#but I'd have to be paid a minimum of 50 dollars for me to do that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

copperbadge · 9 months

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We recently got into a discussion of producing audiobooks for small press, indy, and/or selfpub authors on another post, but we had strayed pretty far from the original post, and @genedoucette very kindly gave permission for me to slice his comment off the end of that post and put it into a new one.

genedoucette

I have been very, very lucky when it comes to audiobooks, so I'm hesitant to offer advice without adding a huge YMMV caveat at the top. For most of my self-published novels, I used ACX and paid a narrator out-of-pocket (rather than 50-50 proceeds split), which just means I'm paying an agreed-upon X dollars per finished hour, prior to making any money off f the audio editon. Every book I did this with paid for itself, sometimes within the first two or three months, sometimes longer. (YMMV: I did a lot of this during what I would call the audiobook bubble, when demand was higher than supply.) I had another novel series--Tandemstar--that I brought to an audiobook company, who brought it to their distributor, who agreed to pay for the production costs of the book and to pay me a (small) advance. To date, the royalties from that series have not made up the cost of the advance, but the good news was that none of the production costs came from my pocket and the advance meant I did make something out of the deal. The rule-of-thumb I always heard was, don't expect books that haven't sold well to sell any better as audiobooks. But my experience, with ACX/Audible, is this: about 50% of my monthly earning come from audio sales. How long is the book in question (word count), and what is the genre? Because it is absolutely possible to get a not-terrible narrator at a not-terrible cost on ACX. If it's a low word count book with a decent sales record, I'd 100% do it. If it's a high word count book with few sales, maybe not.

Thanks so much for this! I am admittedly always suspicious of Amazon writ large, but it's not like I've never partnered with them before, and often for indy authors they're one of a very few games in town.

50% of sales via audio impresses me a lot -- I'm not really in the industry so my sense of scale may be off but my eyebrows went up at that. And looking at ACX, a split-profits model would be appealing. I'm more interested in providing the reader with more options than I am with making royalties, so I don't mind low payout, but I also don't want to exploit a narrator if I can avoid it.

I doubt I'm selling near the level you are, but it's pretty consistent, at least -- for the last literary novel I published in 2021, and for the four genre romances published in the past year-and-change, it's generally 200-250 copies (epub and paperback) in the first 6 months, and about 40 per year after that. None of them are over 100K words -- the first of the romance novels, the one I'd be most likely to have done as an audiobook to trial, is around 50K, and the other books are all between 60K and 90K or so.

There's some fine print I'm not nuts about -- exclusivity to Amazon/Audible/iTunes for example -- but I can see why it's a necessary business model for them. There's not a ton of clarity on cost per hour for a book, but it looks like for a flat fee it starts around $250 per finished hour? So I'd probably be looking at minimum $1K out of pocket, which is probably roughly (I haven't done the math) royalties per book for a full year. It could be fun to give it a swing regardless, although reading the ACX site made me realize I'd actually have to give notes and feedback to a reader which sounds nervewracking.

It looks like the readers for ACX are repped by SAG-AFTRA, which means that for now I have time to consider while the strike is going on. (Obviously not all of them are union but if it's an entertainment format where the union is involved, I don't want to cross the picket.) And the ACX site is pretty comprehensive in terms of figuring out how it all works, so if I did want to source a narrator elsewhere and perhaps not distribute exclusively through ACX, I now have a grounding from which to research other options too.

Sorry, a lot of this is just me thinking aloud, but I truly do appreciate the info and also something to bounce off of in terms of considering it. And I appreciate the opportunity to share it with my readership too, thank you!

#genedoucette #shivadhverse #independent publishing #selfpub #audiobooks

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not-poignant · 1 month

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Hello! Wanted to ask about Ream. You said that you set your tiers a long time ago, and with current horrors of Patreon and such will you add some tiers to Ream so that once-a-month payers on Patreon could find a tier with same price on Ream and would be comfortable moving? Thanks!

Hi anon!

