How I Became a Best-Selling Author
From the Wall Street Journal:
This summer, Darcie Chan’s debut novel became an unexpected hit. It has sold more than 400,000 copies and landed on the best-seller lists alongside brand-name authors like Michael Connelly, James Patterson and Kathryn Stockett.
It’s been a success by any measure, save one. Ms. Chan still hasn’t found a publisher.
Five years ago, Ms. Chan’s novel, “The Mill River Recluse,” which tells the story of a wealthy Vermont widow who bestows her fortune on town residents who barely knew her, would have languished in a drawer. A dozen publishers and more than 100 literary agents rejected it.
“Nobody was willing to take a chance,” says Ms. Chan, a 37-year-old lawyer who drafts environmental legislation for the U.S. Senate. “It was too much of a publishing risk.”
This past May, Ms. Chan decided to digitally publish it herself, hoping to gain a few readers and some feedback. She bought some ads on Web sites targeting e-book readers, paid for a review from Kirkus Reviews, and strategically priced her book at 99 cents to encourage readers to try it. She’s now attracting bids from foreign imprints, movie studios and audio-book publishers, without selling a single copy in print.
. . . .
A handful of self-published authors have achieved blockbuster status, selling more than a million copies of their books on the Kindle. While they represent a tiny minority of independent authors, the ranks of the successful are growing. Thirty authors have sold more than 100,000 copies of their books through Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing program, and a dozen have sold more than 200,000 copies, according to Amazon. The program, which Amazon launched in 2007, allows authors to upload their books directly to Amazon’s Kindle store, set their own prices and publish in multiple languages. Barnes & Noble followed suit in 2010 with a similar program for its Nook e-reader.
Self-published titles have been buoyed by an explosion in digital book sales. E-book sales totaled $878 million in 2010, compared to $287 million in 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. Some analysts project that e-book sales will pass $2 billion in 2013.
. . . .
The novel took her 2½ years to write. After seeking feedback from family and friends, she sent queries to more than 100 literary agents. Most rejected it as a tough sell. “It didn’t really fit any genre,” Ms. Chan says. “It has elements of romance, suspense, mystery, but it falls into the catch-all category of literary fiction, and of course that’s the most difficult to sell.”
She finally landed an agent, Laurie Liss at Sterling Lord Literistic in New York, who represents cable-news host Rachel Maddow. Ms. Liss submitted the manuscript to a dozen publishers, all of whom turned it down. Ms. Chan stashed the manuscript in a drawer, and buried herself in her legislative work.
Five years passed. Then, this past spring, she started reading about the rise of e-book sales and authors who had successfully self published, and decided to give it a shot. She fashioned a cover image out of a photograph her sister took of a mansion in Paoli, and she and her husband used Photoshop to add some gloomy ambience. Then she nervously uploaded her manuscript to Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing program. She sold a trickle of copies. A few weeks later, she started selling it on Barnes & Noble’s Nook and through SmashWords, a self-publishing program that distributes to major e-book retailers including Apple’s iBookstore, Sony and Kobo. Her first royalty check from Amazon was for $39.
. . . .
Then, at the end of June, “The Mill River Recluse” got a mention on a site called Ereader News Today, which posts tips for Kindle readers. Over the next two days, it sold another 600 copies. Ms. Chan realized she might be able to drive sales herself. She spent about $1,000 on marketing, buying banner ads on websites and blogs devoted to Kindle readers and a promotional spot on goodreads.com, a book-recommendation site with more than six million members.
After learning that self-published authors can pay to have their books reviewed by some sites, she paid $35 for a review from IndieReader.com (IndieReader no longer offers paid reviews). She paid $575 for an expedited review from Kirkus Reviews, a respected book-review journal and website. The review service, which Kirkus launched in 2005, gives self-published authors the option to keep the review private if it’s negative. Ms. Chan decided to have hers posted on their website. Kirkus called the novel “a comforting book about the random acts of kindness that hold communities together.” She used blurbs from the reviews on her Amazon and Barnes & Noble pages. “I hoped it would lend some credibility,” she says. “Most other reviewers won’t touch it.”
Sales kept climbing. In July, it sold more than 14,000 copies. That month, it was featured on two of the biggest sites for e-book readers, generating a surge of new sales. In August, it sold more than 77,000 copies and hit the New York Times and USA Today e-book best-seller lists; it later landed on the Wall Street Journal list. In September, it sold more than 159,000 copies. To date, she has sold around 413,000 copies.
Ms. Chan and her agent decided to resubmit the novel to all the major imprints, citing robust sales figures and rave online reviews. Some publishers have responded warily. A representative of one publishing house feared the book had “run its course,” Ms. Liss recalls. Others worried about the novel’s bargain basement price, arguing that an e-book that sells for 99 cents likely won’t command a typical hardcover price of around $26.
A few major publishers made offers, but none matched the digital royalty rates of 35% to 40% that Ms. Chan makes on her own through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Typically, most publishers offer print royalties of 10% to 15% and digital royalties of 25%. Simon & Schuster offered to act as a distributor, but Ms. Chan wants the book to be professionally edited and marketed.
Ms. Liss says that the offers from U.S. publishers so far don’t improve much on what Ms. Chan is making on her own. She’s made around $130,000 before taxes—substantially more than a standard advance for the average debut novelist—and she’s getting a steady stream of royalties every month. “I told Darcie, at this point you’re printing money. They’re not. Go with God, we’ll sell the second book,” Ms. Liss says.
Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal (Link may expire after a few days)
Ebooks, Self-Publicity, Self-Publishing, Self-Publishing Strategies
I took part in the PubIt chat with Darcie Chan a week ago on Facebook. She is super sweet and very kind to the authors coming behind her.
