I have just received the royalties for the last book: 98 euros for the four-month period, about 24 euros a month on average. Not even enough for the gym membership.
If you have to keep some knowledge: don’t write for money, the paper (or ebook) industry is in a very bad way, the margins for the author are very small and piracy is devastating.
@andros@twtxt.andros.dev That’s a shame. But here’s the thing about piracy. If I could download a PDF or MP3/OGG of a Book I’d happily pay for this. If I could download an MP3/OGG of some Music I would pay for this. If I could download an MP4 of a Movie I would pay for this.
The reason piracy exists at all is economics and greed. If you make something affordable and convenient, there’s no need to steal.
well, that leads to a long conversation.
Piracy is a difficult topic which is very personal, so I won’t say much about it.
On writing books, I’ve tried along with other digital products such as courses and videogames, and I got to confess that it has been hard for me.
If it helps, I think it all reaches our expectations on the activity and the result. If royalties is the expectation, it’s going to be slow. By 5% of royalties, for a rough example, a huge amount of sales will be required to get a decent “wage”, so I’ve understood of doing it by the side of a normal employment although it has been discouraging and a bit sad.
I have reflected about it in Spanish here: https://sembrandojuegos.substack.com/p/sobre-expectativas-al-crear-juegos
@prologic@twtxt.net I only buy stuff like that, for example games on GOG.COM. Or simply CDs or DVDs. (Rarely I “buy” a movie on some popular streaming service, fully aware that this is just “renting it”.)
But yeah, I sadly have to agree with @bender@twtxt.net. 😢
@prologic@twtxt.net @eapl.me@eapl.me I want to highlight another social problem: People don’t read. Paper industry is a bad moment because people don’t pay for books; it does not matter if it is a physical or digital platform. I have this information because I have a good friend who left the industry after publishing a magazine, books and working in an editorial. DRM is a try to give some more money.
@andros@twtxt.andros.dev DRM is a solution to the wrong problem.
well, there is a whole book about piracy, DRM and selling stuff on the internet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Doesn%27t_Want_to_Be_Free
So I won’t add much to the topic, what I can say is that this is about being pragmatic. There is some people who’s gonna spend their money on books but it requires publicity (polemic topic) and subsidizing creativity with our own money (another controversial one).
Otherwise it’s a difficult discipline /profession /industry