Is there money in… books?

Unidentified: [00:00:03] Stick with him.

Speaker 1: [00:00:05] I will say this about investing in everything you do. What I learned at 20. 

Ed: [00:00:13] And okay. Is there any money in,I mean, so many areas covered. Yeah, so many still to go. If you've got a suggestion. Hit me up on MySpace and hit the lads up on their various instigates tables. 

Alec: [00:00:27] Where big on threads now? 

Ed: [00:00:29] Shut up. Is there anything sadder than Musk versus Zuckerberg? It is every now and again. Even though there how I voice likes to say, even though they're the two of the richest people in the world. Don't show yourselves like this. Show us all. No, don't show us. Mosque and Zuckerberg, Don't let this. Show us that you still just two nerds who suspect that everybody hates them. Don't give yourself away? You've had the hairpiece, Elon. Zuckerberg, you pretending to do jujitsu where everyone has to pretend you're the winner, like Kim Jong un in table tennis. Okay. Don't give yourself away by getting into a spat with another dork so that we all go, Oh, that's right. You just a couple of dorks that everybody hates.

Alec: [00:01:17] Elon today.

Bryce: [00:01:17] I wouldn't want to say it. 

Ed: [00:01:19] The fight or the dick measuring contest. 

Alec: [00:01:22] You say this. Well, I literally proposed a dick measuring contest today. 

Bryce: [00:01:26] What. No, I didn't know. 

Alec: [00:01:27] It's like, come on. 

Ed: [00:01:28] You know, why do you know why you did not? 

Bryce: [00:01:30] That's pathetic?

Ed: [00:01:30] Because it was on Twitter when no one use.

Bryce: [00:01:34] Well, what did he tweet?

Ed: [00:01:36] Oh, it's just it's like it was so it was tragic. It was exactly what I'm saying. It's two dorks like Gates, right? Bill Gates, remember all that stuff came out about his all wild sex parties. And he used to do this, and he used to do that. 

Alec: [00:01:47] Abstention.

Ed: [00:01:49] No bit of everything, but then just sort of mild sort of orgy work, right? And he kept it. He kept cardigans and glasses. He was like not addressing that anyway, about the future smart keeping it low. Whereas these two dorks are just desperate.

Bryce: [00:02:03] Musk is kind of killing his legacy. Yeah, he's. 

Ed: [00:02:07] Why would you like him? What was that? 

Bryce: [00:02:08] He had.

Alec: [00:02:09] SpaceX and Tesla. Like, going to be two of the most profound companies of our lifetime. And there's an argument about how much influence he had and if he just had the right people around him. But the fact of the matter. 

Ed: [00:02:20] Fair enough. They both exist anymore and he is the public facing face all it's like wham! But would there have been wham without Andrew Ridgeley? 

Alec: [00:02:27] Yeah, I don't know. 

Ed: [00:02:28] I don't know. No. 

Alec: [00:02:31] But the thing is, like they were two businesses that a lot of people tried and failed out as well. Okay.

Ed: [00:02:37] All right. No, there's no it's not a no credit situation. It's a. How much is his personality going to ruin? Exactly that. 

Bryce: [00:02:47] That's what. I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. He's just day by day killing. Well, he was. Anyway, let's. Let's talk. We're talking about books. We're talking about books today. 

Ed: [00:02:55] Today we're talking about books. 

Bryce: [00:02:56] Yes. Is there money in books? 

Ed: [00:02:59] Well, I gave a rating at the start. 

Alec: [00:03:01] Okay, Now, we should preface this with I am speaking to two highly respected published authors.

Ed: [00:03:09] And when are they coming in?

Alec: [00:03:12] So I'm looking forward to getting some lived experience from both of you. On one hand, we have Bryce Leske dual publishers to author get started investing and don't stress, just invest available for pre-order or in all good bookstores, depending on what.

Ed: [00:03:28] I've read the other one. Don't stress, just invest. Yeah. You sent me an advance copy. 

Alec: [00:03:35] You actually gave us an endorsement for it.

Ed: [00:03:36] I gave you a quote.

Alec: [00:03:37] We're going to milk that for a dollar. 

Bryce: [00:03:39] What's the difference in endorsement in a quote? 

Ed: [00:03:42] Well, the quotes on the book. 

Alec: [00:03:43] It's an endorsement quote. 

Ed: [00:03:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to. I enjoy using it. 

Alec: [00:03:46] What you have.

Ed: [00:03:46] It's one that I enjoyed. It was a good book. I enjoyed it. [00:03:48][1.9]

Alec: [00:03:48] Thank you

Ed: [00:03:49] That was helpful and useful. I enjoyed it. 

Bryce: [00:03:51] The two things we strive for. 

Alec: [00:03:53] Well, so that's Bryce. But on the other side of the table, we have a dual published author as well, Ed Kavalee. A first time for everything, written with your wife? Yeah. If. And then Daddy's embarrassing. Exploding Party shorts.