So this is something I've been thinking over for months actually.

At first I was like 'yes of course' and then a very good friend sat me down and I realised that...actually maybe not.

Here's the reason (tl;dr I haven't increased my income in 10 years and actually cost of living has gone up in that period of time and I need to eat too):

Those prices haven't changed in a decade. I haven't had a 'wage increase' on that front in a decade. You can't change tier prices once they're made, they're locked in place forever (until you delete or retire the tier).

Not only that, but I offer about...3-4 times as much as I used to.

In the end, I increased my prices on Ream (a semi-midway point between charging once and charging twice) because of inflation and cost of living.

I know that everyone reading this is impacted by that too, and that might mean some people can't subscribe to Ream (or can't subscribe on the same tier) for a few dollars more because it's just too much, but I am now drastically undercharging compared to so many other authors on the market who do subscription.

Where I charge $5 USD for base early access, most charge between $10-20. I settled on $9 USD on Ream. Some authors have tiers of like... $100-200 per month, and I couldn't ever dream of doing that. But this is my career, and it's the money I use to pay for food, bills, etc. I don't make a minimum wage with the hours I work, and the idea of just hitting the country's average yearly income feels like a distant dream.

Granted, some of that could be down to my marketing options (like maybe I'd make more if I took all my writing offline and made people pay for all of it, but I don't want to do that, I like the model I do now, but it's dependent on those who can comfortably afford to support it... supporting it - if they want!!)

When I set up Ream, and set up the new tiers, I set them up with how much the cost of living has changed in a decade and how much other authors are charging on the whole. And I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I have 10 years behind me, I'm offering 3-4 times as much as I used to and am only charging about 50-80% more, cost of living has changed, and since I don't rely on book royalties (I love Perth Shifters but royalties work out to about $30 every 3 months), subscription is where the changes need to happen.

I'm not super happy about that, like, obviously I don't want people to feel hard done by, but all I can do is remind myself - and remind you and others anon - that unlike 99% of other authors in subscription, almost all of my writing becomes freely available if folks just have patience. That's something I know for a fact some other authors think I'm stupid for doing, lol, but I prefer doing it this way because it feels fandom and community friendly in a different way.

So even if folks can't afford a few dollars more to subscribe on Ream (you can become a follower though and still get email notifications - no one needs to pay to follow me on Ream, that's completely free), you just need to be patient. Like I get it, that few dollars is the difference sometimes between a bill getting paid and not getting paid - I feel and live that myself. I'm so angry at the Patreon situation, because honestly, if my account goes tomorrow and I get banned there, I may have to quit writing if Ream can't pick up fast. I cannot work for like... 50c an hour.

And I need to make some posts about this on Patreon obviously, but the stress of it is so overwhelming, because it's like staring down the barrel of a potentially career-ending policy decision.

Anyway, re: tier prices, the one exception to not changing / offering half-priced or lower-priced tiers is the merch tier, where I have thought about approaching Ream with getting an ongoing discount code, since I calculated sending merch on the merch tier at the $25 USD rate with the awareness that some people would be paying twice as much, and the leap there is the most significant one. That's a place where I'm willing to compromise if I can work that out, and Ream is typically very accommodating.

Folks who can't afford it still get access to nearly everything eventually - and not in a year, but like...in a few months, or even just a handful of weeks.

Folks who don't think my writing is worth a modest increase can choose to bow out whenever they want (or sign up to a lower tier and still get access to nearly everything eventually)!

I am grateful to any and all folks who choose to support my writing whether it's financially or not, and I do get that like, sometimes the budget just does not allow for an increase of any kind. Or maybe you only signed up this year and don't believe in paying more than what you do already, and so it doesn't matter that my prices have been the same for a decade. Most artists / creators / writers have put up their book prices / art prices / etc. Ream is the first time I've ever done it.

