出版与作家生涯2021writeusefulbooks.com编辑精选
为什么大多数非虚构作者赚不到钱
Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money
导读
这篇文章分析为什么大多数非虚构作家赚不到钱，从出版商业模式、版税结构、作者议价能力等角度拆解传统出版的利润分配。对写作者来说，理解出版业的成本与收入结构，有助于在签约和职业规划上做出更理性的判断，而不是把写作当成快速变现的捷径。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
动笔之前先弄清出版业的收入结构：版税通常是封面价的一定比例，出版社拿走大部分销售收入并承担生产成本，作者需知道自己在这场分配中处于什么位置。
- 02
内容行业具有赢家通吃特性，头部作品吃掉大部分注意力，因此写作应更多出于热爱与长期积累，而非抱着中彩票的心态期待财务回报。
- 03
签约前主动做功课：查印刷成本、版税条款、首印量等关键数字，信息不对称往往意味着对方在获利。
- 04
在拥有读者群或平台等筹码之前，不要急着把自己绑定在传统出版合同里。
HN 评论精选
写作应出于热爱而非财务回报，成功概率极低，要管理好预期。
不幸的是，大多数小说作者也几乎赚不到钱，而且写作往往并不令人快乐（不像画家和视频艺术家似乎乐在其中）。我一边上班一边花了8年写一部小说，付出巨大。很难让人理解，但我觉得自己非写不可——这就是作家的诅咒。我多希望把那段时间用来学编程；人并不完全理性。我其实喜欢自己的小说，但它不值得。作家应该为写作本身的乐趣而写，并接受大多数人不会成功，这大概和中彩票一样难。
SunlightEdge查看英文原文
Unfortunately most writers of fiction make next to nothing too. Writers often are not happy writing either (unlike painters and video artists who seem to have a whale of a time). Sadly I toiled for 8 years on a novel (while working a day job). It was a massive effort. It might be hard for people to understand but I felt I had to write it (i.e. writers curse). I wish I had spent all that time on studying programming etc. Unfortunately humans are not fully rational. I actually like my novel. But it wasn't worth it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Get-Restart-Jack-Gowan-ebook/dp/B01BVJ1U5C But hey that's life. Shrug. Writers should just write for the pleasure of writing and expect that the majority won't make it. It's about as likely as winning the lottery
内容行业零边际成本导致赢家通吃，注意力集中在极少数头部作者身上。
作者和音乐人面临同样的问题：作品的边际复制成本为零、分发成本为零、进入门槛低，而注意力是有限的。结果就是前0.1%的作品被复制卖给数亿人，吃掉了这个领域的全部注意力带宽，这是终极的赢家通吃格局。相比之下，开一家成功的餐厅受地理限制，一个地区做好了，其他地区仍有市场；而成功作者可以无限复制免费的数字副本。
fighterpilot查看英文原文
Authors have the same problem as musicians. Their work has zero marginal replication cost, zero distribution cost, low barriers to entry and they're competing for finite attention. What invariably happens then is the top 0.1 percent of output is duplicated and sold to hundreds of millions of customers and that eats up all of the attention bandwidth for that vertical. It's the ultimate winner take all setup. Contrast this to the prospect of running a successful restaurant that is fundamentally limited by geography. No matter how well it serves region A, region B, C, D, etc is still up for grabs. A franchise can try to duplicate its success, but it's much more costly than a successful author making endless free digital copies of their work.
作者对版税结构的理解有误，版税是封面价的百分比，出版社并非净赚85%。
他似乎不懂什么是版税。他引用自己的话说：为了弥补出版社拿走85%的版税份额，出版社需要至少多卖5倍的量你才能回本。但事实并非如此。在传统出版中，作者的版税是封面价的一定百分比。正常零售中，出版社拿到封面价的50%到55%作为收入，再从中支付作者版税以及所有生产图书的成本。
Finnucane查看英文原文
He doesn't seem to understand what a royalty is. He quotes himself saying "To compensate for their 85% share of the royalties, a publisher needs to sell at least 5x more copies for you to break even [compared to self-publishing]." As the lady on the tv says, that's not how any of this works. In trade publishing at least, the author's royalty is a percentage of the cover price of the book. In normal retail selling, the publisher gets maybe 50-55% of the cover price in revenue, out of which they have to pay you and also all of their costs of producing your book.
出版业存在严重信息不对称，作者应主动查明成本结构来判断合同是否公平。
关于在你有筹码之前就签约出版社这一点，Patrick O'Shaughnessy 播客中的一段话让我印象深刻：如果你向一个行业提问而他们不愿回答，这往往说明有人在赚大钱。在出版业，你问任何作者印书成本是多少、销货成本是多少，他们都不知道；问文学经纪人，他们会觉得你疯了；要求出版社透明公开这些信息，他们会撕毁你的合同。所以打电话给中国的印刷厂、找美国的印刷经纪，问某本书的印刷成本，让他们发来表格。当你发现一本零售50美元的书印刷成本约2美元，而你只能拿封面价的10%，出版社还要求你自己订购5000本、同时给你25万美元预付款，你就会意识到他们根本没承担什么风险。有趣的是，说这话的人本身在餐饮业。
strogonoff查看英文原文
On #1 “Signing with a publisher before you have leverage”, a bit from an episode[0] of Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s Founder’s Field Guide podcast stuck with me. > If you ask questions of an industry and they won't tell you the answer, that's always a good sign that someone's getting very wealthy. In publishing, if you ask an author, ask any author, how much did it cost to print the book? What are your COGS? They will not know. Ask any literary agent that question and they'll think you're off your rocker. Ask any publisher to give you that information transparently and they will rip up your contract. > So call the printers in China, pick your favorite book, find out some print brokers here in the US, and say, "What did the printing of those books cost? Send me a spreadsheet." And when they do and you find out that a $50 retail book cost about $2 to print, and you're going to get 10% of [off?] cover price, they're requiring that you order 5,000 for your own list and they're going to give you a quarter of a million dollar advance, you realize that there's no way they've taken no risk at all. Interestingly, the person speaking was in the restaurant business… There’s quite a bit of insight in that episode. [0] https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/20135760/kokonas-know-what-you-are-selling?tab=transcript
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