Musings on Being an Author

There has been some good discussion recently on various topics relating to independent authors. The first, and probably biggest of these is the 1000 true fan model. While the article was written a year ago, it has been getting some attention lately. The basic concept is that for an independent artist, you don't need to get mainstream to make a living. You just need 1000 people willing to buy $100 worth of your stuff a year. Wil Wheaton discussed this recently as well. He's not there yet in either the number of people willing to spend that much, or amount of product output per year. But, it gives hope as a new author that I don't have to make the New York Times best selling list to make a living at it.

Last weeks This Week in Tech discussed this topic a bit as well. There was a bit of talk of selling yourself as a brand, and the need for a traditional publisher. According to John C Dvorak, one should be able to build themself up as a brand withing 18 months as long as their product isn't crap. I'm going to start really building the Steve Radabaugh brand when my book hits publication. I'll build a new website, and I'll nee to start blogging more frequently and I'll have to be a little more focused on what I post to twitter.

I think I'm doing something right by doing my book this year. Warren Ellis has declared 2009 to be Year of the POD. His forum, Whitechapel, has had some good discussion about POD sites and tools.

I think the real trick is going to be finding the right price point. Wil Wheaton's book is $13 for a print copy or $5 for a PDF copy. I honestly think $13 is too much. This could be why the PDF sales of it have done phenomenally better than print sales. With the way lulu does it's pricing, it's hard to get a book made much cheaper than that. Cory Doctrow's book Little Brother, has an MSRP of $17.95. But he's giving away digital copies of it for free. On top of that, the book is licensed as creative commons. Here's a post of his explaining why he does this.

I have a few months to decide exactly how I'm going to release this, so no decisions are going to be made today. I'm thinking I'll go live with a new site promoting my brand and all of my works around June 1st. Still have to finish editing the book of course.