by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
The series that I’m self-publishing had its start as a traditionally published product.
“Pretty is as Pretty Dies” was published by Midnight Ink in 2009. The book earned out, but apparently wasn’t considered a huge financial success by Midnight Ink, who indicated to me in 2010 that they’d rather not publish a sequel. I’ve never had hard feelings–publishing is a business. They need to make good business decisions or else they won’t stay afloat. I was definitely disappointed, since I loved the characters, but I was too busy to be crushed. I was already, at that point, working on the Memphis Barbeque series and was hearing that I might be considered for a second series with Penguin.
In both 2010 and 2011, I continued hearing from readers, asking when the next Myrtle Clover book was coming out. I was buried in work at the time with the other series, but I hated telling them there wouldn’t be more books in the series. I did tell a couple of readers that…then I started telling them that I was considering putting more Myrtles out, myself. My agent offered to shop the series to Penguin and St. Martin’s, but I really didn’t want to go that route because I knew it would take forever and the first book had come out in 2009.
After dragging my feet for a while, I decided to take the leap into self-publishing. It took a while. During that time, I kept hearing of the success other authors were having with self-publishing and was kicking myself for not getting my rights back and finding the time to find editors, artists, and formatters. Finally, I just gave myself a deadline. I wrote to the publisher, asking for the rights to my characters back. They returned them. Then I put a team together and starting releasing Myrtles–the book that Midnight Ink had turned down, a revamped version of the very first book in the series, and a new book.
While I was releasing the books, I ran sales on the self-pubbed items, frequently making one of the books free by making it free on Smashwords, then indicating to Amazon that the price was lower there. Sales of the other books increased, I got a large number of reviews on a couple of the titles, and began getting more visibility with the Amazon algorithm.
I noticed that sales were also increasing for the traditionally-published, “Pretty is as Pretty Dies.” It was, after all, in the same series and introduced a main and recurring character in the series. The sales seemed to be mainly Kindle sales and placed the book in the 25,000–35,000 Amazon bestsellers rank for many weeks…pretty good for Midnight Ink and pretty good for a 3 1/2 year old book. The book was garnering new reviews and interest…the book was enjoying a second life.
Then last September, I received an email from Midnight Ink. I was curious, since I knew the sales for the book were suddenly strong. Sadly, the email stated:
“As you likely know, sales of the book have slowed considerably to the point where we have decided to designate the book as out-of-print. This means we will be returning available rights to you and discarding the remaining inventory.
Prior to discarding the inventory, we are offering you the opportunity to purchase as many copies as you would like for 80% off of the original retail price plus freight. Please contact our customer service department at {redacted}to order your books. This is a one-time offer and your order must be placed by Friday, September 14, 2012. Any remaining inventory be shredded and recycled on Monday September 17, 2012. If you miss the deadline, you will be unable to purchase any copies of your book.
Midnight Ink hereby returns all international and domestic rights to you to the above named title with the following exceptions:
Ebook
English large print rights (domestic and international)
Note that this rights return does NOT include rights to the covers, interior or exterior artwork. Nor does it include typography or electronic files.”
No, I didn’t buy any books at 80% off. :) What on earth would I have done with them–stacked them up in a closet? And the book is selling really well as an ebook…that seems to be the format that readers want the book in. It was just a pity I didn’t have the ebook rights to that book back.
It was a little sad that my books were shredded and recycled. :)
What’s my takeaway from this? One takeaway is that Midnight Ink did me a tremendous favor by refusing a second book–I’ve certainly done well on my own and who knows when I’d have taken the self-publishing leap without an unsold book handy? Another lesson is that ebooks are a lot more popular than print (I can’t really draw another conclusion with the data I’ve got–few wanted the print version and the ebook version is selling briskly.) Another is that we don’t have to let publishers decide when our series are over (as long as we can get the rights to the characters back.) I’ve also learned that it helps to have a series if you’re self-publishing…the individual book sales build off each other. I haven’t noticed as much of an effect on the sales of my other traditionally-published books in other series. And I’ve learned that–now, anyway–offering books for free means increased visibility and sales for related books.
Do you prefer series, as a reader? Have you tried self-publishing? Run any deeply discounted sales? Taken a discontinued series and re-started it, yourself?
Fascinating post–thank you! One thought: Maybe it’s different for authors who write for grown-ups, but a lot of children’s-YA authors buy deep discount books to use for promotional giveaways and/or donations at school and public library visits, etc.
