Writing Novels
 Thought for the Writer's Day: How Big is the Market for My Book?
Unless you're just writing for the sake of your art, sooner or later, preferably sooner, you ought to consider how large your merket is. How many people want to read the kind of stuff that you write?
"I don't know," aspring writer's tend to say. "Until a publisher accepts my book how can I know how many people will buy it. It could sell a million copies."
Well, yes, it could. That part is true. But it isn't true that we don't know the size of the market. Publishers have a very good estimate of that, almost for any type of book you can think of.
Suppose your book does sells, say 100,000 copies, which would make it a big success. For the sake of argument, let's say it retails for $9.99 and you get seven percent. Run those numbers, and your cut is about $70,000, which is very appealing. Needless to say, most books don't sell that many copies. If you run those numbers again with sales of 1,000, your income drops to $699. Not so good.
It's tempting to imagine that writers earn a lot, but most don't. That's why online publishing, like I do here, is a much better option than you'd imagine. Look at the figures. If 1,000 readers really did want to buy your book for $9.99, how many would read it for free? Five thousand, maybe?
If you publish online and 5,000 readers really do visit, and if your book runs to 200 pages, that makes one million page views. Do you have any idea how much money you could make from a website that attracts a million page views?
ITEM This blog is due for retirement in April 2006. Please go to American Invisible for the permanent version.
ITEM There is now three years of material on this site, so here's a suggested reading sequence. The novels came first:
1. American Invisible, Inc.
2. Time, Please (the prequel and sequel to American Invisible)
Then the first short story:
3. Christmas
And now we have the Dreamworld Saga, American Invisible's latest series:
4. See-Through Sue and the Blustery Day
5. See-Through Sue and the Naughty Dream
6. See-Through Sue and the Mystery Cruise
7. See-Through Sue and the Secret of Lesbos
8. See-Through Sue and Feather Too
ITEM American Invisible readers have helped to raise funds for 2135 free mammograms in 2004. During the first seven months of 2005 we funded another 523 and so far in August we have 136 more. All credit to Nucklehead Ed for introducing us to this project. "Going here and clicking on the button once a day may help save a life. That's not too much to ask, is it?" Nope.
9:07:11 PM 
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