How Much Is An Author Worth?

Never mind how much a book is worth to you; how much is an author worth to you?

After all, a book is only a shaving off a tree, or a little blip of electricity. An author, on the other hand, is a living being who needs not only reviews and sales, but also coffee (or in my case tea), food, electricity, and occasionally a new laptop. My wife bought me a keyboard that feels and sounds just like a typewriter: It brings me great joy, but also cost about a month's worth of book sales.

Not that it was expensive, I just don't sell that many books.

Desks, computers, chairs, swords ... writing can be expensive.

How much a reader should pay for a book is a question that's been debated since Gutenberg bought too much ink and ran his first Black Friday sale. Among other things, it depends on your level of fame. The ebook edition of Stephen King's newest book is priced at $14.99, more than some of my print books. Our traditional publisher has our photo-heavy history book Images of America: Albion and Noble County priced at $12.99 as an ebook, and another publisher has my romantic comedy Radio Red at $3.99.

Guess how many books King sells, compared to me? Yep: The answer is "lots".

We do better with our self-published books, which run from 99 cents to $2.99 as ebooks. Fun fact: Some readers refuse to buy 99 cent books, assuming at that price they can't be any good. This assumption is both foolish and wrong. I suspect that price is often an act of desperation by good writers.

On the other end of it, Hoosier Hysterical has lots of pictures, and we can't sell it at less than $2.99 without losing money. That's the best we can do without just giving it away. Hold that thought.

No matter what the price, it's hard for lesser known authors to get into brick and mortar stores.

So, ten or twelve bucks for an electronic book. Crazy expensive, right? I mean, we don't have to pay for paper, ink, shipping ... how greedy can we be?

But how much is an author worth?

Three times I've written the rough draft of a book in thirty days. That's great, but it took a few weeks to prepare for the writing, then a month or two after to revise it before the story was decent enough for my wife to read. Then there's the revision after she returns it to me. The month of actual writing, when I push it hard, consists of working my full time job, writing, eating while writing, and nothing else. Some people can get books out the door faster, but I have to think they don't have full time jobs.

The old joke: An author can't make enough money to write full time until he's written and sold enough books, which he can't do until he writes full time.

So it goes.

So, a dollar for something it took me at least three months to produce, not including all the time spent on promotion and advertising? Writers are worth more than that. Even me.

Which brings us to giving books away for free.

Some authors swear that giving their ebooks away gets them so much attention that people come back and buy their other books, thus advancing their career in the long run. That seems to work for them, but it's not been my experience. Just the same, every July for the last few years I've entered the one novel I have up on Smashwords, Coming Attractions, into the Smashwords Summer/Winter sale.

Has it resulted in more readers for the other books? Not that I've noticed. It doesn't even lead to that many readers picking it up for free. Smashwords has a lot of authors, so my deal has to fight for attention with all those other deals. On the other hand, my sales aren't great in July to begin with, and it doesn't seem to be doing me any harm, either.

I'm curious how you, both the reader and the writer, feel on the subject. Maybe I'll try other giveaways at some point, even though I don't think authors should have to do that. I also don't think authors should have to spend so much time promoting and advertising, but welcome to the real world. How do you feel on the subject?

Oh, and Coming Attractions is free here:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

But you already knew that.

Summer themed. Well, kinda.

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Remember: Every time you get a book for free, it counts as a free book.