Ed: [00:04:08] written with? 

Alec: [00:04:11] a memoir.

Ed: [00:04:11] Written by. 

Alec: [00:04:12] You and your brother. I think.

Ed: [00:04:14] No. My son. Was written by me.

Alec: [00:04:17] I think I didn't expect that as an option. I think his brother or dad. 

Ed: [00:04:21] So the gag was that every person in the public eye has to release a fart book, right? That's it. So yeah. So I said, All right, I'll do one, but I'm going to write one. You only need the mental capacity of a four year old to do it. So I'm going to write one with a four year old. So I got my son. One day I came home and my wife had thrown my gym shorts in the bin because I fought them too much. Right. And my son, four years old at the time, fell about laughing. He couldn't believe it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard in his life. So I just sat down with him one day and said, Let's record what happened to Arnie, to Daddy shorts. And he said, okay. And we recorded it. And here is some of it. 

Audio Clip: [00:05:00] You know. What? Okay, what's the name of the book, Daddy and the Short 

Ed: [00:05:07] Okay, so that goes on. I just transcribed that conversation with my son, sent it to a publisher, we published it and we're doing a sequel. 

Alec: [00:05:15] No.

Ed: [00:05:15] Wow. And the joke I always make is I was unhappy with my initial creative partnership. I didn't think my wife had brought enough, so I brought in my 4 year old son.

Alec: [00:05:23] Well, speaking of celebrities doing thought books, we are in bookTopia is hot. Pre-orders are good right next to Zoe Foster Blake, Big Company Forever and her book Thoughts Favourite Smells a Lift, The Flat Book. 

Ed: [00:05:39] Well, now I'm *bleep*. If they go, I'm coming out then that's. 

Bryce: [00:05:44] A the scratch and sniff. 

Ed: [00:05:45] It. It'll be like that. I'm trying it. Let's try it. Let's. I guess the book, it'll be like so far it likes something that's like cinnamon brought in and this. And then you lift it up and it's a gag because, you know, you got to remember the dark hand of Hamis Blake will be working to help the joke writing in that book. So it's genius. But the doc end of Hamish Blake will be present. 

Alec: [00:06:06] It's also not Zoe's first foray. Some people may have seen her original book. Zoe Foster. Blake, no one likes.

Ed: [00:06:14] When you say someone might have, you mean the hundreds and thousands of people who bought it. Yeah, So they probably saw it. 

Alec: [00:06:19] We don't have kids, so I think we kind of missed some of this. At least for now.

Ed: [00:06:23] Yeah, it's come. It's coming.

Bryce: [00:06:25] Does Andy also have a fart book? 

Ed: [00:06:27] No. Andy has a don't turn this page book. Which has sold millions of copies all around the world. 

Alec: [00:06:33] He was in Italy signing Books. 

Bryce: [00:06:34] And he should turn that into a horror story? Horror movie? 

Ed: [00:06:38] What? 

Bryce: [00:06:39] Don't turn this page. 

Ed: [00:06:40] He's actually getting back to our horror. Yeah, we are. Look, we need to write that horror script. Actually, that's a funny day we set ourselves. We set up a YouTube live stream, and we go, right, We're going to write a horror script in a day and try and sell it. That's a funny but that's a funny idea to say, right? I'm going to spend one day do it. Because I always say, look, you know, this is all joking comedy that, you know, but there's everything else that people in particularly books as well. It's a dramedy. And a dramedy is just a drama with a couple of jokes. But the joke, the joke inside comedy is the hard part. Anyone can write a drama that's the easy bit comedies, the hard bit of that dramedy bit. The reason that they don't call it the comedy is because it is not funny enough. So you call that dramedy. That's the giveaway. And a lot of books that every memoir, a coming of age dramedy going, okay, what? Couldn't write jokes, could you or anyone? I think. 

Alec: [00:07:36] I'm mindful that we're seven and a half minutes in and we haven't even got To my introduction.

Alec: [00:07:41] You got to stop. Saying things that dangle, but dangle. 

Bryce: [00:07:44] Obviously a topic close to. 

Ed: [00:07:46] Dangling

Alec: [00:07:47] So the reason I wanted to introduce the fact that you were both authors at The Star is so it gives some context where I ask this question, both of what do you think out of ten in terms of is there money in books?

Ed: [00:08:00] To not my own experience, but the reality of it and with the other with the caveats that we've often we do pointy end long tail, ten. 

Alec: [00:08:09] You think it's ten out of ten. 

Ed: [00:08:10] They're up. It is possible to be an author and buy a castle. Yes, that is a possibility. It is a possibility to be an author and buy a DeLorean. That is possible. 

Bryce: [00:08:22] It is. But

Ed: [00:08:23] That's ten. 

Alec: [00:08:24] With that Ed told us that he's driving his DeLorean back. 

