Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Here’s an argument you hear again and again. Authors say -

There’s no money in books. We do it for the love of it.

Publishers say -

There’s not much money in books. We are in it for the love of it.

Let’s play Devil’s Advocate here.

Why is everyone assuming doing something you love means sacrificing money?

Is there a wrong mind-set here i.e.

If we do something we love we’ll probably not earn much money.

How did this start?

1. Are Publishers stuck with the wrong assumptions and beliefs?
2. Are Publishers just fooling Authors into believing this?  
3. Has someone or something brainwashed Publishers and Authors into thinking there’s no money here.

It’s almost as if everyone in Publishing has decided there’s no money in it and so they aren’t trying to maximize profits at all.

If you start off with the assumption that things aren’t going to work out financially you end up doing things to make it reality.

There must be money – or some value here

There are a ton of companies jumping into the space -

1. Google. 
2. Apple. 

The existing companies are increasing their investments i.e. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

All these companies jumping in means there are only two possibilities -

1. Publishers can’t see some value these companies can. 
2. Publishers were fooling authors and these companies want to take over that responsibility.

What are Authors to do.

How do we get rid of the Reality Distortion Field?

Authors are supposed to believe -

1. That they deserve 70 cents on every $10 book that gets sold.
2. Success without Publishers is close to impossible.
3. Retailers deserve 50% of a book’s list price.
4. That people don’t read any more.
5. That competition is brutal and they should be thankful to be giving away 90% of their book’s earnings.

If it all sounds a bit hard to believe - perhaps that’s because it’s not true.

It obviously isn’t true that creators only deserve 10%.

• Consider the iPhone App Store – it gives App makers 70% of revenue.
• Consider the Kindle Store – it gives authors 35%.

Is it that Publishing is just an example of extreme exploitation of content creators?

What’s going on here.

Why do Authors and Publishers believe there’s no money in books while all these huge companies do?

Filed under: publishing Tagged: | reality for authors