Kindle

Backlist Ebooks

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BEBwebpageicon There's a new website — Backlist Ebooks — launched by Patricia Ryan and Doranna Durgin that's devoted entirely to previously published, out-of-print books that the authors themselves have made available again on the Kindle. 

Backlist Ebooks is comprised of print-published authors who have re-released our out-of-print backlist titles as reasonably priced ebooks. Our authors include NYT and USA Today bestsellers, as well as those who have won major literary awards–including the Hugo, Nebula, RITA, Romantic Times and more.

You'll find my books there, as well as titles by Julie Ortolon, Lillian Stewart Carl, C.J. Cherryh, Karen French, Libby Fischer Hellman, Patricia Rice and many more. New authors are added everyday. You can also check out Backlist's Facebook page for the latest news.

A Sequel to THE WALK?

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The_Walk_FINAL (2) If you read my novel THE WALK,   I have a question for you…

But first, a little background for those of you who haven’t read it. The book has sold over 10,000 copies since I made it available for the Kindle back in June 2009.  In the book, Los Angeles is flattened by an earthquake and a guy stuck downtown when it happens sets off to walk across a landscape of devastation to get back to his wife, who is at their home in the San Fernando Valley.

Okay, so here’s the question…

My wife thinks I should write a sequel, exclusively for the Kindle, to THE WALK, set over the same two days, except told from the wife’s point-of-view and revealing what she was going through while her husband made his journey. 

What do you think? Would you be interested in reading that?

Could Konrath Become the First Kindle Millionaire?

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Joe+Konrath+pic Everyone knows that Joe Konrath’s books are doing remarkably well on the Kindle. But the actual numbers are astonishing. He’s sold 103,864 ebooks across all platforms since 2004…78,000 of them on the Kindle. Here’s how his numbers break down…and for comparison’s sake, he’s included both his self-published and professionally published books. 

My six Hyperion ebooks, from June 2004 until December 2009: 7865

Afraid from Grand Central, from May 2009 until December 2009: 13,973

Self-pubbed titles on Kobo from May 2010 until July 2010: 132

Self-pubbed titles on Smashwords since July 2009: 372

Self-pubbed titles on iPad from May 2010 until August 2010: 390

Self-pubbed titles on iTunes from Jan 2010 until July 2010: 508

Self-pubbed titles on Barnes & Noble from June 2010 until August 2010: 2212

Self pubbed titles on Amazon from April 2009 until Sept 20, 2010: 78,412

So what does all of this mean to the home viewer? Currently, I’m selling an average of 7000 self-pubbed ebooks a month on Kindle.

The fascinating part of Joe’s post are his comparisons between what he is earning from his Hyperion ebooks and what he is earning on his own. For example:

My best selling Hyperion ebook, Whiskey Sour, has sold 2631 ebooks since 2004. That’s earned me about $2200, or $34 a month since it was released.

$34 a month per ebook is a far cry from the $1700 a month per ebook I’m making on my own.

Why are my self-pubbed ebooks earning more than Whiskey Sour, which remains my bestselling print title with over 80,000 books sold in various formats?

Because Hyperion has priced Whiskey Sour at $4.69 on Amazon, and I price my ebooks at $2.99.

For each $4.69 ebook they sell, I earn $1.17.

For each $2.99 ebook I sell, I earn $2.04.

So I’m basically losing money hand over fist because Hyperion is pricing my ebooks too high, and giving me too low a royalty rate.

Even the print sales (Whiskey Sour just went into a fifth printing) don’t come close to making up the money I’m losing.

If we assume I could sell 833 copies per month of Whiskey Sour, I’d be earning $17,000 per year on it, rather than $5616 per year. (I’m guessing my numbers have gone up recently, and am estimating 400 Whiskey Sour sales per month.)

Let’s multiply that times the six books Hyperion controls.

I’m estimating I currently earn $33,696 annually in ebook royalties on those six.

If I had the rights, I estimate I’d earn $102,000.

Do I want my books to go out of print?

Hell yeah.

[…]I’ll end 2010 having earned over $100k on my self-pubbed ebooks, and that’s nothing compared to what I expect to make in 2011. And I’m doing it without touring, without promoting non-stop, without spending a lot of money, and without relying on anyone.