Anyway on the matter of the merch tier, I'll talk to Ream about organising some kind of perma-discount and offering it specifically in that tier. For the rest, I'll keep thinking about it, and maybe talk to Ream to see what they suggest too.

fdsalkfkdjsa

Anyway, I'm just... I am sorry anon, in a perfect world, I would have been able to incrementally increase my tier prices all along with a lot of warning in advance. And I'm also like, extremely and intensely hoping that I can just stay on Patreon, but that seems less and less likely with their new policy changes. I'm not uprooting, I will keep posting on Patreon until the lights metaphorically go out. It's just, they could kick me in an hour and I'd have no recourse and there'd be no point in appealing. Or they could kick me in 5 years, or 10.

In some ways this isn't a problem until Patreon makes it a problem for all of us, but yeah, that's where I'm at. A friend basically reminded me that it's okay for me to value my writing and my 10 years of experience and my track record and my stories a bit more, and I took their advice to heart, and then have felt terribly guilty ever since, lol. I'll keep thinking about my options here, and what I can do, because I obviously don't want to leave a lot of people behind, either.

#asks and answers #pia on patreon #pia on ream #like the long and short of it is i both feel terrible *and* am in the same cost of living crisis #as everyone else #like believe me if i could have everything be free and not even worry about early access and no one waits #and everyone gets everything i would #but in a darkly ironic twist of fate #even things like my antidepressants went up in price this year #(they're not on the PBS - cheap meds in australia are only cheap if they're covered by the PBS)#anyway it's very 'life is hard for everyone and sometimes that means sucky decisions on all fronts'#i'll keep thinking about it anon #and i appreciate you bringing it up

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sweaterkittensahoy · 1 year

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I want to use this very small, handmade crochet item from Forever21 to illustrate exactly how little they are paying artists:

These hair ties are $5 for the set. There's some somewhat tricksy stitchwork in those petals, and I think the center is embroidery, not crochet, so this hair tie took two skills.

I would guess each flower, depending on how fast you are, could take 30-60 minutes. Closer to 30, if you do make a lot of them. And I bet the goal is to make as many as you can in one sweatshop-hours workday so you'll paid by the quantity you can crank out. And I'm sure someone's triple-checking every last bit of your work to cut your pay down to the minimum.

As this is a set, I assume it's one of each color that's required to count as a batch. And you'll be paid some sort of even worse pittance for any unfinished batches you have left over.

For 5 bucks for three, Forever21 likely isn't paying more than a dollar a set. So, for, at best guess, 1.5 hours of work, someone's making a dollar. And that's if their work isn't being intentionally judged harshly to cut their pay further. Because I'm betting the wage on unfinished sets is maybe 20 cents a flower. On a very good day where the artist can make everything in sets and end an assumed 12-hour day with all sets complete, that's 8 sets. 8 dollars.

8 dollars for unstopped physical labor. So Forever21 can charge 5 bucks a card.

Now, if you can copy these and sell them yourself but don't know what to price them at, here's my pitch:

I have a standing rule that if it takes me more than 30 minutes to make, it's 10 bucks to sell. Because I think 20 bucks is a solid rate for my work on something like this. So, half of 20 is 10. I'm willing to eat the cost of materials as I can undoubtably make a whole bunch of little flowers off one skein of yarn. So, even if I choose a higher-priced yarn, the fact I can make 30 or 40 or 50 little flowers cuts down on the price of supplies.

Now, if I were selling online, I'd offer some sort of small discount for a group buy. 1 for $10. 2 for $18. 3 for $25. This can lead to people deciding to buy more rather than less, and while you do take a bit of a hit on the overall price, a larger sale is a larger sale.

If I were tabling somewhere, I'd be willing to use something like hair ties as an easy sale. I'd cut down my base price to, say $8 for 1. $15 for 2. $22 for 3. As someone who has tabled and been buying at a table, I cannot tell you how much people love a deal like that. Especially if you have a lot of colors to choose from. Not only that, but it's a sale that's much easier to make on day one (when people are trying to be careful with their spending) and on the final day (when people are nearly out of their spending money). You can get a lot of small sales that add up.