Elizabeth – Thanks for sharing your story. I think for you, you made the right decision to e-publish your Myrtle Clover series. It’s allowed you to build your readership base while still going along with the more traditional route for your other series. To me, that’s smart marketing. I’m sorry about those book copies, but still, overall, I think you’ve come out fine through this. I’ve not done the self-publishing thing (yet), but your posts are certainly piquing my interest in it.
That makes me sad about your books being shredded, but I am so glad you decided to self-publish and continue with Myrtle. I love her.
Karen
Hi Elizabeth – it’s a funny old life out there … shredding all those books seems a bit of a shame – they could have sent them to hospitals, or charities etc … at least sent you some.
Ebooks for comfortable reads – I am sure makes sense – that’s the way I can see I’ll make use of the Kindle …
Cheers and Happy Easter to you and the family – Hilary
That certainly says a lot about where print sales are at now. It was a blessing in disguise that they didn’t request a second book. You’ll make more money with the ebooks than you ever will with that one print book. Sad, but true!
Fortunate for you! I know most of the sales of my books come from eBooks.
Cynthia–I think it makes a lot of sense for the children’s market. Those authors tend to do a lot more talks, too. I rarely talk anymore….I’ve got a book club scheduled for June, but that’s the only thing on my calendar now.
Margot–It’s definitely what’s working for me right now. Hope you’ll look into the digital market!
Hilary–I would have been SO much happier if they’d donated those books.
I love my Kindle, too. :) Happy Easter to you!
Diane–So true! I already make more with my few ebooks than I do with all my other, traditional books, combined.
Karen–Thank you! I do, too.
Alex–Mine too. In fact, when I look at the print sales vs. digital sales for my traditional titles, there’s a tremendous difference in sales there, too.
Very interesting post, Elizabeth.
I just self-published my first book, and even after less than a month, I can see that the e-book sales far out-weigh the paperback.
And, since Ravenswynd is a series, I am hoping that once I get the rest of the books “out there” I’ll find the same increases that you mentioned.
If you have a spare moment (haha) please take a peek at the book-trailer that my lovely granddaughter helped me make. She is so good at this, I’m thinking she should start her own business!
(She’s a high-school senior)
Let me know what you think!
Thanks for all the awesome posts…I don’t always have time to comment, but I always appreciate all of your writing/publishing advice!
Sharon Ricklin Jones
http://color-me-read.blogspot.com/
Forgot to click on the “email follow-up comment” box…
So, I’m clicking here!!
:)
Sharon–And I appreciate your coming by!
I think your granddaughter did an amazing job! It sounds like she’s got a lot of artistic talents…best wishes to her as she goes off to college this fall. :)
From what I’ve observed, both having books on the market and watching others’ book sales online, it seems to me that readers prefer series…at least right now. And they like to see a series with a couple of books out so they know what they’re going to read now, and they know what they’re going to read *next*. (Even better if they know what they’re going to read after *that*!)
I faced a similar situation when Five Star declined a second book because Hemlock Lake hadn’t sold well in hardcover. After a lot of fingernail chewing, I put that book (An Uncertain Refuge) out myself and now have 4 other titles self-published and a fifth to come in June. Hemlock Lake in e-form has sold well and I’ve been in the position of paying royalties to Five Star on those sales until my contract is up. I’ve now paid more than I received as an advance on Hemlock Lake. It’s a topsy-turvy world.
I love that the current publishing climate allowed you to satisfy your READERS by self-pubbing your series. That’s awesome.
Carolyn–Five Star is tough because it’s a library market, right? I know several Five Star authors who have written digital sequels. You had to pay *them* royalties? How does that work? Did they give you ebook rights, but with conditions? Did your agent look at that?
Julie–Exactly! It really just killed me when I was telling the readers that there wouldn’t be more books in the series. Much better to point them to more!
One thing that leapt out at me in this post was that they excepted e books when they returned your rights. Cute how quickly the traditional publishers realized on which side their bread was buttered.
Referred here by Jodi Carr and spending way too much time linking around.
Wonderful blog here. Thanks
AAARGH. I NEVER have trouble linking to a blogger blog. I HAVE a duplicate WordPress blog and still cannot comment on most WordPress blogs.
I think this article really demonstrates how the ebook market has changed the publishing industry, but traditional publishers just don’t get it. I’m going to self publish in ebook only.