T w e n t y S i d e d
So, ‘Little Girl’ officially comes out today, although Amazon has been a nightmare to deal with, and made the paper back available before final proofs were approved. This meant that an excited friend messaged me to let me know she’d been able to order it early, thinking I would be excited. Oh dear. Luckily, I was able to get into contact with Amazon and make sure no copies were sent out before the finally update had been made.
Of course, this wasn’t the only hiccup on the way. I shared news of my book dropping to my TikTok page, which I don’t utilize very often. I’ve had two different videos go viral and semi-viral. I have a large-ish following that watches me do…nothing, most of the time. I’m grateful people liked the content I made, but I don’t have any interest in being TikTok famous. The platform isn’t very engaging to me, and short-burst content doesn’t really work for anything I say or create.
But I figured with a book coming out, it might be worth using the platform to promote, since I recently fell out with the friends I had that would usually help me promote these things. Turns out, it was not worth using my platform there. Somehow I got thrown onto some sort of middle school bullying ring who noticed my speech impediment and sent my videos to their friends, who sent them to their friends, who sent them to their friends…you can imagine how that went.
Now, I’m 25, I’m more than capable of brushing off most cyber-bullying nonsense, but hundreds of DMs telling me my book would never sell and I sound silly when I talk…yeah, I’d be lying if I said that had zero effect. God, children suck sometimes. Tumblr is trying to be Twitter, Twitter is trying to self destruct, Facebook is…Facebook, and TikTok is filled with mean toddlers. Maybe I’ll make some business cards and try that old fashioned face-to-face communication grandpappy used to talk about. /j
In all seriousness, I’m still excited to launch my first book. Scathing reception or not, Amazon calls me an (Author) and that’s cool as hell.
US Listing UK DE FR ES IT NL JP BR CA MX AU IN
The Kindle edition should be live, and the paperback is now available! I just got my final copies Wednesday and I’m in love. There is nothing quite like holding a book you wrote in your own two hands. It’s awesome. Successful or not, I’ll always be happy I got myself together and made this.
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What on earth?! That’s awful! This is even more reason to stay away from these awful platforms that facilitate the worst in children, and make children of adults. At around 22 I stopped using Facebook and just use WhatsApp to talk to people whom I know. But I could definitely see how one might assume that something as large as TikTok would be universally useable to appeal to those who are interested in what you’re showing. The ability to DM you en-masse seems ridiculous. But it seems these things, since around Snapchat, have really just been “latest thing to be cool amongst children and teens who at one point would have been too old for this sort of thing”. I think it was evident in the way that after Facebook, none of the newer social media platforms really added any features – image, video and text sharing was already possible and everything that came afterwards was gimmick-based and trend-facilitated rather than being more useful. And then Whatsapp removed the need for the FOMO generator that is Facebook. Sorry, bit of a rant – it touches the same incredulous bystander nerve as when my gf was bullied at university, the school playground was touted as the hardest place of most people’s lives when I was younger, and university was when that was all meant to disappear, and it did for me, and adulthood was certainly not meant to contain these ridiculous things. I’m so glad I forewent social media after uni. I had a dream last night that I was at a house party and there was a group of 18-21 year olds and I felt that I shouldn’t even look at them because they’d call me a weirdo for even engaging with them, being outside their age-range.
Anyway, let’s pick up this book! An original Bay Jubilee.
What the fuck, Tiktok?
Out of curiosity, are you willing to talk about the relative profit margins of Kindle (including unlimited) vs paperback sales?
I am comfortable sharing it, but I don’t fully know about unlimited yet. Amazon makes checking your profit margins really confusing. IE: This is your estimated earning, but if you download this file it’ll be different, and this page over here is also 2 less orders but six more preorders, and we count kindle pages read but not downloads.
So, I don’t know about unlimited yet, but I do have kindle and paperback. Amazon takes half for the paperback, it’s $2.50-ish to print and then they take 40% as their cut. So, for different authors it would be closer to the 40%, or further away, depending on how they priced their books. My paperback is $15, and I make $6.70 per sale. For Kindle, it’s priced at $7, and I make $4.75 per sale.
Pretty much exactly as I expected. Paperback makes me more per sale, but Amazon is taking more of a cut. Kindle I make less, but Amazon is also taking less. We’re considering doing a fully illustrated version for the hard cover, which I think would scale in the same way. I’d get more per sale, so would Amazon.
