Why Ebooks Will Mean the Demise of Semi-Pro Zines (and why this is not a bad thing)
I just released volumes three and four of my short story collections, and having sold a total of over 300 ebooks now, I am from hence forth declaring myself an Expert on Ebook Publishing. And not only that, I have also sold two copies of my ebook in the UK, so I can now call myself an Internationally Known Author! (Yes, the capitalization is mandatory.)
But I’m not the only one riding this wave of e-glory. Several of my writing friends are doing the same thing, sticking up their previously published stories on Amazon and hoping for a few bucks to roll in. But without much effort, a few bucks can turn into hundreds, at which point an author must sit up and ask herself, “Why bother with submitting to penny-a-word zines when I can get more money if I take half an afternoon to self publish it?”
Why indeed? The stigma of self publishing is all but gone. With millions of Kindle users, your stories potentially have a much larger audience. And instead of constantly checking your inbox for rejections, you could be constantly checking your Amazon sales ranking, which honestly, is a lot more fun.
I suspect that with this trend, semi-pro zines will see their slush piles shrinking, most likely losing the best talent first. Good stories will be harder and harder to find. And then they’ll be faced with a choice: whither away with a silent dignity or take a bold step into the world of ebooks themselves. The greatest thing about ebooks is that it’s making short stories a legitimate business model again. With a few clicks of a mouse, a zine can reach those same millions of readers…and these are Reader readers, not just writers checking submission guidelines. Zines can become profitable entities, but they’re going to have to attract those self publishers back, and that means upping pay rates, which means everybody wins.
I predict we’ll be seeing rising pay rates in the next few years, both in semi-pro and pro mags. Three cents a word will become the new base rate, and pro magazines will hover around ten cents. But what matters most is that there will much rejoicing that the words we put on the page out of love finally have a ravenous audience in the United States and beyond, and soon we will all be able to proudly bear the title of Internationally Known Author!
“With a few clicks of a mouse, a zine can reach those same millions of readers…and these are Reader readers, not just writers checking submission guidelines”
This is SUCH an important distinction. The world needs more readers and ebooks could very easily lead to a renaissance in short fiction. Good points.
Heh–well, as the editor of a brand spanking new semi-pro paying zine, i hope your prophecy doesn’t get fulfilled too quickly. And i know i’ll certainly be in the ebook market.
My predictions for the zine market are a little different from yours 🙂 I think one of the reasons your collections have sold so well is because they’re full of already published material, which serves as something of a quality tick for the buyer.
I also wonder at the royalties versus zine pay aspect. Doing some quick numbers in my head (based on Smashwords higher royalty rate than Amazon @ 99c per book, and then dividing that across what i figure is your average words per collection), i reckon your current royalty figures probably work out at the low end of semi-pro rates. If you’re selling the majority of your ebooks through Amazon the pay might be a bit lower.
Which is not to say that’s bad. That’s good. Especially for reprinted material. It means you can sell to semi-pro or better initially, then reprint and make better money than you would get for selling reprint rights to a zine.
As far as increasing pay goes, that’d be nice. I’d certainly like to increase my pay rates after a few issues, but that will be entirely dependent on how well the ebooks sell, as i’m financing the whole racket out of my own back pocket right now.
My overall prediction is that we’ll see a lot more ezines, semi-pro and pro-paying, opening up over the next wee while. They’ll serve as a new form of quality control, so an author can say, ‘i’ve had stories published here and here and here; if they think i’m good enough to buy, won’t you?’ Or something like that.
It’s always interesting exchanging perspectives, and it’ll be even more interesting looking back in a year’s time and charting the changes. Thanks for your thought-provoking post 🙂
Thanks, Patrice! (Who is already an Internationally Known Author!)
And Sam, you comments are about as long as my post! I’m hovering right around half a cent a word right now for all of the collections combined. Most of that is reprint material, so the risks were pretty low. I’m not ready to jump ship with my unpublished stuff just yet, but I think I’m getting the Amazon system down pretty well, and expect I’ll pass the cent a word mark sometime in the next couple months.
I think it’s an exciting time for writers and zine editors, so your timing of getting into the biz is perfect.
🙂