I think the best aspect of the indie revolution is removing some of those genre rules and walls that never served for better entertainment for the reader, but for easier marketing. Just talked on Twitter with another author who was upset he was getting negative feedback from a romance reader who said he was writing “bromance.” I say why not? Label it as such in the product description and see what happens. The movies are blockbusters and no one expected that at all.
So,
My question this week in an earlier thread about why publishers aren’t reaching out to those of us whose booksI If they won’t consider publishing someone with the sales numbers of Chan’s they certainly won’t consider the rest of us as having any potential.
“Run its course?” Such cluelessness. Did it never occur to them that they don’t have to put the book out at $26? Or that the millions of new owners of ereaders in the next few years might still find her book charming, or that the readers who do’t yet read digital books might be willing to buy at least a paperback version?
Or maybe it is just a realistic evaluation on their part that they don’t have a clue how to sell books, and it would be too embarrassing when they were unable to achieve the success with the book that Chan was able to do on her own.
Of course, now that I think about it, this was a blessing in disguise, since it is unlikely that a contract with a publisher would do anything but slow down her writing career and commit her to a system that is floundering. Maybe by the time the second book is written she will realize that going the traditional way may not be in her best interests.
M. Louisa Locke,
author of Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits
“Run it’s course?”
Hilarious that the Publishing companies have so little confidence in their own ability to generate buzz or advertising for their contracted writers that they expect to just sit on the buzz the author has already generated.
To the Publishers: what the hell do you think your job is?!! What is the point of even being published if the publisher can’t generate and highly…er.. publicize a new author!!?
Exactly, deep down, you all know that Publishers suck at marketing and suck at advertising. Guys like Tim Ferriss and Adam Carolla and Malcolm Gladwell are Bestsellers because they already have platforms for their books. And yet… what’s this? The publisher wants to take 85% for the revenues for my book? Well, that doesn’t make sense.
“Run it’s course” ?
I know something else that’s run its course.
Good for her. If she’s that desperate for a print edition, she could always go through Lulu or CreateSpace
Good for Chan on her success, and super good for her to recognize what craptaculor deals the publishers were trying to push on her.
What M. Louisa said.
It sells 400,000 ebook copie and major publishers won’t touch it? Is there any more sign how tone deaf the bix 6 are?
Make that Big 6.
Why sell the second book to publishers, when they won’t touch the first book even though it’s already demonstrated success?
I’m a bit surprised one of Amazon’s imprints hasn’t snapped it up.
I’m with Sherri — her agent is crazed. “Go with God, we’ll sell the second book.” What? Why?? With the first book selling gangbusters, she could give the second one a reasonable price, even $2.99 to get her that 70%, and be raking it in.
Angie
I applaud Miss Chan’s courage and hard work. She believed in her writing enough to find a way to get it out to people who would buy it and enjoy reading her story. Let this serve as an important lesson to the rest of us still struggling to convince agents, editors, and publishers that our books have value and appeal to a potential market. It’s the wave of the future.
Darcie’s success is inspiring to all of us, though it’s almost laughable that she can’t get a reasonable book deal as a best-seller. You’d think the big publishers would be excited to find an author who has a proven ability to sell books.
Fantastic article! Thank you Darcie Chan for sharing your path to success. I hope your second book blows your first success out of the water.
My only addition to this article is that success is possible without so much of a financial investment. (Although, after reading this I may drop some money in the spots she did.)
I’m a working mother living paycheck to paycheck. I couldn’t afford to pay for banners, reviews or an agent. There are many FREE promotional routes available to authors. (Twitter, Facebook, networking with other authors and blogs.) Don’t give up hope if you can’t afford the big stuff.
I’m not in Chan’s league, but I have earned over $50,000 in royalties in 4 months. The money is just now starting to come in and I am so glad that I self-published. Now the question for me is…will it last? How do I stop the natural decline in sales? Thanks to Darcie I have some new ideas.
The rules are constantly changing. You’ve got to stay informed to stay ahead. By sharing our stories and our experience…hopefully we all do better.
Thanks again and good luck! I’m a sucker for happy endings!
I got that same response from an agent– a 99 cent bestseller with a huge audience is totally different from the audience that publishers think they want (THEIR targeted customers are suckers who pay $30 for hardcovers and $15 for ebooks). I dropped the agent, sold it to Amazon, and Dec. 20 will be pretty sweet when they release two of my books simultaneously.
Enjoy the ride, Darcie!
Just what the doctor ordered! Well done Ms. Chan…never give up is the motto and d–n the gatekeepers. Their loss.
I began a book titled “The Source in Al Qaeda” in 2004. Wrote about things/places I lived/worked in. No interest by agents to my query letter. Shoved it in the drawer and got on w/life. When I read about this digital revolution this March in a Washington Post article it was a Eureka moment.
So my work is almost done and will be out next month. No need to bend over for anyone. Isn’t this a wonderful revolution?! Never give up….follow your passion (it has to be otherwise one is a glutton for punishment) and PERSIST and then self publish. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sad to think how many amazing stories/works never saw the light of day; but great that this reality will be less likely as more of us catch on and bypass the gatekeepers. Amen to that. Congrats again Ms Chan!
oops…sorry last name typo…tried to fix but “loading” button never loaded! It’s “Sam Grant” Thanks!
Darcie Chan has all those deals-in-waiting on the table and won’t move on them…because she’s afraid it might queer future traditional publishing deals?
REALLY?
Why do things like this only happen to stupid people?
[...] to that suave and utterly debonair Passive Guy for breaking this one out a few days ago, even though I’ve been too awash in my own issues to catch it until [...]