 

It’s no wonder that Joe has opted to focus his literary efforts almost entirely on ebooks and to turn his back, for the most part, on NY print publishers. Financially for him, it’s a no brainer.

I have to admit that Joe’s experience — and, to a lesser degree, my own — are changing some of my long-held beliefs about the publishing business. And it’s also made me think twice about whether I should write my next book for a publisher… or for myself, a thought that never would have entered my head a year ago.

DEAD SPACE for under a buck

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DEAD_SPACE_FINAL I've slashed the price on the Kindle edition of DEAD SPACE to only 99 cents for the rest of this month. The book is the sequel to my first novel, MY GUN HAS BULLETS, and was originally published in 1995 under the title BEYOND THE BEYOND. 

Ex-cop Charlie Willis handles "special security" at Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to keep the peace in the land of make-believe. When Pinnacle revives the cult, 1960s TV series "Beyond the Beyond" as the cornerstone of a fourth network, two powerful forces fight for control of the show—a talent agency that uses blackmail, torture, and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR DEAD SPACE:

“Goldberg uses just about everything he can think of to send up the studio system, fandom, Star Trek, Trekkies, agents, actors… you name it, he’ll make you laugh about it.” Analog

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary showbiz," Kirkus Reviews

“Mr. Goldberg has an observant eye and a wicked pen!” Washington Times

“[It] reads like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It’s wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate,” Vancouver Sun (Canada)

"Some of the easily recognizable actors, agents and producers who are mercilessly ribbed may find it hard to crack a smile at the author's gag-strewn prose, likewise those seekers after politically correct entertainment. But the rest of us should have no trouble….the novel's satiric slant is strong enough to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

"Pinnacle Pictures has decided to revive a 25-year-old cult sci-fi TV show called Beyond the Beyond, but somebody keeps killing off the new cast. Is it the Hollywood agent who eats human flesh? The aging actor who still thinks he's a starship captain? The fans who live only to attend conventions? This sharp roman a clef goes where no Hollywood satire has gone before—altering just enough facts to avoid the libel courts but still smacking of a certain je ne sais Trek. It probably won't make Goldberg, a television writer and producer (Baywatch, Spenser: For Hire, seaQuest), the most popular boy on the Paramount lot, but it's a stingingly funny novel just the same." 
—Entertainment Weekly 

"The hilarious follow-up to Goldberg's witty debut, My Gun Has Bullets…[this book] skewers the entertainment business, which Goldberg knows well," Oline Codgill, Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

"As in his riotous novel My Gun Has Bullets, TV writer/producer Goldberg once again bites the hand that feeds him, laughing all the while. Inspired silliness," Publishers Weekly

The Mail I Get

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Over on Debbi Mack's blog, someone asked me:

Lee, you said that you would advise new authors (unpublished) to take a contract with a small press over self-publishing. Could you expand on that? What do you think that would offer them over the chance to sell more books and attract more readers?

Very few self-published authors are selling as well on the Kindle as Joe Konrath …or even close. But let’s say you are one of the lucky few selling about 500 copies of your book a month at $2.99, earning $1000-a-month in royalties.

If the sales hold, you’ll sell 6000 copies-a-year, and earn $12,000. A typical, low-end advance for a new writer would be about $6000, give or take a thousand. A low-end mass market print run would be about 30,000 copies…a hardcover run would likely be about 5000 (and, of course, in success it could be considerably more). Your book will be in most bookstores in the country, and if it’s a mass market paperback, probably most drugstores, convenience stores, and some airports. And, of course, there will also be an e-book edition. You might even get foreign sales, large print deals, and an audio book out of it, generating more income.

I would argue that you'd be a fool not to take a mid-list paperback or a hardcover deal over self-publishing on the Kindle. Financially, you might make less (in failure or only modest success)…but the difference will be more than made up for in editing, marketing, wider readership, wider name recognition, and professional prestige (and that prestige does mean something, whether you want to admit it or not).

You can always go back to self-publishing… and when you do, you will be bring that wider readership, name recognition, and professional prestige with you. But a book deal doesn't come along every day, and that's still going to mean something for a long time yet…and I suspect it still will if bookstores disappear.

I have no doubt the big reason my out-of-print are doing as well as they are is because they are riding on the large readership of my MONK and DIAGNOSIS MURDER books.