Bryce: [00:08:31] Sure. I think if you. I think if you take away, like, the top five most successful authors in the world, yet you're back at two. 

Ed: [00:08:38] No, I disagree. 

Alec: [00:08:39] Guys, I don't need you to argue about it. I have all the information that's. You just wanted your side note. I've got a little thesis. If fart books work, maybe we launch a fart podcast. Celebrities farting into the mic. 

Ed: [00:08:54] All right, well, that. 

Bryce: [00:08:56] Is, you've derailed. 

Ed: [00:08:57] It's a different audience, but actually is a very good idea. That's actually very good. 

Alec: [00:09:05] And you have to guess.

Ed: [00:09:06] Then I know. It's only a way.

Alec: [00:09:11] Largest book deal in history. I'm going to start with the answer and then we'll get into the details. No, no, no. So I've split it out. I've got largest single book deal, but I'm going to start this is a multi book deal lot. This is just the headline number of the largest book. 

Ed: [00:09:27] J.K. Rowling to not to do past Harry Potter, the groom with all those other She wants.

Bryce: [00:09:32] It's a politician. 

Alec: [00:09:33] It is not someone right up your alley crime. 

Ed: [00:09:37] Oh James Patterson. 

Alec: [00:09:38] James Patterson. $150 million for 11 adult books and six young adult books. 

Bryce: [00:09:44] So how many have you written before that? 

Bryce: [00:09:51] Yeah. Advance or just to do that's advance. 

Alec: [00:09:53] Yeah. Largest single book deal in history. 

Bryce: [00:09:57] Obama.

Alec: [00:09:58] Now the Obamas, I think have been unfairly traded in this category because Michelle Yeah together for 65 yes. For the total. Harry No, this is equal first.

Bryce: [00:10:10] What.

Alec: [00:10:11] One is being published now this year and the other was published in the early 2000s. 

Ed: [00:10:18] Diana.

Alec: [00:10:19] No. 

Bryce: [00:10:21] Publish now. No. 

Alec: [00:10:26] Bill Clinton's autobiography. 

Bryce: [00:10:28] Okay. 

Alec: [00:10:28] And Britney Spears upcoming book. Each of them got 15 mil. 

Bryce: [00:10:34] Is that it? 

Alec: [00:10:35] For one book. 

Ed: [00:10:36] No, no, that's. That's a Hot story. That's it

Bryce: [00:10:39] That's what I mean. So the spiciness of Britney, like, I feel like.

Alec: [00:10:42] We got one. 

Bryce: [00:10:43] Yeah, I know what we got. Less than one note. Britney Spears. 

Alec: [00:11:02] That's the biggest deal in terms of overall net wealth. There's a few wealthy authors. Well, there's a lot. But in terms of the top ranks. Stephanie Meyer 125 mil. Yeah, not bad, twilight. 

Ed: [00:11:15] Dan Brown But also just 6, 3, 4 books for books for how many for. Yeah. And then nothing. 

Bryce: [00:11:21] ROI.

Ed: [00:11:21] But that's pretty big for it as it has been a phenomenon since.

Alec: [00:11:25] I know I'm going to ask for no commentary on the authors because I've got a long list. Dan Brown 178 mil. Jeffrey Archer 195 mil. Nora Roberts 390. John Grisham 400 million. Stephen King 500 million. Here's the top three. I'll allow commentary again for the podium finishes. Danielle Steel. Does anyone recognise that name? I say I didn't recognise it. $600 million. She is the world's best selling living author in terms of total number of books sold. 

Ed: [00:12:00] If you're in a hotel right now, go to the lobby. Pick one up. It's in there. Trust me. 

Alec: [00:12:05] She's authored more than 180 books and sold more than 800 million copies. Pretty amazing. Number two, James Patterson, 800 million net worth. Authored more than 140 novels sold more than 425 million copies. So not as many as Danielle Steel, but the RPG must be a bit higher. Number one, no prizes for guessing one author. There's a bit of a caveat here. There are people that have written books that have a heap of money, but in terms of people that have made their money from being an author, J.K. Rowling is the only billionaire net worth of $1,000,000,000. Harry Potter and everything since. 600 million copies sold. So not as many as Danielle Steel, but the wealthiest author. 

Ed: [00:12:49] Not to talk about the enormous plot hole in Harry Potter that redeems the whole series. And unreadable. Sure. Ready? Yeah. Right. Let's say you're at Hogwarts. Let's just say you're an ordinary student at Hogwarts. Do you go? Who reads? Which one of you read it? 

Alec: [00:13:02] Oh, we both read.

Ed: [00:13:04] Okay, great. Give me another student at Hogwarts. 

Alec: [00:13:08] Neville Longbottom. 

