Sunday, October 16, 2011
Swapping Fiction for Nonfiction
I've given this a lot of thought, and I've pretty much made up my mind. High Country Killers, the Western historical fiction book I've started on, may be my last piece of fiction writing.
And I bet you're wondering why.
The market.
Suspense and mystery writers are a dime a dozen, and it's come to my attention that so are Western writers. But that's not the real reason, because my books do sell, and often sell well. The problem is, the effort involved in selling them is far greater than the money I make from all that expenditure of time and energy.
I'll be even more honest, I've seen nonfiction titles fly out of my publisher's warehouse. That would primarily include Rusty Richards' Casey Tibbs - Born to Ride and Becky Coffield's Life Was A Cabaret. Now there are two books that are total opposites. One is a biography of a rodeo star, and the other is a sailing memoir, yet both books sell extremely well. There are probably 10 vendors who sell the Casey Tibbs book, and there used to be that many who sold the sailing book. Both titles sell extremely well as ebooks, also.
Now, I will be the first to acknowledge that my titles sell pretty darn well, especially on amazon and kindle. And when my publisher does a book event we rack up great sales, especially with Saving Tom Black and Apache. But
other than amazon, there are only two small vendors who stock and sell my books.
My publisher has assured me it has nothing to do with the books. The problem is the price of the books, which have all been published POD. POD is expensive unless a ton of copies are ordered, therefore the price has to be high, and the books simply cannot compete with the mass market Westerns. Consumers don't seem to care that much about paper quality, cover design, etc. Can't say as I blame them in today's economy.
Nonfiction, however, can command it's fair price and get it!
The problem arises because I don't see anything in nonfiction that I'm willing to commit a mountain of time to researching. Patience is not my forte, and research requires patience and time. I know this just from the research I've had to do with my own titles. The enticing Western subjects have been written into the grave: Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Kit Carson, etc. etc. etc. You see what I'm saying.
I have a three book contract with Moonlight Mesa. I'll finish High Country Killers, but I'm not sure I'll do any more Westerns. My contract with Moonlight Mesa does not specify Westerns...I'll just have to think on this some more. I'll just have to see if anything inspires me!
Meanwhile, hope to see someone over at Cave Creek Western Days the first weekend in November. Stop by and say hello...and buy a book while you're there, too!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
ReplyDeleteThank you, your article is very good
viagra asli
jual viagra
toko viagra
toko viagra asli
jual viagra asli
viagra jakarta
viagra asli jakarta
toko viagra jakarta
jual viagra jakarta
agen viagra jakarta
agen viagra
cialis asli
cialis jakarta
cialis asli jakarta
titan gel asli
titan gel jakarta
titan gel asli jakarta
viagra cod jakarta
obat viagra jakarta
obat viagra asli
viagra usa
viagra original
obat viagra
obat kuat viagra
jual cialis
toko cialis
obat cialis
obat cialis asli
obat kuat cialis
obat cialis jakarta
toko cialis jakarta
jual cialis jakarta
agen cialis jakarta
toko titan gel
jual titan gel
vitamale asli
permen soloco asli
maxman asli
hammer of thor
vimax asli
viagra
titan gel
hammer of thor asli
I just started to read your western series books and really enjoyed them. I just recently finished Gunslingers Justice and been left hanging and in the last pages it indicated there are two more books as of 2015 and I can only find one Gunslingers Revenge, is that true because I would like to read more, you got me hooked, don't stop. Please let me know if there are more out there and where I can buy them. Thank you for the suspense and don't stop writing.
ReplyDelete