As I have gotten more than a few comments expressing gratitude for the education portion of my posts, I’m going to do a somewhat deep dive on the Lowrance Vampires series. (You know, to celebrate the upcoming release of Death Dance.)
So, let’s do some math!
As I mentioned before, approximately $33,000 is my “I need the book to make this much to earn back the time, investment, and so on” value for a novel. That essentially covers my living expenses, taxes, and fees to produce the book.
I pay my staff fairly, because they deserve to eat, too–and my choice to do this definitely factors. Yes, I’m aware there are people who would do the same work for significantly lower. Last year, my rate for a 100k manuscript, no matter what type of editor I was working with, was $1,000.
I have been pitched offers to edit my books for as little as $50 to an average of $250. These individuals are skilled and hard working, but the reality is this: I will never, ever pay anyone that low for the amount of work it takes to actually edit a book properly.
If someone is charging $50… and a living wage is $25 an hour… I am paying for two hours of work, and I know, for a fact, someone CANNOT edit a book properly in two hours. It cannot be done, and if anyone tells you that they can, they are lying to you. End story.
That would be a reading rate of 833 words a minute without slowing down for the entirety of two hours, including marking files.
So, I pay a living wage for the work I am having done. Yes, this hurts my bottom line, but my ethics are more important to me than my bottom line, and paying people is important.
I expect to eat from my work… and the people I hire deserve to be treated in the same exact fashion.
Yes, the money truly matters.
So, let’s talk about Lowrance Vampires, publication frequency, and why Death Dance is very probably the end of the road for the series.
For this, all vendors is literally EVERYTHING, including Patreon. It excludes audiobooks, as audiobooks are a general loss investment I do for accessibility and take literally years to earn any profit, and that’s just based off the production studio costs.
Blood Bound: $38,516.33 total earnings, all vendors.
Silent Stalker: $25,140.49 total earnings, all vendors.
So technically, Silent Stalker, after three years of sale, including roll over from Blood Bound, is approximately $2,000 away from clearing its fees. ($30,656.82)
I decided to go ahead and move forward with Death Dance’s release because that was “close enough” to justify working on the next book–and I got a Bookbub Featured Deal to help boost the series.
I stacked the cards in Death Dance’s favor doing it this way. Essentially, by having the third book up for preorder when the Featured Deal launches, the series has the best chance of a: Silent Stalker clearing its fiscal responsibilities b: Death Dance producing sufficient preorders for it to earn out / clear its fiscal responsibilities within one year.
Essentially, in six months, if sales of Blood Bound and Silent Stalker PLUS the preorders of Death Dance are strong enough where the book has a chance to fiscally clear in a year, I will edit the book to include a small open plot arc to allow series continuation. If it doesn’t look like it has a chance in hell of clearing fiscally at that point, I will not be editing in a plot arc or threads to allow for series continuation, and it will be written to be a completed trilogy. (And no, I will not be using the same world for spin off stories; I need series that can pay the bills, and I’m ending worlds/series that cannot pay the bills when they come to a good conclusion point.)
Death Dance is a good conclusion point for the series. I essentially will remove one arc line I was considering doing (and would add more books) and just finish the arcs I opened in Blood Bound.
This is fine.
Not every series succeeds, and it’s better to just let it go if it’s not going to succeed.
But ultimately, this is how the economy of books works, and why Lowrance Vampires has been such a slow production in terms of release.
When I decide to continue a series, I’m looking at if the previous books have earned their keep: aka, they’ve made $33,000, including overflow from the earlier books in the series.
If not, the series sits and waits until it has. Then I can, essentially, afford to write the next book in the series.
Writing isn’t free. Editing isn’t free. Nothing in this career is free.
And as such, yes… some books will take a MUCH longer time to get produced than others, because they just don’t earn much money.
For example, Jesse Alexander has BARELY cleared Water Viper at this point in time, and Steel Heart is roughly $2,000 from clearing with the little extra profit Water Viper has generated.
I will not be starting Stone Bound early; Steel Heart needs to clear before I even begin the process of writing Stone Bound.
At the current rate of sales on the Jesse Alexander books, I will be able to start writing Steel Heart mid to late 2026.
(Yeah, that series does not sell well.)
But… because I monitor this stuff, because I do track series profitability, I can pace in a way where writing is SUSTAINABLE. And that’s important.
