Elle Griffin's Substack on the publishing industry, employee-owned companies, and alternative economic models like Mondragon and network states.
HN commenters cite its posts on book economics, such as how few books sell or turn a profit, when discussing why publishing is hard for authors.
This reminds me of numerous pieces I’ve read by authors on why not to try to become an author, like this: https://www.elysian.press/p/publishing-industry-truth
What it boils down to is that these are fields with a supply glut of people and/or product.
My take is: never try to enter such a field unless you really think you have a chance at performing in the top 20% of all entrants in that field. Anything else is a dice roll. A few people get lucky, but statistically it won’t be you.
Discouraging people from trying is a good filter for these fields, since the only people who will ignore such advice is people who really deeply love it or are really driven. Those are the people most likely to ascend to the top 20%. Nobody gets that good at something they aren’t driven to do.
It’s also a way to maybe make things better for people in those fields in the future. If the only people who enter the field are those who are deeply driven, it might cut down on the overpopulation problem.
Edit: some fields are worse than others of course. Glance at up and coming Hollywood actors and actresses for a worst case. Of the ones who are not nepo babies, look into how much work and hustle and luck (combined) it took for them to make it. Most are insanely good looking talented people who started acting as kids and hustled for years and then got lucky. It’s wild.
Physics is not that bad, but it’s not great. Fiction writing might be that bad, especially since the money is less even if someone…
35% of books published are profitable
96% of books sold less than 1,000 copies in 2020
50% sold less than a dozen copies in 2020
This is the state of the industry, publishers publish many books gambling for the hits the make up the vast majority of their revenue.
It is a very cold industry with many authors failing to get readers interested. They best measure of schuss is to have a preexisting readership or be popular elsewhere, and even then that's by no means a guarantee of a books success. And this data is from before AI. The 35% probably undersells it because books like hers probably received no marketing.
[1] https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
Edit: disregard the comment.
Sadly enough, independently wealthy people are virtually the only ones who could actually publish consistently and thus possibly earn something out of the whole endeavour — under the assumption that any single book by an unknown / non-celebrity author has equal probability of being a hit.
Reality seems to be that most books are failures, publishers prefer celebrities as that reduces marketing costs, and they prefer established audiences.
This is a good read on the topic: https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
Publishers are resisting tooth-and-nail a flatrate model. See previously:
"A 'Netflix of Books' would put publishing houses out of business"
https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40119958
You might be interested in the writing at https://substack.com/@ellegriffin by Elle Griffin, who is writing a book https://www.elysian.press/p/we-should-own-the-economy
This tracks with what publishers reported on the economics of books.
https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books