All of the comments so far are about the author’s cut. This is the second book he’s written, with the same situation. Clearly it’s worth it to him. You should just consider it a hobby project, and he’s giving readers the option to get a full color print copy of the book.
The first book, Game Engine Black Book Wolfenstein 3D is fantastic. This goes back to an era where one person can read the source code for a game and understand what it actually is doing at the hardware level. It would be fantastic for an entry level computer science class or someone who just wants to understand how a game engine works. The exhaustive color illustrations and images, the reason why the author makes no money, make is so much easier to grasp the concepts. If you are an experienced developer or someone who can understand complex topics just by reading text and formulas, the this isn’t such a big deal.
Such a good writer. His Wolfenstein book had the best explanation I’ve ever seen for how floating point numbers are encoded, and that explanation is in the first several pages. If you don’t have an understanding of floating point encoding, that alone is worth the purchase price.
Suppose that he is a great author and also doesn't want to make any money off of this.
This sort of project has got to be hard to justify when people like him have competing interests and projects available. What if his third book takes an extra 2 years because he can't justify the time to work on it?
How many well-meaning, potentially great authors have we lost to other careers because of these economics?
Being transparent about pricing is working against you. If I want to pay $54 for a book and I know only $0.77 are going to you, I'm simply not going to buy it.
The production costs might be reasonable, but $20+ to Amazon just for existing? Fuck that. I mean I use Amazon when I know their margins are razor thin (for most things they are), but in this case, big nope here.
EDIT 2: I sent a direct email to the author asking if he could place a direct buy link on the page, or if I could directly send him some money for the book.
I’m extremely confused and curious as to why on Earth the author simply didn’t place a PDF on their site with a PayPal (or less evil alternative) button on his site.
I personally absolutely refuse to purchase it knowing that Amazon is taking all of the Author’s money.
I actually think it’s detrimental to display that data - as it seems it’s not just myself that seems less likely to purchase based off that data.
Instead of many of the comments here being about the staggering loss the authour is taking by not following this simple route, at $10-20 a PDF we could all be discussing the contents of the book, instead.
Hopefully the author sees this and can make some sensible decisions for themselves - from what I hear their last book was fantastic.
EDIT: To the author: if I see a direct buy link on your page I will buy two copies within the day, as it seems that even $5-10 profit off two sales at $10-20 would provide you as much as up to 15 sales. I’m in the music business. I get slim royalties and I get how much effort we put into art.
You can buy the Google Play version for which authors get 55%. The PDF is DRM free so you can read it anywhere and I don't have to take care of billing/hosting.
The reality is even worse than what this graph suggests. From the $1.59 royalty only $0.77 stay with the author (the rest is tax), but the $0.77 are barely any profit if you account for the cost of human labour that went into writing this book in the first place. Depending on how many copies he'll sell through Amazon I think it's likely that the time spent on writing this book could have earned him more by cleaning the floor at McDonalds, which is a really sad state of affairs.
Books on technical topics establish authority and are incredibly useful for advancing your career. They open doors and teach you how to tackle big personal projects. Your dollar for dollar analysis is probably close, but isn’t the whole picture.
At this point the ethical thing to do is to pirate the book and donate the money to the author. Like, if I were him, I would just put the PDF up on the pirate bay with a link to my patreon.
Edit: I see it's also on Google Books, which I presume has a more ethical paying structure. Sadly, that's not available in my corner of the EU yet.
It's probably something the author has thought of. As soon as you take payment you enter into a world of pain. Stolen credit cards, suspended Paypal accounts, technical support, requests for different formats.
Perhaps the author prefers making books to maximizing the amount of money he makes?
Anyone with experience selling content on SendOwl? I have bought digital goods from sellers using its service a couple of times, as a customer it was hassle-free.
I have no idea what Amazon has got to do with his money... he didn't self-publish, he sold through a publisher (though an indie one). What did he expect? I'm amazed he made as much as he did ($12K).
I'm quite sure it's a great book. But like I'm really impressed for the first thing this book has taught me and it's not about games... It's just unbelievable how much money Amazon makes selling books!
I went on to a publisher site to buy ebook because kindle version is not available, and during checkout I was thrown out because mysterious error message.
Yeah, I know this is becoming common and online markets are a race to a bottom, but in stark numbers like this...it really feels like there isn't a good ending to this story.
It's huge, especially considering how much pushback Apple gets for charging app developers "only" 30%. Really shows how little leverage book publishers have today.
I don't know where he is getting his pricing. I can do an 8.5x11 400 page color perfect bound for a print cost of $16.31. Using a list of $30 and Amazon/B&N (ie, online retailer) distribution wholesale discount of 30% gives author $4.69 per copy.