Ed: [00:13:09] Great. Don't know who that is. Let's just say you are Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom, right? Neville comes home from a term at Hogwarts and they go. How is because it's a boarding school. you had to go. Neville says, What half? Yeah, you're right. But. Sorry. What? Yeah. What's the matter? Oh, no, it's just them. It's just called Harry. And this Wizard was trying to kill him, and these ghosts came and murdered a teacher. And we had to stop classes for, like, four weeks because there was this giant. 

Bryce: [00:13:40] It all happens on time. Dog horse. 

Ed: [00:13:42] That was going to kill us all. And I don't want to go back. Mum and Dad. What fucking school? What fucking educational system allows this to take place and keeps demanding that children show up? If a kid rocks up with some peanut butter in his lunch, the whole place gets sent home. What fucking educational institution are they running? This is what would happen. All of the. Give me another student. 

Bryce: [00:14:10] What's the, Malfoy? 

Ed: [00:14:13] Malfoy? Mr. Malfoy or Mrs. Malfoy would ring up and go. Hey, Mr. Longbottom. Yeah. Hey, did you get the dog thing in the murder? Yeah. We need to do something. They would get together, the parents would rock up and they would say Harry needs to get he expelled to, Oh, my son is going to be murdered like the teacher was. And Dumbledore would be like, But he's the chosen one. We don't give it. He can go to another school, but we are pulling our children. If our son is murdered because of it, because he's got a scar on his forehead. And you reckon he might save us all, we could save us all right now, by expelling that it and he would get his fucking ass kicked out. 

Alec: [00:14:56] Anyway, If your kids go to school with Ed's kids. 

Ed: [00:15:01] But come on. Anyway

Alec: [00:15:02] All right, all right, let's. Let's get this back. This could. This could be a long episode in the end. All right, so that's globally wealthiest authors. Let's zoom in on Australia now. There's not a great resource on the wealthiest authors in Australia. 

Ed: [00:15:17] Barefoot.

Alec: [00:15:18] I've got him. 

Ed: [00:15:19] Barefoot. 

Alec: [00:15:19] So for me, I think he's Australia's best non-fiction. A bestselling non-fiction. 

Ed: [00:15:25] That is what he told me.

Bryce: [00:15:25] Yeah, I thought he was. 

Alec: [00:15:26] Have you met him? 

Ed: [00:15:28] Yeah, lovely guy. And he told me. He told me that himself. 

Alec: [00:15:31] We are trying to get in contact with Anthony. He's impossible. 

Ed: [00:15:34] Yeah, the competition. 

Alec: [00:15:36] We're not trying to compete with him. Trying to just give a comment about our book.

Ed: [00:15:39] He's a great guy. 

Alec: [00:15:41] What do you reckon his net worth is

Ed: [00:15:43] Pippy? 

Alec: [00:15:43] Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:15:46] I don't reckon. Like I say, relative to a lot of those. 

Alec: [00:15:50] No, he doesn't have $1,000,000,000. 

Bryce: [00:15:51] Yeah, I reckon like 20 mil. 

Ed: [00:15:54] It'll say 15 and it'll be heaps more than that. 

Alec: [00:15:56] Well it said between four and seven depending on the source. 

Ed: [00:15:59] Way more. 

Alec: [00:16:00] It's all invested By. Vanguard index funds. Australia's best. 

Ed: [00:16:05] You know, that's what I did with the money for out from my son's portion of the book. I suppose I gave. I checked it into Vanguard and he's trying to get it out to buy Lego. And I say he can't have it, mate. [00:16:15][9.8]

Alec: [00:16:15] Yeah, Good. 

Ed: [00:16:16] That's what I did. 

Alec: [00:16:17] But that's good. That's good. You have been listening to our podcast. 

Ed: [00:16:20] I do listen to on speed two. 

Alec: [00:16:27] I think from what I could find, Tim Winton is a best selling author. 

Ed: [00:16:31] Yeah. 

Alec: [00:16:33] 5 million.

Ed: [00:16:33] Now, what about Matthew? The Elliot, The guy, The ice. May Ice. Matthew. Riley. Riley. Sorry, Riley.

Alec: [00:16:38] I don't think. I don't think he's sold as much as Tim Winton maybe has, but. 

Ed: [00:16:42] I think he's got more international sales. He owns a DeLorean. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:16:48] I do feel sorry for Matthew Riley because it feels like he's been living in LA for about 15 years, and he's got so close to making his books, movies so many times. Disney optioned Hobbit, Car Racer, a few others. 

Ed: [00:16:59] He did an interview recently where he talked about that finally got one made where he was able to direct it on Netflix. 

Alec: [00:17:05] But it wasn't one of his books. 

Ed: [00:17:07] No, another story. But anyway, fair play to him. 

Alec: [00:17:10] Somewhere between five and 20 million net worth. 

Ed: [00:17:13] Right after the source. 

Alec: [00:17:14] So again, like, even if you're just playing in Australia or if you're an Australian author, that then expands overseas. There's money in books. Yeah, you can build wealth as an author. 