So let's use a real world example. Boyd Morrison sold thousands of copies of THE ARK on the Kindle…and abandoned Amazon in a nanosecond for a print deal. Why? Because he knew he could reach even more people and potentially make even more money (and sell the rights to other publishers around the world, not to mention audio, film, etc). He was thinking about his long-term career. It was a wise move…because you can always go back to self-publishing… but a contract from a major publisher is a lucky break that may not come again.

But don’t take my word for it… here’s what Boyd has had to say on the topic:

“If your goal is just to write and get your books out there where readers can find them, e-publishing lets you do that in a way that doesn't cost you thousands of dollars paid to vanity presses to get a few thousand copies that will molder in your basement. Instead, you can now make some decent money selling ebooks, which will reward independent writers who produce good books that are well-packaged and cleverly promoted. […] But if you are writing books to make a living (so that you can ditch your old job), you'll certainly have to consider the financial ramifications of staying indie versus going with a publisher. In my case, I wanted to reach as many readers as possible, and though ebooks are growing at an exponential rate, most sales are still currently in stores. In two years, those numbers will be very different, but for right now that's the situation. In addition, I'd be surprised if I ever would have gotten deals for The Ark in UK, Germany, Holland, Italy, and all the other countries without a US publishing deal. Although I'm not anywhere near the league of Stieg Larsson's sales, you can get an idea of how the US market compares to the rest of the world by looking at his numbers: he has sold 4 million books in the US, but he has sold over 40 million books worldwide. That percentage is not uncommon for authors of thrillers, which are what I happen to write. Yes, with the advent of Amazon Kindle UK, I could have put my books on that store as well, but I never would be able to put my books on Amazon Kindle Deutsche because I would need a German translator. And remember that Amazon Kindle UK wasn't even a faint glimmer when I got my publishing deal last year (47 Internet years ago). So truly take a deep look at what your goals are before you decide to take either the indie route or the traditional publishing route. Either way, you'll get to do what you love, which is write. But the effort, hassle, financial rewards, prestige, and desired readership should all be factors you consider in your decision.”

For me, and other mid-list authors, it’s an entirely different decision.

I got a $2000 advance when I sold THE WALK to Five Star in 2003. It was published in hardcover in 2004 and didn't earn out. It tanked. I have since sold close to 9000 copies of THE WALK on the Kindle. I make more in one month from Kindle sales on THE WALK than I did during the two years that the book was in print in hardcover.

If a publisher came to me today and offered me a mass market paperback deal for THE WALK, I probably wouldn't take it…because I don't see a scenario where I'd end up making more money on the book than I am making now. But it's easy for me to say that… I have 1 million copies of my MONK books in print with Penguin/Putnam.

If I was a newbie author, who'd never been in print before, I would probably take the mass market deal even if it meant earning less just for the exposure and professional credibility it would give me.

All that said, writers now have more options than ever before…which is great. And the rise of FREE self-publishing  (meaning no cash out-of-pocket) may finally drive into extinction Authorhouse, Jones Harvest, and all the other sleazy vanity presses out there that have preyed on the desperation and naivete of aspiring writers for too long.

THE WALK in Paperback

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The_Walk_FINALBack in 2004, I wrote a book called THE WALK, which was released in hardcover by Five Star and quickly slipped into obscurity.  But a little over a year ago, I made the book available on the Kindle… and since then, it has sold nearly 9000 copies. Non-Kindle users have repeatedly asked me to release a trade paperback edition. I am pleased to announce that a paperback edition is now available on Amazon and CreateSpace for $11.99.

Here's the story:

It's one minute after the Big One. Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.

Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do … that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.

All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.

There's no power. No running water. No order.

Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be … if he can survive The Walk.

If you are a book critic/blogger, and would like a free review copy of  THE WALK… as a PDF, an ebook, or  as a trade paperback… please send your name, the address of your blog/website, and your preferred format to lee@leegoldberg.com.

Should Authors Skip Publishers?

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Self-published author CJ West hosts an interesting webradio discussion with authors Joe Konrath, Boyd Morrison and Jason Pinter about whether authors should skip the NY Publishing establishment altogether and take their work directly to the Kindle and other e-book suppliers. David Wisehart's Kindle Authors blog interview with me also gets mentioned (it was funny hearing CJ seethe as he paraphrased my words and when he talked about the MWA not acknowledging self-published writers as published authors).  The show is informative, lively and definitely worth a listen. 

