NYT: Digital Bestseller

     The NYTimes had an interesting article last week called "I was a Digital Bestseller."

     Tony Horwitz wrote the digital bestseller, Boom, and was still broke, which begs the question, if a bestselling author can't earn a living who can? He kindly broke down some numbers. 

     I was offered an initial fee of $15,000, plus $5,000 for expenses, to write at whatever length I felt the subject (Keystone XL pipeline) merited.  Editors said that the first installment I had sent was “a ripper” and that Byliner thought we might sell up to 75,000 copies, with me getting a lofty cut of the profits.

     Then things fell apart as the philanthropic entrepreneur in Australia funding the company and thus his book was severely hit by the financial crisis. Funding was pulled (including his initial fee) and everyone was scrambling. 

At this point I called my literary agent, whom I’d foolishly failed to involve in the project. (Another fantasy of the digital world: Writers can do it themselves and dispense with all those middlemen.) Late that Friday my agent brokered a deal between Byliner and me. The advance was only $2,000, but my work would be available by Monday, for $2.99, and I’d get about a third of the proceeds once my advance was paid off.

     His book was published as an e-book, however no one in the company was promoting or marketing the book. So he began promoting the book himself.

My month of self-flackery seemed to work. In the sales rankings on Amazon for Kindle Singles, “Boom” broke the top 25, and almost all the titles ahead of it were fiction. In categories like “Page-Turning Narratives,” my work often ranked No. 1. I was a nonfiction digital best seller!

It was also the kind of story that could bankrupt a writer. I’d now devoted five months to writing and peddling “Boom” and wasn’t even halfway to earning out my $2,000 advance (less than the overrun on my travel). The cruelest joke, though, was that 700 to 800 copies made “Boom” a top-rated seller. What did that mean for all the titles lower down the list? Were they selling at all?

     The article ends with him discussing his latest writing venture. He wants to go through traditional publishing channels for his next book because at least he has something physical that will last, even if he makes no money.

     Reading this article and others about the publishing and music industries, it sounds more and more like everyone is getting a few pennies but no one is making enough to support themselves. I really hope this model shifts because otherwise we as a culture will lose out on some incredible art because the artist can no longer afford to make it.