Ed: [00:17:25] You haven't mentioned Andy. 

Alec: [00:17:27] Andy Leigh. 

Ed: [00:17:28] He has sold so many books.

Alec: [00:17:31] The challenges would just. 

Ed: [00:17:32] Be hard for him to work out which money came from. 

Alec: [00:17:34] Yeah, that was a tough problem to have, is now I might. 

Ed: [00:17:39] Well, don't do. That's crazy. Millions of copies. Yeah, Well, what? Yep. Wow. Unbelievable.

Alec: [00:17:44] Has Hamish written a book? 

Ed: [00:17:46] Uh, yeah. I think he helped with one of the one time for bad. I think of him and Zoe, one of their kids books. They wrote one together. But, yeah 

Bryce: [00:17:54] I'm just looking at Hamish Blake. He's written one with Zoe called Textbook Romance. 

Ed: [00:17:57] Oh, no, That was a long ages ago. What else?

Alec: [00:18:00] We've moved on from that movie anyway. 

Bryce: [00:18:02] Right. 

Alec: [00:18:03] All right, so there is money in books. Let's talk about how it is distributed. Yes. The size of Australia's book market. $1.3 billion worth of books sold in 2022. Audiobooks add in audiobooks and you get to just shy of 1.7 billion. 

Ed: [00:18:20] Love that growth. I love that growth. As you know, as an avid audiobook guy, one of the best investments you can make is a monthly audible subscription. It is. So the value is unbelievable. 

Alec: [00:18:32] As much as I hate it because there's an opportunity cost with podcasting every time you listen to an audiobook. I tend to agree. 

Ed: [00:18:37] I disagree because you're on your phone, you're listening,. 

Bryce: [00:18:39] And Barefoot also has the best selling Audible book in Australia. 

Ed: [00:18:43] He's good. 

Alec: [00:18:45] All this free publicity. We're giving him short replies to our emails now. 

Bryce: [00:18:48] No no. We got a reply from him, he said No, no, seriously. Most recently he's like, I'm just totally out. 

Ed: [00:18:54] Was you try to get him to try and get him to read your book. 

Bryce: [00:18:56] No, no. We're trying to get to, anyway. 

Ed: [00:19:01] Yeah. No, that's too much. You're asking too much the guy to read a book. Yes, he does. If I've got time. He doesn't have time. Show him some credit. You don't have time for that. 

Alec: [00:19:09] I also asked if he would come on the podcast when he was doing that school's TV show. Got the flick there as well.

Ed: [00:19:16] You know what? I can't help you out.

Alec: [00:19:21] All right. Anyway, books. Hey, 17.9 million units sold in 2012. That 9.5 million of which was sold in the four weeks leading up to Christmas.

Ed: [00:19:34] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Love it.

Alec: [00:19:38] Yeah. E-books account for an average of 11% of total sales for major Australian publishers.

Ed: [00:19:44] Aren't going anywhere. Those things I'm sorry, they've reached their point. I don't, the e-book I've tried the e-read, it's tough. 

Alec: [00:19:51] I'm a big Kindle guy. 

Ed: [00:19:51] Good. Okay. 

Bryce: [00:19:53] You mean a book? As in Kindle? I'm a kindle guy too. 

Alec: [00:19:57] Two reasons why I love it. Number one, travelling. You can travel all the Books. And number two, if you're reading in bed, you don't have to have the lamp on so it doesn't kiss your partner off. 

Bryce: [00:20:06] Yeah. And you don't need a bookmark. Never lose your spot. True. Highlight things anyway. 

Alec: [00:20:11] Anyway, Amazon sent us the check for that. According to the Australian Publishing Association, the industry sells around 56 million books a year. Now, question for both of you. If you want to play closest to the pen, how many new titles are published annually just from Australian authors? So not foreign books coming to Australia? 

Ed: [00:20:32] 10,000. 

Bryce: [00:20:34] Yeah. 10,000 is a hell of a lot. I'd go five and a half. 

Alec: [00:20:42] From a half thousand.

Ed: [00:20:43] 22,000, mine felt low. 

Bryce: [00:20:47] Why didn't you go higher. 

Ed: [00:20:51] And 21,000 of those are.

Bryce: [00:20:55] I own 20,000 new titles every year. Every year in Australia. In Australia there's no money in books. 

Alec: [00:21:01] Well we'll get to that because the title is that. So just to close out my stats bonanza, around 3700 people are employed in the Australian publishing industry. So, you know, over $1,000,000,000 in sales a year. Tens of thousands of new titles published each year, a lot of thousands of people employed. There's an industry here, there's money in this. So the question is where does it go? And to help us visualise it, I'm going to take a $30 book and talk about how the money would be nice. So let's start with what goes to the author. On average it's about 10% of the RRP regular recommended retail price goes to the author unless you negotiated a better deal. This is a game, right? So 10% goes to the author. So that's about three bucks of a $30 book. 20% of the cost of the book is in the materials. Now that that is a there's a pretty broad range between you know a few percent to up to you know or like for 40. 