(I have no idea what size author intends, if he has it in 6x9 trade size cost is even lower)
I bet he’s only looking at POD. He could get a lot less if he did an offset run but then he has to manage warehousing books for an indefinite amount of time.
I am baffled at the amount how much the author makes from each book. 31$ production costs seem high but since it's 427 full-colored pages it seems reasonable. However, how come Amazon takes 22$ dollars on top of that? There is no way it's that expensive to distribute the book, there must be some other services involved?
Although the pricing seems weird, the pie chart shown on the page is even more so. How it's possible that Amazon is most of the pie with 40% percentage?
> The result is $1.59 royalty and $0.77 profit per book sold.
That's brutal. I mean I get it that production and distribution is costly (books are heavy), but only taking a 77 cent profit on one year of work seems insane.
What does the breakdown usually look like for e-books?
>Here are all the numbers. When I upload the PDF on Amazon, a minimal price is automatically calculated. In the case of the DOOM, Amazon sets the minimal price at $51.35. There is a slider which authors can use in order to add their "share" on top of Amazon price. I have added $3.88 which Amazon also takes a cut on. The result is $1.59 royalty and $0.77 profit per book sold.
I didn't understand this part either. Wouldn't charging $59.99 sustainably increase the author's profit?
I applaud Fabiens' work. I have been following since his blog days on the source code analysis of games and I'm so happy he's writing books on the matter. I will fully support him going forward.
However, the first edition of the Wolfenstein Black Book left me a bit miffed. It had many grammatical errors and even some layout awkwardness that would not pass an editor's review. I understand the reasons: English is not his first language, this was a work of passion, etc. But it still mars the experience. I assume the second edition fixed those; I wish I had waited.
I've been eagerly waiting for his book on Doom. But I recommend waiting for the second edition, once he had time to take the readers' feedback into account.
What do you guys think of a kickstarter for his next book?
He sets a funding goal that achieves profit for him and then people can pledge $10 for an e-book, $25 for b&w or $50 for color.
This way he gets to hold onto the intellectual property until he has cleared his goal and make the prints of the books a limited time offer which could drive up their demand.
This doesn’t seem like a bad idea! This way he can gauge demand and proceed working accordingly. The price could also be set at something reasonable which makes it available to the casual reader and not at a $99 price tag that would probably only be purchased by die hard fans.
You can upload it to peecho.com, according to their website printing and shipping would be about 50USD in full color. So setting the same 55USD as Amazon would give you a 5USD profit (instead of the 77cents).
Very happy to see this published. I bought the book on Wolfenstein 3D and read every single word of it even though I don't much care for Wolf3D - the book is inherently interesting.
I immediately ordered the physical version. It's a pity that the profit is so incredibly low. I'd consider just selling it for $69 or $99 or whatever. I'm not sure it would make such a difference in term of sales - the people who can read this book are in a very nice industry after all. The PDF can be sold at a much higher margin for accessibility for those who really can't pay for the physical book.
Apparently the Amazon low margin strategy doesn't count for their book sales... that is absolutely brutal! Wouldn't it make more sense for the author to sell the book directly on his website as well?
[+] [-] AJ007|7 years ago|reply
The first book, Game Engine Black Book Wolfenstein 3D is fantastic. This goes back to an era where one person can read the source code for a game and understand what it actually is doing at the hardware level. It would be fantastic for an entry level computer science class or someone who just wants to understand how a game engine works. The exhaustive color illustrations and images, the reason why the author makes no money, make is so much easier to grasp the concepts. If you are an experienced developer or someone who can understand complex topics just by reading text and formulas, the this isn’t such a big deal.
Can’t wait to read this new book.
[+] [-] jankins|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mysterydip|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jammygit|7 years ago|reply
This sort of project has got to be hard to justify when people like him have competing interests and projects available. What if his third book takes an extra 2 years because he can't justify the time to work on it?
How many well-meaning, potentially great authors have we lost to other careers because of these economics?
[+] [-] sharken|7 years ago|reply
I do wonder if there are other books that give detailed insight into commercial software (not games) and how it is built.
[+] [-] vahji|7 years ago|reply
The production costs might be reasonable, but $20+ to Amazon just for existing? Fuck that. I mean I use Amazon when I know their margins are razor thin (for most things they are), but in this case, big nope here.
[+] [-] OberstKrueger|7 years ago|reply
Doesn't beat having a paper book though, if that's your thing.