The Kindle and paperback versions are actually formatted very differently, each utilizing the strengths of the medium. In Kindle, you can only use their pre-chosen basic fonts, so fonts get played with as part of the poetry. The paperback has my original vision, in the font I chose for publishing before knowing it wouldn’t translate. I’m happy regardless of which ones get picked up as a result, I think I’d feel much differently if we’d not put the work into making the Kindle version interesting. The point is, both are good for me, and good for people wanting to read it, just in different ways. :)
Already grabbed unlimited, though I haven’t opened it yet, I’m reading something else right now. That said, sounds like Paperback is the way to go. Thanks, and good luck.
TikTok, like Twitter, is designed to foment hate and outrage. It’s a cesspit. I hate that that happened to you.
On a different note, I just started reading the book and I think it’s excellent so far! Your wit and way with words really shines through. And Shrapnel made me cry because it hit too close to home. Simple, but impactful. You’re a treasure, Bay! Thank you for sharing this with us.
I’m not “on TikTok”, by which I mean I do occasionally get a video linked but I’m not generally interacting with the platform and the community, but yeah. One of the streamers I follow* just keeps getting into all sorts of TikTok drama with a lot of communities basically raiding each other mudslinging because someone did a duet with someone and now they’ve fallen out and it devolves into all sorts of “he said, she said, they said”. At the same time if you want to, like, earn a living or at least supplement your income streaming unless you get really, really lucky you need to put so much time into self-promotion, which means being on TikTok, and Insta, and Twitter (sorry, X)… I am sometimes amazed anyone is willing to expose themselves to that.
*I swear to Eris I was midway typing “who’s generally a nice and cheerful but vulnerable young person”. Brain! We turned 40 like two weeks ago!
Oh god, that sounds like a nightmare to deal with, I’m sorry. Social media sometimes feels like a mistake.
Still though, congrats on getting a book out! That seems like a super daunting process and it’s awesome you’ve gone through it!
Congratulations on your book, Bay!
Sorry you had to deal with that! And congrats on publishing a book!
Also, congrats and good luck with the book!
Hi. I don’t have TikTok and am not willing to register an account, could you please post it here so I can laugh at you too?
Thanks.
It arrived already, today! I’m really enjoying it (have read the first two chapters so far and will save the rest for later) – and that’s from someone who probably aligns more with what I saw of the social opinions that your father gave on this site, and was admittedly a little wary/unsure after your caveat to the audience, and description of it as feminist poetry.
Not only are the rhyme, rhythm and wordplay great, but I find it all quite universally relatable, if not specific to myself then across what various people whom I know have said – not just specifically related to neurodiversity and mental health and troubled childhoods (although I’m certainly going to show my friend who mentions his autism and ADHD a lot, and I know a good deal (if not all) of it definitely rings true to my other half for whom a lot of these elements are and were part of her life – pretty much every poem so far makes me think of something she has said) but also specific to people in general and the human condition, family and intergenerational relationships and communication, childhood and adolescence and adulthood.
And it in no way negatively affects my opinion of you or your father – if anything the only effect is positive in that it all just seems very human and relatable (something I usually don’t like in my media consumption haha!) without seeming petulant, and humanises the mysterious fairly-opinionated internet writer-person whom I’m typing this to. No bitter pill to swallow, just honest emotions and real situations. And it doesn’t get in its own way, if you see what I mean – the poems are concise without being sparse. Glad I ordered it!
Tumblr’s controllers are being stupid again, that’s all. The old timers are fighting back ineffectually, but hopefully Tumblr realizes we don’t need another Twitter.
Do you have a non-Amazon publisher? I don’t patronize Amazon, since they’re still trying to squeeze out the last few non-Amazon book publishers.
Unfortunately, exactly as Amazon would like to happen, they were the only option I could afford. Their near-monopoly means they can afford to offer free ISBN numbers to writers, pennies to them and an electric bill to me.
However, I totally understand that choice, it’s scummy, and preying on the most vulnerable people in the system.
First-time published dude here, I can emphatize with how hard – and sometimes emotionally draining – it is to have to get out and try to get people to actually read what you wrote!
Didn’t think Tiktok would be *that* bad, but considering it’s populated by a lot of teenagers, some of which middle-school aged, I guess gratuitous performative cruelty is unavoidable. I tried to install the app as a potential means to “get myself out there” and make myself known outside my usual circles, but I’m ancient and it felt like being suddenly dropped in the main square of Shangai or something – a place where everybody was fluently speaking a language that was completely alien to me.
That said, good luck with your book! I’m not really into poetry, but I’m curious and I will check it out!
Haha being older than 19 probably makes ones feel that way somewhere like Tiktok. Although saddeningly the age for being a “teenager” seems to have extended to about 24 for many! Less being dropped into a different world and more being dropped into a conversation between silly teens. No-one has every understood that. P’tang yang kipperbang (uh).