Obviously, Forever21 isn't going to price up like I just described. They are a fucking elder god of fast fashion and will not be changing their exploitation of artisans any time soon. But having an understanding of exactly how badly they treat workers and presenting a very average pricing from an artist who is trying to be fair to themself and their skill can be helpful for people who are trying to figure out how to put their money where their values are.

#fast fashion #forever21 #crochet #support artists #ethical shopping #sustainable fashion

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hauntedfalcon · 2 years

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Can we stop acting like the fact that AO3 didn't have to fund legal fees is a bad thing?

Its literally what we, as content creators, want. It means no jumped up Anne Rice wanna-be came after content creators. It means that the content creators using AO3 did so within full service and operation of both the law and site policy. It means that we were able to do what we enjoy doing, without threat, for two consecutive years.

Probably because people were too busy with a literal global pandemic to be serving C&D or DMCA forms over fucking fanfic, but hey, who knows, right?

It is not a bad thing.

Also, just so you know, AO3's fundraising goal is the literal bare minimum figure they'd have to have as their in-flow cash in order to function based off a cashflow forecast and internal financial analysis. Have you ever looked at your job and worked out the bare minimum you'd have to work to have all your bills paid? Yeah, that's AO3's set target for their fundraisers.

For full transparency, here's the flow chart of AO3's full 2022 budget and cashflow.

THIS IS WHAT WE WANT.

Personally if I saw that AO3 had a $00.00 flatline for in-kind legal advocacy every single year? Fuck yeah. I'd love that. Because it means nobody needed it.

But I'll bet you're pissed that big bad AO3 got so much money, mm? Its okay widdle babey, here's the cashflow analysis of the biggest corporate charities to make you feel better. AO3's annual income for the last six years alone doesn't even touch the figures you see below.

AO3 is literally not taking away from anyone. The only thing you're mad about is you feel entitled to that money because you have this skewed notion you would've received it had AO3 not. That's not how life works. AO3's donations aren't even 50% of the top 10 global charity networks and corporations. AO3 isn't 'taking away donations people in need would've received' or whatever other half-assed argument you've got brewing.

Just leave it the fuck alone. Nobody's making you use it. Nobody's forcing you to donate. Literally nobody is 'missing out' because a few hundred thousand people donated their spare change to fund the one fucking site we have, at all, that is worth said spare change. I'd rather throw a dollar at AO3 every single day for the rest of my entire life than be forced to used Wattpad or LiveJournal.

Oxfam 2019 - 2022: £30,790,000. A 24% increase. Bernardo's 2021: £280,500,000. RSPCA 2021: £151,800,000.

wow, it’s amazing how many defenders of a fanfic site manage to be so fucking illiterate.

yes you petulant little stooge, I am pissed that AO3 got so much money when people on this webbed site are literally starving and trying to pay for surgery and, you know, actual important shit like that

I’m pissed that every six months the Greek chorus of “ooooooooooooh donate to AO3 and the OTW because the legal work they do is impoooooortaaaaaaaant” starts up again, that legal advocacy is the number one thing people cite to get other people to part with their money, that mutuals who really should know better have told me that the OTW is ~~~pretty much always~~~ involved in some legal development when all of that is a full fucking lie, it’s a goddamn joke to imagine one nonprofit’s legal department is actively protecting all of us from being sued while somehow also spending no money, especially when they didn’t even protect their own users from having their work stolen off AO3 and put behind a paywall a couple years back, give me an entire break

and in exactly the same way, “because of your generosity, we have a sizeable surplus and we’re now looking into a diversified investment portfolio” was a lie for years and it never happened and they finally just… quietly omitted it from their financial reports

I’m pissed that a fourteen year old nonprofit has never bothered to diversify their funding at all with grants for specific projects, and instead relies on unallocated funds from donors, and they justify this piss poor practice simply because “we are supported entirely by our users” looks better

