Royalties may be the sticking point, but they don't have to be.
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In a recent post, I asked for people's opinions about a new promotion I'm trying to get jump started. The concept is rather simple though scary to some. I would publish a bunch of novels in an anthology. My marketing fee and other advertising fees, such as expensive blog tours, would be paid for by royalties. Because of the amount of promotion involved, there would be little if anything left over for authors.
That begs the question...
Are authors getting a raw deal?
Some think so, and one comment on the recent poll alluded to such: "No royalties is the sticking point unless the book is already free."
Submitting a book that is already free would be one obvious circumstance where Masquerade Megapacks would make a big impact. There's no royalties to worry about.
But it isn't the only situation that could be useful for this type of promotion.
How so?
This is where a cost analysis is very useful. I can scream until I am blue in the face that this idea means free promotion, but how much are we talking about?
What would it cost if all
royalties went to the authors?
I've blogged about this before, but let's change the scenario a bit. Let's say there are 5 authors in an anthology. Each one gets a promo for their book in the anthology, plus other posts on the site, such as guest posts, top ten lists, and other blog tour type posts. In other words, they get lots of coverage on this site.
In the previous scenario I said this was worth about $50. That's a good number to start with, but it doesn't include doing other promos for other books by the author. Perhaps the book in the anthology is just the first one in a series. A promo or two for the others could certainly be used to not only promote the anthology, but those books specifically. Two book promos would cost $50.
So, the author would pay me $100 to promote 3 of their books, plus gain access to my site for guest posts and other blog tour type posts. (The number of which has yet to be determined)
But that doesn't include paying for the anthology's cover or for the formatting of the anthology itself.
You may think that I am over compensating my fee, but there is a lot of work involved. I've formatted a few ebooks, for instance, and if you want to do it right, it takes time along with checks and double checks. It isn't something I would throw in simply because you are buying promotion.
But let's not throw that in to the scenario—instead, it is included due to the number of authors involved. But we do need to add $25 an author for a really nice, attention-grabbing cover, which brings us to a total of $125 for each author.
Are you really losing royalties?
If your book is free, submit it. You save $125 at the gate.
If you make less than $125 in royalties in the time-span that the anthology will be put up for sale (such as 3 or 6 months), submit your book. You gain more than you lose. (Not to mention a few people might buy your book separately, not knowing about the anthology.)
If you make more than $125 in that same time period, then you have to consider what the promotion might be worth.
The point is this: if you are already making money from your novel, this promotion may not be for you.
It's the same concept many authors use to decide if they are going to put their book into the Kindle Select program. If they aren't making money from other retailers, many decide to go for it since they have little to lose, and possibly some to gain.
But $125 isn't really accurate.
I didn't include numbers for a Masquerade Book Tours blog tour and one from a third party, such as Xpresso Book Tours. Two expensive tours from them would cost $510. Let's round up to $525 since I or DeeJay will be doing all the leg work with the third party tour. You don't have to lift a finger (except maybe to provide guest post material).
$525 divided by 5 authors is $105, which is a total of $230 per author. (Adding my fee of $125)
In the end, though, the lack of royalties doesn't have to be the sticking point. The amount of promotion can be the springboard.
Weigh in on this topic HERE.
