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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Support your indie publishers!

Support your indie publishers! Or in short, why I prefer people go straight to my publishing companies to purchase my books.

It's simple: some third-party distributors like Amazon.com take an unfair chunk out of the profits of e-publishers and indie presses, leaving struggling publishing businesses with only pennies for every book that they sell--and the authors with even less.

I'll dispel a common myth off the bat: most of us are not rich. My day job isn't writing for a very good reason; my royalty checks wouldn't even cover utilities let alone my mortgage. I write because it's my passion, not to make money. I figure if I make enough to have me eat out at restaurants from time to time, it's not a bad deal. :)

There are a lot of authors for whom this isn't the case. What little they make is helping them to put food on the table for their kids and often to supplement what is already a fairly small income. And contrary to popular belief, publishers aren't rich, either--especially not the indie presses. Most of them are in it for same reason I am, love of the craft and a desire to put high quality works out there.

There are costs that come into play for publishing and sales of books help offset those costs. There have been epubs in the past which have gone bankrupt, leaving the rights to authors' works tied up in court as the debts are being settled. I would love for such things to never, ever have to be a worry for the publishers whom I am with and who I would love to submit a manuscript for. Why? Selfishly speaking, I'd like my works to stay out there for everyone. I've had one of my books go out of print and one not even make its release day due to a publisher going out of business and it's not a fun business.

Also, my publishers put out some pretty awesome works, often times of the sort you won't see out in the traditional press world. They take chances on works which mainstream places wouldn't, and as a result deliver very quickly high quality, unique fiction to people.

Hence if there's anything I'd love to ask of my readers, it's this: support your indie publishers by buying direct, or find the third-party distributors who are honest and don't employ practices I would consider to be bordering on unethical. Ethical, good third-party distributors I recommend are All Romance eBooks (ARe), Bookstrand, and 1Romance eBooks and all of them have my works on their sites. ARe in particular has supported charity work in the past, including one LGBT related one I took part in and will be submitting a portion of my royalties for once I receive them.


Love & Magic,
Adrianne
www.adriannebrennan.com



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2 comments:

Rowena Cherry said...

Hi, Adrianne,

Are you a member of EPIC? If so, and if you are on webmail, get over to EPIC Biz and check out the discussions about Amazon, and what is happening with the famous 70%-for-authors shell game.

One always has to ask "70% of what?"

It's horrific to look at an indie pubs' quarterly royalty statement and see the difference between an author's share of "direct" sales vs "third party" sales.

Unknown said...

I am indeed! In fact, that's what inspired this post. I've seen the emails fly back and forth over this issue, and I figure people should be informed.



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