Ed: [00:22:04] On the length of that time or that you put pitches inside that. 

Alec: [00:22:10] Even like the paper size. Which the quality of the paper. Yes so but the average sort of middle range that I found was about 20%, so about six bucks of the book of a $30 book Is In materials, 5% is in warehousing and freight. So actually storing and transporting the book is quite expensive. That's about a dollar 50 of the book goes to that. Now 20% goes to the publisher and that pays for the publisher's overhead, that pays for staff lots, all of that stuff. And then finally that leaves 45%, which goes to the bookseller. Now. So that's about $13.50. But keep in mind, book retail is a very tough business. Yeah, I know you'll often say, Oh are everywhere these days. Books marked down from the RRP. Yeah, that is all coming out of the booksellers margin. 

Bryce: [00:23:07] All you need to know as an author, if you thinking about this is the first number.

Alec: [00:23:11] The three dollars. 

Bryce: [00:23:12] None of them mount, none of the other numbers matter. 

Alec: [00:23:14] Yeah, well, let's let's zoom in on the author because that's the most interesting part. Yeah, The price. How much money did we make from get started investing? 

Bryce: [00:23:22] I can't disclose. We'll get that done by the tax guys. 

Alec: [00:23:25] What I can disclose is that we made about three bucks a book because we were what, 29, 95 RRP, and. 

Bryce: [00:23:31] Now we actually get a little bit higher than that Ren. 

Alec: [00:23:35] Because we've sold over a certain amount.

Bryce: [00:23:36] Yeah, Yeah. I think we get about 3.50. 

Alec: [00:23:39] Yeah, Yeah. So we had a kick after we became a bestseller. 

Bryce: [00:23:43] 12%. 

Alec: [00:23:43] New York Times best seller. 

Bryce: [00:23:44] Yeah. 

Alec: [00:23:46] I'm just saying to see your reaction. So how about you, Ed. 

Ed: [00:23:52] It now I got, I'm an advanced type of guy. I'm like, gimme, gimme it up front. And kids books are slightly different and we'll see how we go and then royalties, whatever. But my wife has seven books out. No way. My wife has published seven books. And every now and again I'll go, Dar Yeah, you got three bucks. She's like coolies there. Every now and again. You do get a check. 

Bryce: [00:24:20] Yeah, Yeah.

Ed: [00:24:20] For a few box muscles and you got. That's a nice little surprise.

Alec: [00:24:24] So here's the thing with that. A lot of people might think a book, you know, they might have dreams of Scot Pate that their book is a forever long tail of royalties. Not the case. On average, 90% of an author's royalties come in the first 90 days. 

Ed: [00:24:40] Yeah, and imagine.

Bryce: [00:24:43] That's not our case. 

Ed: [00:24:44] What was the highest selling book of 1986? No one knows. Probably. But. But you know what I mean? Like there are decades of bestselling novels that would never have been read since. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:24:56] Mm hmm. And you think about them less now because of Amazon and book type here and stuff like that. But the traditional bookselling window was you had shelf space for a while, and unless you kept going, you got delisted. Yep. Yeah. So does it feel like every book is a bestseller or a New York Times bestseller? 

Ed: [00:25:13] Well, there's a way to game that system. Yes, There's a bit of controversy about how release date units shipped versus units sold. I'm looking at you, Prince Harry, where there's always I've there's been a bit of a scandal about how one might end up on said list. 

Alec: [00:25:31] There was also a court case and I didn't write down the name of the book, but an author actually sued The New York Times that was suppressing. 

Ed: [00:25:39] It was a conservative. I remember this. There was a conservative commentator that should have easily been on top of this list. New York Times did not want to promote this person, so found ways of chicanery to not let them on and they took them to court. 

Alec: [00:25:52] They basically said it's a curated list. 

Ed: [00:25:55] That's right. Yeah. And they had to come out and say, All right, you got us.

Alec: [00:25:58] Well, no, I think The New York Times won the case. 

Ed: [00:26:00] Yeah, but didn't they have to admit that they were. Yeah, you're right. Different metrics used. 

Alec: [00:26:05] Yeah. And then even within that, there's a lot of books that become New York Times bestsellers. And this little clip. Explain why. 

Audio Clip: [00:26:13] Why does it feel like every book you hear about is a New York Times bestseller? They can't all be bestsellers. Right. The word best is reserved for one individual thing. Well, surprise, surprise, the name is very misleading. The New York Times ranks books in a lot of different categories: non-fiction, children's books, middle school books, biographies, how to choose ebooks. And they even distinguish between hardcovers and paperbacks because, you know, that totally makes a lot of difference. Lots of less means, less competition in each specific genre, which means books can make it onto the bottom of one of those lists with as little as 10,000 total sales. The authors get to call their book a bestseller, and The New York Times gets to be the de facto authority on book ranking, which means that they make a lot of money from people purchasing books from the affiliate links on their website. A New York Times decent seller in one very specific genre just doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Alec: [00:27:07] So the question is, if you become a bestseller, do you think that means you've made money from your book? 