For the record, Client from Hell has cleared, but that dude pissed me off so much that there’s just no way in hell I’m even looking at it until after I’m done writing Dragon Her Heels. And then, I’ll grudgingly start working on it just to get the next one working at clearing its costs. But Client from Hell didn’t clear all that long ago, so it’s not like I would have started it all that soon anyway. That entitled so-and-so basically cost everyone eight months because I do not reward shit behavior… and I was too fucking angry over the whole thing to want to write Sandra anyway.
I’m still angry enough I’m not sorry about it really. ^^;
For the record, it took a year and two months, but Whiskers on Kittens did clear.
(And yes, that was part of the factor for me doing Dragon Her Heels; when I started the preorder for it, Whiskers on Kittens was close to clearing.)
And that’s just how the cookies crumble. Series need to clear their fiscal responsibilities to be worked on, and if a series just doesn’t earn money, it takes a long time to clear, and that means it has a long time on the backburner waiting for the next book to be written, because I, as a human being who needs to eat, pay people, pay taxes, and have a home, can’t afford to have many books that haven’t earned their keep.
I hope this helps clarify some elements of how I determine when it’s time to finish a series / continue a series.
For the record, no… Hypnos has NOT cleared yet. In fact, it’s still $6,000 short of clearing, and until it’s a little closer to clearing, I’m waiting from committing to a release date, because yeah… it really needs to clear before I continue it. Or at least within $3,000 of clearing.
So, right now, Hypnos’s sequel isn’t being worked on because it hasn’t earned enough money to justify the second book being written.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!
Additional Notes, several hours after the fact:
Because why not, here are the series and their status as cleared / not cleared. Severely not Cleared means that it has not paid back basic expenses.
On series that are older and severely not cleared, I will be moving them to “overtime” work to lower their costs. AKA, if I finish my regular work early, I’m going to work on these projects.
- Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) / Whiskers on Kittens: Cleared / Dragon Her Heels: Not Cleared.
- Seeking the Zodiacs / Hypnos: Not Cleared.
- Jesse Alexander / Steel Heart: Not Cleared.
- Vigilante Magical Librarians / Booked for Theft: Not Cleared.
- Royal States / Agents of the Royal States: Non-Applicable: Patreon auto clears this series.
- Fox Witch / Up in Smoke: Not Cleared, but within $3,000 of clearing.
- Wolf Hunt / Wild Wolf: Severely Not Cleared.
- Tales of Catalina de la Corona: Severely Not Cleared.
- Nature of the Beast: Severely Not Cleared.
- Dae Portals: Severely Not Cleared.
- Grave Affairs: Not Cleared.
- Lowrance Vampires / Silent Stalker: Not Cleared but close enough.
- Balancing the Scales (Completed): Not Cleared.
- Witch & Wolf (Completed): Cleared.
- Magic, Mayhem, and the Law in Precinct #153 / Partner in Crime: Not Cleared.
Thank you for the peak into costs. I had no idea. When can a book be put into print? As I am selling your books as well as collecting them for my own reading. A new copy goes in the bookstore and then possible a used coping goes into the used section to make it affordable to everyone. Thank you again.
Prints are done based on when I have the emotional energy to deal with them. They’re… tedious.
Thanks for the information, it really is helpful to learn the how’s and whys around why a release might get changed or paused or whatever needs to happen. While I am an avid reader and re-reader of yours and obviously want to greedily read everything NOW 😊 I can now understand better why that’s not possible.
I am a Patreon member but I do try and remember to do ratings and reviews for all the books I get from my membership on other sites so you know how much I love all the pen names. Thank you 😁
I have a semi-related question. I have all the announced books on pre-order at Amazon. Is it better for you financially if I purchase them through Smashwords? [I have switched to Smashwords whenever possible as they still allow you to download copies.] If it is a financial plus for you, would cancelling the pre-orders on Amazon have a negative impact?
Please use whatever vendor you are most comfortable with. The difference in pay between Smashwords and the rest, truth be told, is not that significant in the grand scheme. <3 If you're happy on Amazon, please DO use Amazon. Patreon store pays me best of all the vendors 🙂
But it's minor improvements, so do what makes you happy
Thank you for the inside look into the economics of self-publishing. I guess I’ve always been somewhat of a “non-conformist” in what I like vs what the mainstream likes. I am a bit saddened that Jesse Alexander doesn’t have more of a following, but I do understand that 1 $6.95 pre-order does not make $33,000 (imagine that!). It’s just that I identify strongly with her as a woman in a man’s field who has fought to be respected for 20 years back in the 80’s and 90’s in the environmental department in a chemical plant in south Louisiana. So be it. I do talk up your books when I have the opportunity, so hopefully eventually Book 2 will clear so Book 3 will be worked on.
