remaining "Tamer" books I have in the SBR until
I am sure the series will have an end. Of course I have a surfeit of
high priority books near the top anyway.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
D B Davis
2018-12-20 17:10:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ahasuerus
Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Post by b***@gmail.com
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting for
the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading the
1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh in my
mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other series he
has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga first.
Last time I looked, there was no update to the Reddit thread that had
been discussing this, and for some reason the author has never put anything
about it on his facebook page or web site.
An excerpt from his December newsletter was posted on Reddit the other
day -- https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/a6z772/another_update_from_mic
hael_scott_earle_still/
Post by Ahasuerus
"I can write 2,000 words an hour, have a team of editors, cover
artists, and proofers.
[snip]
I can push a book out every week.
[snip]
some of you finish an 80,000 word novel AN HOUR after I publish it."
It's an interesting world that we live in. Fritz Leiber's _The
Silver Eggheads_ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1212)
comes to mind.
_The Silver Eggheads_ makeover might include an "Amazon Abecedarium" and
a "Bezos Bookmaker." On second thought, probably not the former. It just
doesn't chime.



Thank you,
--
Don
Lynn McGuire
2018-09-26 17:19:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by b***@gmail.com
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting for the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading the 1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh in my mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other series he has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga first.
MSE = ???

Lynn
Jay E. Morris
2018-09-26 19:38:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by b***@gmail.com
Any updates on MSE's books will be for sale again? I've been waiting
for the 12th book in the Star Justice series. Just finished reading
the 1st-11th for the 3rd time because I want the details to be fresh
in my mind for when the next one comes out. I would read the other
series he has if Amazon would sell them but I want to finish this saga
first.
MSE = ???
Lynn
Looks like Michael-Scott Earle.
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