Bryce: [00:27:14] I was thinking this. No. 

Ed: [00:27:16] I'm going to go with. No. And before we wrap up, I've got my favourite stat about free books online turning into money, which is the one I always go to in these situations. 

Alec: [00:27:29] Yeah, that is a good one. Do you want to tell us now? Don't leave it as a cliff-hanger. 

Ed: [00:27:33] Do you guys know it? 

Alec: [00:27:34] Yeah. 

Ed: [00:27:35] Have I told you before? 

Bryce: [00:27:36] Yeah. 

Alec: [00:27:36] I think. 

Ed: [00:27:37] Yeah. How many times was Twilight fan fiction? About S&M bondage downloaded before she took it back off the Internet, changed the names of just the characters and turned it into 50 Shades of Grey. How many times was that downloaded before she got a publishing deal?

Bryce: [00:27:56] Wasn't it like 100 million? Yeah, it was.

Ed: [00:27:58] It's a million and counting. But still, there's. I've written some fanfiction. Get it down. Change Bella and Edward to whatever and whatever and repackage back out it goes. Unbelievable.

Alec: [00:28:11] Yeah, it's crazy. So getting to the bestseller question, please. The short answer is no. Like a lot of bestsellers, don't make any money. Wow. In Australia, depending on the time of year, the publishing rule of thumb is between 6010 thousand makes you about 6000 because it's all relative. Like 6000 in the middle of winter. Not selling 10,000 in the lead up right before Christmas. Based on our ease of maths, before $30, RRP $3 a book. If you sold 10,000 copies, you're a best seller. You've made $30,000. 

Bryce: [00:28:52] Not going to cut it. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:28:54] Now that's a best. And keeping in mind that not on average, 90% of your royalties come in the first 90 days. So it's not like that. 30,000 is recur. 

Ed: [00:29:03] Let's change my answer, please. No. 

Alec: [00:29:07] But let's take a step. Let's take a step back from bestsellers and just think about the average book. So jumping over the US bigger market, but more books. The American Book Trade Association says that the average book sells 500 copies.

Ed: [00:29:22] Holy moly. 

Alec: [00:29:24] Yeah. And so $503 a book, 1500 bucks. 

Ed: [00:29:29] Are you kidding? 

Alec: [00:29:30] No. 

Ed: [00:29:31] I self-published a book on Amazon as a way out of spite. So HUGHESY said you can't write a novel. I said I can. So I went and wrote a true crime scrawl, which is half novel, half script comedy based on six true crimes that I found on the Internet and then wove them into a narrative and then presented it to him. If you can write a novel and then put it up on Amazon and then didn't tell anyone, and I don't know why I did that, and I just remembered that I did that. 

Alec: [00:30:06] Is it still is epic? Is it still up today? 

Ed: [00:30:08] It's called Six Legs and it's.

Alec: [00:30:11] Happy to share the link.

Ed: [00:30:12] Yeah, well, it's probably the best thing I've ever done. I spent the most time on it just so I could say yes, I can and didn't do anything with it. 

Alec: [00:30:19] I feel there's an element of spite in a lot of the things that you're doing in publishing the easy novel and the celebrity fart books. 

Ed: [00:30:28] Well, no, no, that one is more How can I get in on some of these action? And also, if I'm going to have to give my son some sort of nest egg, can someone else pay for it and get he earned it that go. 

Alec: [00:30:39] Alright, so I've got a fair few starts, so let's just keep rolling. So in America the average of 500 books sold, so the average author not doing too well. Macquarie University in 2015, back here in Australia, did a study on the Australian book industry called Authors, Publishers and Readers in a Time of Change. As part of that, they surveyed more than a thousand Australian authors. The average income across those thousand authors $12,900. 

Ed: [00:31:06] Okay, we're going to need another job. 

Bryce: [00:31:08] No money in it. 

Alec: [00:31:09] In the US, it's a similar story. So in 2018, the Authors Guild surveyed 5067 authors. The median income in 2017 was $6,080, with just 3100 of that being from book income allowed as a as opposed to like speaking fees, teaching book reviews, that kind of stuff.

Ed: [00:31:33] Delivering over eight. Oh, my God. 

Alec: [00:31:37] Have you guys heard of Jim Hines? Jim Ray Hines. He's a sci-fi author. Okay, So he's he publishes his income every year. I think he's been doing it since about 2007. So he's very public with how much he makes. He does. All right. He's got a bit of a cult following. But in 2016, he sort of used the platform he has built to survey 400 authors' income and publish that result. And it just illustrates the disparity in earnings when it comes to authors. The average was $114,000 a year, but the median was 17,000. 

