{"id":15224,"date":"2019-03-09T13:26:55","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T18:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/?p=15224"},"modified":"2020-11-30T07:43:16","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T12:43:16","slug":"the-break-even-point-for-book-sales-and-the-professional-writers-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/the-break-even-point-for-book-sales-and-the-professional-writers-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"The break-even point for book sales and the professional writer’s journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=\u00a0\u00bb1″ _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.25″ background_size=\u00a0\u00bbinitial\u00a0\u00bb background_position=\u00a0\u00bbtop_left\u00a0\u00bb background_repeat=\u00a0\u00bbrepeat\u00a0\u00bb][et_pb_column type=\u00a0\u00bb4_4″ _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.25″ custom_padding=\u00a0\u00bb|||\u00a0\u00bb custom_padding__hover=\u00a0\u00bb|||\u00a0\u00bb][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.27.4″]<\/p>\n

Once you decide you want to publish and sell your books, makes sense to think about you as a business. Your personal brand is your company brand and the books you sell are your products.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your goal as a writer is not to sell your books that\u2019s fine. Nothing interesting for you to read here. What I will talk next is one of the aspects that define when you become a professional writer. The main aspects in defining a professional writer are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Conduct – behaving like a professional that understand the work hours need to be put in and the advancement of the writing community benefits the individual.<\/li>\n
  2. Product – the book is professionally written, had gone through the Caudine Forks of an editor, and has a well-designed cover.<\/li>\n
  3. Sales – Break-even point and profit.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And you guessed: point number 3 it is!<\/p>\n

    One of the first question I receive when I talk with business people about project management tools for writers and about all the money and work hours that go into building Asengana is: \u201cWhat\u2019s your break-even point?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I applied the same type of\u00a0answer for the process of writing, publishing, and selling a book. It will be a back-of-the-envelope type calculation, but I’ll provide you with a document and you can add as many variables as you need.<\/p>\n

    First, I defined the phases: Planning, Writing, Editing, Creating the product\/book, and Selling. The goal is to see how much money and work-hours takes to have a book ready and how many sold books it takes to get to a break-even point when your costs are covered and you make a profit.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Planning\u2014this step was interesting because most writers don\u2019t think about their planning in terms of how many hours it takes. And you should\u2026<\/li>\n
    2. Writing\u2014again, not one of those activities you think as paid work-hours. The assumptions I used was $20\/hour (the equivalent of a monthly salary of about $3400). While there are days when you write fast, the real average for the entire duration of writing a book is 500 words\/hour or less.<\/li>\n
    3. Editing, Cover design, and e-Book creation are usually outsourced activities. You pay other professionals to do it. Even good editors hire another editors for their own books. I considered an average of 4-5 pages\/hour. I\u2019ll detailed a discussion I had about editorial services in another article.<\/li>\n
    4. Book sales\u2014here I used only one platform, Amazon, with two prices that qualify for 70% royalties.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.27.4″ custom_padding=\u00a0\u00bb20px|20px|20px|20px\u00a0\u00bb box_shadow_style=\u00a0\u00bbpreset3″ box_shadow_vertical=\u00a0\u00bb10px\u00a0\u00bb box_shadow_blur=\u00a0\u00bb80px\u00a0\u00bb box_shadow_spread=\u00a0\u00bb-10px\u00a0\u00bb]<\/p>\n

      Again, you can use different values, but here are some\u00a0insights:<\/p>\n

      When you quantify the price of the work (hours) you put into writing a book, the price of editing doesn\u2019t seem so high anymore. <\/strong><\/p>\n

      When you perceive yourself as a professional and understand the value of your work, you understand and respect the work of other professionals: editors, graphic-designers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      If 2000 books sold is a good number than a well-written book made by professionals deserves a fair price which must be more than $9.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.27.4″]<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.27.4″]<\/p>\n

      Download this file, do your own calculations to know that he moment when your books sells are covering your costs.<\/p>\n

      Break even point calculator<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

      The moment when you make a profit and use the money as part of sustaining your livelihood is when you become a professional writer.<\/p>\n

      [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb3.27.4″]<\/p>\n

      Later edit:<\/h4>\n

      I’ve got another estimate from my friend Kevin McLauglhin (he knows a lot more about book covers than me<\/a>)<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      Below you have his rationale for this:<\/p>\n

      Kevin McLaughlin<\/a> \u00ab\u00a0This is a good breakdown. Too often, authors forget to take into account all the myriad costs associated with publishing AND writing. Time sunk into a project is probably the #1 thing people forget to account for.<\/p>\n

      That said, I question some of the numbers used! I can see writing an outline requiring as much as 20 hours for a novice writer; but an experienced author will tend to\u00a0do that job in much, much less.<\/p>\n

      Likewise, 80 hours for research? For a highly technical nonfiction book, probably. Not for fiction. (There are some\u00a0spots of fiction which do\u00a0require research, but people writing in them usually also READ about those things as a hobby, and have prior knowledge before starting the book.)<\/p>\n

      The 500 WPH count is the low end of the spectrum. I average 2500 words per hour; I’m on the high end, but nowhere near the top (top speed authors average 5-6k per hour via dictation). My observation is the average seems to start at about 1000 WPH and eventually rise with experience to 1500-2500 (or more, via dictation).<\/p>\n

      This is important, because word throughput (while retaining quality, a key!) is one of the primary ways we can increase efficiency\u00a0in the process, reduce costs, and increase number of books released per year. More books = more revenue.<\/p>\n

      A $500 cover isn’t the absolute highest, but it’s very\u00a0possible to get a professional cover for $150-300. That’s the normal range. A $500 cover means you’ve hired one of the best in the business, something which should probably be reserved for AFTER your books are already making you good money.<\/p>\n

      Creating the ebook is free. If you’re using Vellum there is a one-time sunk cost; after that it’s whatever 10 minutes of your time is worth. If you’re using Draft2Digital or similar software, it’s free, but still costs that ten minutes. Seriously; anyone who is still paying someone for a process that’s about as complex as exporting a PDF from MS Word needs to go learn how to do this themselves.<\/p>\n

      Also worth noting that most copy editors are charging half a penny to a penny a word. The $2000 figure is probably accurate for someone who has a content edit first, followed by a line or copy edit. That’s again a cost that novice writers have which goes away after enough practice.<\/p>\n

      I wonder about setting the salary so low, as well. I would generally\u00a0value my time higher than that. Working as a nurse I made $30\/hr plus benefits. I didn’t switch to writing full time until I was effectively\u00a0making more than that as a writer.\u00a0\u00bb<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

      [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      One of the first question I receive when I talk with business people about project management tools for writers and about all the money and work hours that go into building Asengana is: \u201cWhat\u2019s your break-even point?\u201d<\/p>\n

      I applied the same answer for the process of writing, publishing, and selling a book. It will be a back-of-the-envelope type calculation, but I will provide you with the document to download and add as many variables as you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,4,109],"tags":[112,9,10,57,111,113,25,62,99,100,110,79,27,71],"class_list":["post-15224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asengana","category-4","category-writing-life","tag-amwriting","tag-asengana","tag-book","tag-ebook","tag-indieauthor","tag-novel-writing","tag-writer","tag-writers-way","tag-writers","tag-writing","tag-writing-software","tag-writingcommunity","tag-writinglife","tag-youshouldbewriting","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asengana.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}