Wheeler On The Kindle

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MastersonLegendary western author Richard Wheeler is bringing his classic, out-of-print books to the Kindle…with his acclaimed, Spur Award winning novel MASTERSON leading the charge. 

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about the book, which is available on the Kindle now and earned the Western Writers Of America's highest honor:

Again depicting characters with frailties as well as heroic qualities, the prolific Wheeler's 25th novel (after Aftershocks) is a sprightly romp of revisionist western history. In 1919, legendary gunfighter Bat Masterson is a 64-year-old New York City sportswriter who suddenly becomes worried about the inglorious and mostly false reputation he has endured for decades… The journey is a hoot when the old lawman finds that the public wants the legend, not the truth… This is classic Wheeler, a solid story about real people told with wit, compassion and a bit of whimsy.

The return of MASTERSON on the Kindle is good news, not only for western lovers, but anybody who enjoys great story-telling.

The Kindle Isn’t A Short Cut for Authors

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There's a new interview with me up at the Kindle Author blog.  Here's an excerpt:

GOLDBERG_Iron_On_Badge_FINAL  DAVID WISEHART: You've had a successful TV writing career, and strong sales as a traditionally published mystery writer. Why publish on Kindle?

LEE GOLDBERG: I haven't published anything specifically for the Kindle yet—just my out-of-print work. So for me, it's a no-brainer. I'm making money on stuff I've already written and that wasn't earning for me any longer. But I have exhausted my back-list now…

Would I write something original for the Kindle? If I can't sell my next original novel to a major publisher, and it came down to a choice between going with a very small press or taking it to the Kindle myself, I would probably go with the Kindle, simply for financial reasons. I'm sure I could make a lot more money with Kindle publication over, say, the fine folks at Five Star, though it would mean losing some tangible benefits. Five Star books are respected, reviewed by major publications, stocked by libraries, and are eligible for all the big awards…while self-published books don't get much respect (often for very good reason), are not reviewed, are ineligible for major awards (something I understand and accept, having helped craft the eligibility rules for the Mystery Writers of America). All that said, I may test the Kindle waters with an original novella this fall.

DAVID WISEHART: What advice would you give to a first-time writer thinking of publishing on Kindle?

LEE GOLDBERG: Don't do it. I still think selling your book to a publisher, and getting wide distribution in brick-and-mortar stores, is the way to go…and will always be my first choice. You benefit from having an editor, a marketing team, a sales department, and nationwide visibility. I don't think self-publishing is a wise move for novice writers/aspiring novelists…for all kinds of reasons[…] Too many of them do it because they can't get their work published and, I hate to say it, in most cases there's a good reason for it—their books suck. They see self-publishing on the Kindle as a short-cut….or as a gold mine…and its neither. They look at success stories like Joe Konrath and Boyd Morrison and assume the same thing will happen to them. It probably won't.

I have sampled hundreds of self-published books on the Kindle… and 99.9% of them aren't just awful, they border on illiterate, as if they were written by people who never graduated high school. It's astonishing just how terrible the stuff is. Putting unprofessional, hideous crap on the Kindle *will* hurt your career. You only have one chance to make a first impression with readers, agents and publishers. That said, at least self-publishing on the Kindle doesn't cost you anything (if you don't count cover design, which you could do on your own, or hiring a professional editor) and cuts the vanity press scammers entirely out of the equation.

Taking a Walk

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THE WALK is, by far, my best-selling book on the Kindle.  It out-sells the e-editions of all of my MONK novels and the e-editions of all of my previously out-of-print stuff.  Every month I sell more copies than the month before. And today, a little over 12 months since I put the book on the Kindle, I reached a milestone:  I sold my 7000th e-edition of THE WALK.

So today I am changing the cover.

What!? Am I insane? Why the hell would I mess with success? Because I think I can sell even more copies with a slicker, bolder, updated version of the same concept…and because it will tie in graphically with my other books on the Kindle.  Besides, one of the great things about the Kindle platform is that if the change flops, I can go back to the old cover in a few hours. So here's the old cover…

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 And here's the new one, designed by Carl Graves.

The_Walk_FINAL
I think Carl did an amazing job…and I predict my sales, which have gone up every month, will shoot up even more with this cover. What do you think? Am I sabotaging myself…or is this a smart move?