Ed: [00:32:13] Where it is. And there it is. It's all easy. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:32:18] Yeah. So it's just that the high earners just dragged the average so higher. 

Ed: [00:32:22] And this is the creative industry is bad luck. I have no I'm not crying poor for anyone and everyone knows the gig. Yeah. If people buy the book you are rich. If they don't, you ain't. Yeah. The end. 

Alec: [00:32:32] Yeah, that's it. 

Bryce: [00:32:33] You just need to know that 3%, that's when it's not. 

Ed: [00:32:35] Yeah, you're right. That's right. 

Alec: [00:32:37] Yeah, it's three bucks. 

Bryce: [00:32:38] Yeah. Walk away.

Alec: [00:32:39] Now, here's the thing. The three bucks can be improved by doing one thing, cutting the publisher out. And so.

Ed: [00:32:46] I knew. I knew you're going to do this. 

Bryce: [00:32:48] I disagree that I was thinking about. That's only a 20% saving. 

Alec: [00:32:51] Well, I'm going to talk to them. 10% was the number with a publisher. The $3 it, depending on how you do it, between 40 and 60% is what you take if you self-publish. But distribution is near impossible. So some examples of people that have made incredible amounts of money from self-publishing. Dambulla, Zarian Bryce's idol, and David Goggins So you know, they have. Yeah, distribution. 

Ed: [00:33:16] Yeah. Okay. So they've built. Yeah, and fair enough too. They've built the platform to say, Come and get it.

Alec: [00:33:24] So let's say you wanted to make $100,000 a year as an author. Apparently the average book RRP is 16.99. So with a publisher, you'd need to sell 58,858 books. If you self-published, you need to find your own distribution channels. But just sell 11,771 books. Either way, to make $100,000 a year, you have to be a best seller. 

Ed: [00:33:49] Wow.

Alec: [00:33:49] And given that 90% of those royalties come in the first 90 days, you need to be knocking out a bestseller every year. 

Bryce: [00:33:55] Yeah, you just have to keep writing.

Alec: [00:33:57] Now, people would ask, What about the movie deal? That's how you make money. And there are some examples of people that have made a lot of money. EL James was paid 5 million for the 50 Shades trilogy. J.K. Rowling got a heap of money. But that isn't the norm for most authors. Even if their books go very well, they don't get points on the back end. They get paid a small amount quickly. I'll give you a quick few. Ian Fleming. James Bond was paid $50,000 in 1961. It made over $1,000,000,000 at the box office. Peter Benchley, who wrote Jaws, was paid $250,000. Not bad. 

Ed: [00:34:34] That's actually a lot. 

Alec: [00:34:35] But Jaws went on to make 430.

Ed: [00:34:37] But that's still a lot in 1976. 

Alec: [00:34:39] True, true, true. The author of Forrest Gump, Winston Groom, was paid $350,000. [

Ed: [00:34:44] However, the term Hollywood accounting came back into vogue because in order to not pay him any extra points, they tried to claim that Forrest Gump lost money. The movie.

Alec: [00:34:57] Oh, yes, he was Pretty. He was pretty much signed by Hollywood. He actually had a sequel called Gump and co-wrote that. He refuses to sell. 

Ed: [00:35:08] But that's why. 

Alec: [00:35:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the example, you know, Jurassic Park. Michael Crichton? He got 1.5 mil. Not bad. So that went on to make a billion. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Devil Wears Prada. 

Ed: [00:35:19] But Michael Crichton, also a script, was based on a script he wrote when he was a medical student. Oh, so he's. He's got it all. Yeah, right. So that. But that's what I mean. The television show would have made way more money than Jurassic Park. Where is he? I don't know if he's got a cut of that. 

Alec: [00:35:36] Yeah. So I think that's the takeaway. Like, as an author, it's really hard to make money. And then people say, Oh, well, you get the Netflix deal, you get the movie deal, but it's really hard to negotiate and say it's going to be very successful. Like in hindsight, these are very success and they. 

Ed: [00:35:51] Play on that

Alec: [00:35:52] Yeah, but you got to negotiate before it's made. So let's close the question, 1 to 10. What do you reckon as an author? 

Bryce: [00:36:01] I mean, I still stay, I think I said at the start one and I will categorically always tell someone who wants to write a book. If you're only doing it to try and make a living, don't do it. 

Alec: [00:36:09] Yeah, I'll do it. 

Ed: [00:36:10] I'm at one, but I'm at one with a huge asterisk, which is if you're thinking about doing it, do it. Put it online for free, see if anyone cares. And if they do, keep doing it. And one day you could be a hashtag, millionaire. Because the audience will tell you if anyone shit. All right. Thank you.