[+] [-] lostgame|7 years ago|reply
I’m extremely confused and curious as to why on Earth the author simply didn’t place a PDF on their site with a PayPal (or less evil alternative) button on his site.
I personally absolutely refuse to purchase it knowing that Amazon is taking all of the Author’s money.
I actually think it’s detrimental to display that data - as it seems it’s not just myself that seems less likely to purchase based off that data.
Instead of many of the comments here being about the staggering loss the authour is taking by not following this simple route, at $10-20 a PDF we could all be discussing the contents of the book, instead.
Hopefully the author sees this and can make some sensible decisions for themselves - from what I hear their last book was fantastic.
EDIT: To the author: if I see a direct buy link on your page I will buy two copies within the day, as it seems that even $5-10 profit off two sales at $10-20 would provide you as much as up to 15 sales. I’m in the music business. I get slim royalties and I get how much effort we put into art.
[+] [-] fabiensanglard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dustinmoris|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitexploder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gambiting|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Asooka|7 years ago|reply
Edit: I see it's also on Google Books, which I presume has a more ethical paying structure. Sadly, that's not available in my corner of the EU yet.
[+] [-] Maro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpwm|7 years ago|reply
Perhaps the author prefers making books to maximizing the amount of money he makes?
[+] [-] jf-|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izacus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikbye|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrleinad|7 years ago|reply
Otherwise, yeah, he should go down that road.
[+] [-] ThinkBeat|7 years ago|reply
Do you think he is worried about people sharing it? Might just put a watermark on it.
[+] [-] 0xmohit|7 years ago|reply
https://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/hey_amazon_wheres_my_money/
Authors make little or nothing, but Bezos keeps getting richer :)
[+] [-] mdpopescu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrepd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ascavalcante80|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tanilama|7 years ago|reply
I do think Amazon is winning for a game reason.
[+] [-] edc117|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beezle|7 years ago|reply
(I have no idea what size author intends, if he has it in 6x9 trade size cost is even lower)
[+] [-] egypturnash|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] llao|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmlx|7 years ago|reply
why isn't there a competitor that takes a lower percentage? say 10% for both.
are the economics of book selling so atrocious for the authors in general? how can one accept .77ct profit on $54 of sale?
it's probably just me not being accustomed to the book selling ripoff, but still feels like a monumental, epic-level ripoff.
[+] [-] tekkk|7 years ago|reply
Although the pricing seems weird, the pie chart shown on the page is even more so. How it's possible that Amazon is most of the pie with 40% percentage?
[+] [-] hjek|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeonM|7 years ago|reply
That's brutal. I mean I get it that production and distribution is costly (books are heavy), but only taking a 77 cent profit on one year of work seems insane.
What does the breakdown usually look like for e-books?
[+] [-] seanwilson|7 years ago|reply
I didn't understand this part either. Wouldn't charging $59.99 sustainably increase the author's profit?
[+] [-] jokoon|7 years ago|reply
I have trouble understanding this
[+] [-] whatever_dude|7 years ago|reply
I applaud Fabiens' work. I have been following since his blog days on the source code analysis of games and I'm so happy he's writing books on the matter. I will fully support him going forward.
However, the first edition of the Wolfenstein Black Book left me a bit miffed. It had many grammatical errors and even some layout awkwardness that would not pass an editor's review. I understand the reasons: English is not his first language, this was a work of passion, etc. But it still mars the experience. I assume the second edition fixed those; I wish I had waited.
I've been eagerly waiting for his book on Doom. But I recommend waiting for the second edition, once he had time to take the readers' feedback into account.
[+] [-] mentos|7 years ago|reply
He sets a funding goal that achieves profit for him and then people can pledge $10 for an e-book, $25 for b&w or $50 for color.
This way he gets to hold onto the intellectual property until he has cleared his goal and make the prints of the books a limited time offer which could drive up their demand.
[+] [-] derangedHorse|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izacus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simplicio|7 years ago|reply
(But plenty of people have noted the previous volume was worthwhile).
[+] [-] pizza234|7 years ago|reply
The content is also extremely technical. I don't think in itself is "easy" to comment (at least, not in early stages).
What's new, in a negative and surprising sense, is how little the author is profiting from the books.
[+] [-] neogenix|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zorked|7 years ago|reply
I immediately ordered the physical version. It's a pity that the profit is so incredibly low. I'd consider just selling it for $69 or $99 or whatever. I'm not sure it would make such a difference in term of sales - the people who can read this book are in a very nice industry after all. The PDF can be sold at a much higher margin for accessibility for those who really can't pay for the physical book.
[+] [-] rhardih|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cafebabbe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dirktheman|7 years ago|reply