出版与作家生涯2010fourhourworkweek.com编辑精选
作者究竟如何赚钱：Seth Godin 的重生
How Authors Really Make Money: The Rebirth of Seth Godin
导读
这篇文章围绕“作者如何真正赚钱”，借 Seth Godin 的案例讨论传统出版与电子书时代的收入结构。对写作者的价值在于：不要只盯着头部神话，而要理解出版业的细分市场、渠道分成和读者购买行为，再规划写作与变现。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
写出版或行业话题时先拆细分市场：类型小说、商业书、学术书规则不同，别把某一领域的成功当成可横向复制的模板。
- 02
引用收入数据要呈现分布而非只讲头部：作者收入基尼系数极高，用中位数、比例和反例避免以偏概全。
- 03
论证趋势时同时给现状数字和时间窗口：如电子书当时仅精装五十分之一，但 2—5 年可能按数量反超。
- 04
谈数字出版要落到读者行为：Kindle 用户可能人均囤书更多，销量变化未必只是纸质读者减少。
HN 评论精选
作者收入极度不平等，出版业是多个差异巨大的细分行业；电子书增长快，但当时作者分成和规模仍受渠道与格式影响。
我记得英国作者之间的基尼系数大约是 0.7，收入分层夸张得离谱。Tim Ferriss 的数据和我的经验相符。他没明说的是，“出版”其实是大约十四个纵向整合的生意松散编队飞行——比如类型小说出版（我的地盘）就和商业出版或学术出版完全不同，尽管产品有时通过同样的零售渠道销售——不同领域里成功职业的前景差别极大。一个领域的成功也不意味着能横向复制到另一个出版领域。再挑个小毛病：以我的经验，电子书销量（尤其是亚马逊 Kindle 商店）被精装书销量远远甩开——比例达到 50:1。亚马逊如果能找出 Kindle 销量超过精装书的书，几乎肯定是在挑樱桃。不过这是回头看——很明显电子书是快速增长的市场，再过 2—5 年，按数量（即便不是按收入）它们会确定超过精装书。精装书折后净收入约 16 美元，其中 10—15% 归作者；Kindle 商店书净收入 7—10 美元，亚马逊先抽 30%，剩下部分再给作者 5—10%。
cstross查看英文原文
IIRC the Gini coefficient among authors in the UK is something like 0.7. The income stratification is insane. Tim Ferris's figures match my experience. What he doesn't make explicit is that "publishing" is about fourteen different vertically integrated businesses flying in loose formation -- genre fiction publishing, for example (my stomping ground) is utterly different from business publishing or academic publishing, although the products are sometimes sold via the same retail channels -- and the prospects for a successful career vary drastically between fields. Nor does success in one field imply a track record transferable sideways into another publishing field. I'd also pick a nit: in my experience, ebook sales (and Amazon Kindle store sales in particular) are dwarfed by hardcover sales -- by a 50:1 ratio, in fact. Amazon are almost certainly cherry-picking if they can come up with books where Kindle sales outstrip hardcover. However, that's looking backwards -- it's fairly clear that ebooks are a rapidly growing sector and in another 2-5 years they'll definitively overtake hardcover sales by volume, if not by revenue. (Hardcovers net roughly $16 after discount, of which 10-15% goes to the author; Kindle store books net $7-10, of which Amazon takes a 30% cut before 5-10% of the remainder goes to the author.)
数字阅读可能让核心读者人均购买更多，未读囤书不再带来实体压力；分析销量要看人均消费而非简单替代。
我觉得这篇文章没太大用，但这一段值得读：我相信（是的，这是猜测）我们缺的指标是“人均购书量”。如果你像我一样有 Kindle，头一两周买了多少书？Kindle 里有多少未读书？和纸质书不同，你不必面对一摞未读材料像没做完的作业。因此你会买比纸质时代多得多的数字书。如果亚马逊每卖出 100 本纸质书就卖出 180 本 Kindle 书，我不会惊讶：前者由 80—100 人贡献，后者可能由 10—20 人贡献。这反映的是 Kindle 用户人均买得更多，而不是纸质书购买者买得更少。
kmfrk查看英文原文
I didn't find the post to be very useful, but this part is worth the read: >I believe (conjecture, yes) that the figure we are missing is Books-Per-Person. >If you have a Kindle, as I do, how many books did you buy in the first week or two? How many unread books do you have on your Kindle? Unlike with print books, you don’t have to look at a stack of unread material like undone homework. Ergo, you purchase more digital books than you would ever purchase in print. If Amazon is selling 180 Kindle books for every 100 print books, I wouldn’t be surprised if 10-20 people are responsible for the former, whereas 80-100 people are responsible for the latter. This reflects that Kindle owners are buying more books per capita, not that paper purchasers are buying fewer.
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