This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, guess what? It is in fact the end of the year, episode 2,556 coming to an end of our seventh year, our seventh season of Cytosol School. I wanna thank you so, so much for being part of it. Even if you've just listened to a few episodes this year, you've been part of it and I appreciate that. For those who have joined in throughout the year, well, you are especially amazing.
Thank you so much. We have come so far thanks to you and I'm excited to move forward next year, which is coming up tomorrow, like very, very soon. So I'll say more about that tomorrow, but today, of course, final episode of the year and we've got some good content for you. Listener has a literary quandary, a problem, a dilemma. Elaine from Charleston has been navigating the waters of publishing and she has a crucial decision to make.
So the good news is she's got a book deal. The less awesome news, it's a very small deal. So she'll talk about this a bit. She's got a contract offer and she's wondering, do I take this contract for a modest advance or do I chart my own course in the world of self-publishing? And I'll say a bit about book deals in my response just 'cause I have some experience with this.
So let's hear from our sponsor, then let's hear from Elaine and then my answer. Hey, thanks again for being out there. It's the last day of the year. [Music]
Chris, hello, I'm Elaine from Charleston, South Carolina. I've been following you for years.
I recently received an offer to publish my first book, but the advance is modest, like very modest. Should I accept this deal aiming for long-term gains or hold out for a better offer? Or is this the time to think more about self-publishing? I need your advice. [Music]
Elaine, first things first, congratulations on your book offer.
Yes, I know you'd like it to be more money. I totally understand, but also just having the offer in itself is a commendable milestone. So many authors never get a book offer from a publisher. So that's great. It doesn't mean you should take it necessarily, but it is great to celebrate.
So let's weigh your options a bit. And for listeners who aren't familiar with book deals, my first advice always is you do want to try to maximize the advance. A very common mistake for new authors is they say, oh, well, I'll just take a really small advance and maybe then the publisher will spend more on marketing. And that is absolutely the wrong thinking. The way to get them to spend more on marketing and promoting your book is to get them to pay more upfront for it because then they want to earn that back, right?
Then they are literally invested in it. So as I said, a common mistake, but you definitely want to maximize because that is a sign of their confidence in the book and a sign of what they're going to then spend their time on and how they're going to try to get you on good shows and get other attention for the book and spend some other money on marketing when the time comes. And there's other reasons too, but basically you do want to maximize. Obviously, that number will be different for every publisher, for every book, for every author, depending on the season, depending on where you're at in your career, depending on what else is happening in the industry. There's all kinds of factors to it, but you do want to maximize wherever possible.
And if you choose to sell published, well, then you're going to make a lot more money per book, like much higher royalty rates, which we've talked about a couple of times, but basically you can make 70%, sometimes depending on where your book is sold. Or if you're selling it directly on your website, you can make 95%. Whereas in traditional publishing, you're going to earn between 7% and 20% typically. Like that's going to be the high end. So that's something to think about.
What do you want to do with your book? That's what I always ask people. Like, do you just want to have a book out? Do you want your book to be in bookstores? Do you want foreign translations of your book?
That's something that's always important to me. And that's definitely not something I can manage myself. Like I love being able to work with a traditional publisher who then sells sub-writes to foreign publishers. And then those editions come out without me having to do anything for it. So that's important to me.
But again, with a modest advance from a small publisher, that may not happen. So that's perhaps a conversation to have, like what are your sub-writes relationships like? Do you anticipate being able to sell this book to other markets? And just try to get as specific as possible. So just to give you a direct answer, 'cause I like to do that.
I want to give you information, but I also want to give you direct answers. I think if it's the first offer for the first book, I think maybe hold out a little bit and see what else you can do. Because if it is a modest offer, it's probably not going to go anywhere. It's not super competitive. You can probably spend 30 days, 60 days talking to other parties or researching more about self-publishing before you make a decision.
That is my recommendation. But Elaine, of course I'm cheering you on no matter what happens. Let me know how it goes. I'd love to purchase a copy of your book when it's ready. So send me a note.
I can share it with our listeners as well. Listeners, on this final day of the year, thank you again. You are amazing. I make this podcast for you. So I'm excited to bring you some new stuff next year.
Stay tuned, give you a little preview of it tomorrow. And then of course it'll just start kind of rolling out. But for now, I hope your 2023 is coming to an appropriate end, whatever that looks like. And I hope that 2024 will be filled with joy, purpose, all good things, some challenge too, but the good kind of challenge. Anyway, I don't want to go on too much.
Just want to say thank you. Happy New Year's Eve. And much more is coming up tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.