I’m pissed that every time I mention how their “transparent” budget is actually pretty pants about certain things, like the fact that they changed the amounts in their estimated columns to match what actually came in, and how nonprofit budgets are publicly available for this exact reason, so that we the public can decide if they’re actually doing what they ought to be doing before we give them our money, some tiresome little pissant climbs out of a puddle to send me a link to the exact fucking spreadsheet I got my information from

so no I will not be leaving it alone, thanks, I will fucking increase the fucking thing. you sound like a sucker, so you’d better go donate to AO3

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samtheflamingomain · 2 years

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pens v. fake wrestling

I buy a lot of shit on Amazon. I've never spent more than like $80 on a purchase with a few exceptions. Many of my recent products came in slim envelopes.

I've always been this way, but it gets worse when I'm manic. Last time, I blew almost 2 grand on art journal stuff.

But here's my point: I hate, so much, when people comment on my purchases. Started with my dad. I know I can't afford a lot of what I buy - but I'd say that the majority of my purchases are "things I need" for my art projects. And I need to do my projects to enjoy my life even just a bit.

I have a roommate who's particularly bad about it, but usually thinks he's being funny and lighthearted. It makes me feel awful. Ex. I ordered $15 in product but all were for some reason in their own envelopes, so like 6 in one day, which looks like I'm splurging.

I'm dirt poor. But when I get into a hyperfocus on online shopping I've been known to have 50+ items in the cart amounting to thousands.

But then I delete. A lot. I once went from $2400 in a cart to $18. I'll just add whatever and later hone it down to what I really want.

But at the end of the day, he's right, I shouldn't be buying anything - I'm close to abject poverty. But... it's my avocado toast, buying a set of pens/pencils/markers here and there.

One day, Critical Roommate helped me bring in a bunch of packages, with a comment noting that I couldn't be as poor as he thought, just phrased in the perfect way to make me snap.

I got Big Mad. This particular assortment was cat food, litter, coffee, coffee mate, sugar, a few other dry goods, and one was a pack of interesting pens. He was particularly bitchy - all along I'd been like, "yep needed that" and "cheaper than the grocery store!" and as he watched me unload it all, when I got to the pens, he said "And why are THOSE necessary?"

They're not. But it was I think around Feb 20. I told him, this is the only thing I've bought myself this month. I will use them. It will bring me happiness to see these very interesting pens at work.

It's so hard for me not to blast him for spending hundreds a month to watch fake fights and hundreds more to keep all his stupid games active every month. Add in the fact he's "renting furniture and TV" and paying 30% interest, minimum $50 a month on Tim's, and he also drinks, orders food, and just bought a $150 cat box that "cleans itself". But you still gotta scoop, and none of them do. If I go upstairs it's always a struggle not to instantly go to that box and clean it for those poor cats. 3 people, never seen a clean box. But yeah, shame me for an $8 set of pens.

This sequence of mania is different from the last, when I had a credit card and just bought anything that my eyes liked. Now I buy things for art forms I already engage in, that will be used.

But my biggest source of salt is that... he spent $170 on a game. "It includes any future DLC and skins and and and" bitch, those pens were EIGHT DOLLARS. And you roasted me for them, then drop this info as if it's totally normal. UFC aint real, it's not worth a video game let alone the super cool skins that would make your shorts a different color. Sure, it's something he's very into - but the fact that he sees that as a completely rational purchase while my pens are frivolous makes me want to scream.

I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that most people don't respect my art. I like recreating from original medium to another. This is a guy who literally owns every single version of The NHL Hockey Game. Like, how different can they all be? But that's his hobby. I can, ultimately, respect it. I've paid hundreds in Sims packs.

But the idea that he doesn't see him paying $170 on a game that doesn't even exist yet while criticizing my $8 pens will just never cease to infuriate me.

To be a real bitch, I'm going to create something new and interesting. He's going to pretend to pretend to pretend to wrestle. 6m from now. And literally no one will ever consider his $170 purchase to be rational.

Stay Greater

#sorry if it comes off bitter #its cuz i am #sam

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