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What are the Pros and Cons of the Various Publishing Formats? Part Two

By Kenneth Shumaker

Issue 007

June 9, 2017 (Continued now in Part Two)

What are the pros and cons of various publishing formats?

No matter what method you use, the money only arrives with sales.  You need a product that people are willing to buy, and you need to market and promote in whatever manner you can.

Typically, it is not just sheer luck that gets sales, lightning-strike success is hyper-rare – one in ten million authors. It is said that of people surveyed, 81% thought about writing something, but only 5 to 8% did. Of those authors who write, it is statistically shown that 91% see less than 200 combined sales in their lifetime.

If 81% of the world’s 7 billion people want to write, that equates to roughly 5.6 billion people. Of those, supposedly only 283 million write something. Of these, 25 million sell more than 200 combined sales in their lifetime. That is if the whole world population participated.

But according to Amazon statistics and also Author Earnings, there were roughly 8 million published authors in 2016, in English speaking print. From what I can ascertain, fewer than 720,000 ever sold more than 200 combined sales on record in their lifetime. Of those, less than 11,000 broke 2,000 sales of all their combined products in one year. These figures combine traditional, supported, and self-published authors. But the records show of these roughly eleven thousand authors, 52% were self-published or supported-published. To add to this, the top earners in the reports, the combined sales of published material in 2016, 51% were self-published or hybrid.

What I’m showing you is that it’s still anyone’s game. It is up to you, the author, to decide how much effort and expense you are willing to put into being published, and then choose your format of publishing. Don’t let naysayers sway you. Almost everyone is biased, favouring the way they’re doing things or the way they do business.

I’ve had equally good and bad experiences in all three. My sales are equal in all three. So, I simply leave it to you to determine what level of effort you are comfortable with.

Happy writing.

Thank you,

By Kenneth Shumaker.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system (except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review or other endorsement or in a recommendation to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Internet) without permission in writing from the publisher. However, when contacted the author may be generous with reprint rights and articles.

No association with any corporations or names is implied or intended.

About the author: Kenneth Shumaker

Following a long break from writing, Kenneth recovered his passion for writing. He is a science fiction author with Inevitable Unicorn Press (InUPress). Kenneth has been blogging with the Owerton Challenge and other blogs. He now writes several serial short stories each month. Kenneth’s two businesses, his wife, his two children, and his six grandchildren keep him busy.

Discover the new novel published from InUPress by Eric J Kregel, ‘Exhaust from the Tin Woods’ out now in InUPress.ca, Amazon (Kindle and paperback) and Kobo.

: Amazon.ca

: Kobo.com

: InUPress.ca

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Kenneth Shumaker with Inevitable Unicorn Press,

of Rusty’s Notes

We would like to acknowledge the following for their contributions:

Our author is Kenneth Shumaker.

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All editing is by Donna Shumaker.

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