Best of luck with the sale on the Lowrence Vampires books!
I don’t understand why Hypnos has done so poorly because it’s a great read that I really enjoy. I, personally, would love to have the next book but I do appreciate that it won’t be happening anytime soon. I think being an author must be one of the hardest jobs ever. We, the reader, don’t often appreciate the business and it’s nice to have a more comprehensive understanding of what’s involved.
Yeah, I get it. I’ll probably start working on it on the side as a passion/play project and never give it an actual SLOT, so when it’s done (overtime work, on the side) and it’s finished, I’ll just get it edited, load it in on a short preorder (45 days, let’s me get my ducks in a row for the release), and release it that way. That way, it hurts a little less because I’m not spending a 3 month “in one swoop” period of time to write it. But it’d be overtime, which cuts into my real life/personal time, and I don’t like doing that.
Please don’t cut your personal time for writing as I’d rather wait patiently for a book than have you burn out or quit from not being able to pay the bills or get tired of writing. That said, I’ll continue to wait patiently for the next installment of Jesse Alexander as I love that storyline. Also, I love how you explain the economics of writing as I had no clue until I started following you on Patreon that the stars and reviews mattered that much. So now I Star a book when I finish reading it or check when I reread a story if I have. I normally don’t write reviews though as I’m not very good at that. But your explanations make it much easier to understand the why and how of what gets picked and what doesn’t. So thank you!
You’re welcome!! (All the hearts!)
I enjoy your work and you need to earn a living plus some fun from it. I am backing up my ebooks with paper copies because the explicit notice about buying a license bothers me. Hope the sinus/whatever cleats up soon and you get peaceful neighbors at your new apartment
I noticed the explicit license notice with other changes in the company and ordered all your books in paper. I call them my Apocalyptic Library. I read your titles in every series multiple times as good escapes from stress. Thank you for all your hard work and soaring creativity. I will prepurchase more now that I know it helps. I buy kindle, audible, and paper copies. Paper has longevity, I think; and owning the book past the life of the company who sold it is important to me.
eBooks have always been licensed. Even when you buy it from an author directly, you’re buying a license. Even print books have rules on what you can do with it. (You can’t just copy the book and give the copy away, for example.) The digital licenses are just very explicit about reminding you hey, there are rules, and yeah, you gotta follow them.
I’m honestly surprised so many people were not aware that digital products are licensed.
I knew they were licensed, but lately it feels like the emphasis is a harbinger of changes limiting the license. I had visions of books disappearing from Kindle because of time limits or of discontinued authors. Disruption of the internet could make things tough if books are “medicinal.” So an Apocalyptical Library gives peace of mind. A good tornado could prove how insubstantial that peace really can be.
Yeah, in reality, unless the authors are breaking the law (which is a possibility), you are not very likely at all to lose any of your books.
That shocks me, too. The ‘only a license’ factor kept me away from e-books for a long time. I only came over to the Dark Side to get books I wanted that were not in dead tree format.
Thanks for the insight; it’s very interesting. Snicker … at the comment on superfast ‘editing’ I immediately went to “Butt hew abut a parson haw want too spill chuck too dew it?” And then I started wondering about someone using an AI program for editing; I suspect that would be an amazing kerfuffle. Especially if it were SF/F. Right now I’m laughing because I’m conflating my imagination of that mess with Desi Arnez’ reading of ‘Jabberwocky’.
As an aside, I just had to add Jabberwocky to my laptop’s spell check; it gigged it, and suggested ‘jabberer’ as an alternative.
I have to firstly say I am a huge fan of anything you have written under r.j. Blain and have purchased everything you have written originally through Amazon but I have switched to kobo since I don’t trust Amazon to not delete any of my purchases for whatever reason. I loved Hypnos and I am currently reading partner in crime and plan to work my way through your pseudonyms. I have been irritated by some of the reviews on your with a body count as they are well written, touch on many areas of life and are vastly different from each other unlike some series by other authors where they find a winning format and repeat it with new characters. I love your books and I hope you get to succeed financially on them whilst churning out more for us avid readers of your various works. Thank you for your skill and creativity in what you do, a fan.