Thread by @sqiouyilu

my magazines were never viable on kindle anyway but I pulled all my ebooks from amazon early (several years ago) because I maintained statistics that showed I made pennies on amazon compared to a single direct sale, which is why I focus on direct sales now

kindle was NEVER going to be the future, amazon is NEVER going to be the solution, this was ALWAYS going to happen so long as any platform attempts a monopoly—the sooner we build alternatives and move on, the better

on amazon, one self-published ebook sale would net me $0.12, if I was lucky

meanwhile, this week I sold one of my paperbacks, which retails for $15, for $60, because I have “pay what you want” enabled on my own platform that people trust more than amazon

I know there’s practical concerns in the short term for revenue streams, but we should not even be thinking about what the next platform is and where to move to

we should be thinking about the ways our industry is fundamentally broken and take this as an opportunity to fix that

this is in no way the “end” of short fiction.

always remember: fiction exists without publishers.

if publishing as it’s set up now isn’t viable… then we should abandon it for something better

for instance:

why do we think only a market that pays at some arbitrary rate defined as “pro” (which is still below livable wage) is THE only way to be “officially” published and recognized?

why do we keep denying the validity of self-publishing and assuming it’s less quality—as if gatekept publications are automatically better? (they’re not.)

why do we think the only way to generate income is to grovel to amazon’s whims? I read articles on how to maximize amazon keywords for discovery when I published there, but my statistics showed that that did jack shit compared to one (1) link on twitter, which caused a sale spike

at one point, amazon was new technology that required people to adopt it

it is not a given

it is not a default

people can and will adopt new technology, that’s just… the trajectory of time

we cannot be afraid of an initial hurdle in adopting technology if it means fundamentally more robust technology down the line, with stronger valuation of labor

but that also means changing mindsets on how we value labor in the first place!

what I want to see is more stuff published on archive of our own, on patreon, on people’s blogs and on reddit and on twitter and tumblr recognized in awards long lists and shortlists

I want to see NO segregation between “pro” fic and what is currently presumed amateur

EVERY YEAR, I want to see different venues recognized

not just the same five semiprozines

not just the format “magazine”

what about /r/nosleep? is that not a venue? do people not write short fiction there?

yes, money has to come somewhere for people to be able to continue laboring, but the thing is, I’m not the person you talk to to figure out the money part

I’m the person you talk to to figure out the big cultural parts of invisible assumptions that do not have to be perpetuated

if we recognize MORE venues AS venues, then how tf can we say short fiction has “ended”

maybe gatekeeping will end, but you know what? GOOD.

in the end, yes, money is an important part of things, I absolutely will not deny that, and I do have more financial and class privilege than many people that allows me to be more insulated there

but people don’t only write for money. and we can’t tie art’s value to money!

on the techbro side you have utter despair happening over AI art because people fundamentally do not respect art as labor.

we CANNOT perpetuate the same in the genre publishing industry by saying short fiction is going to die simply because one goddamn platform changed policies

my god we are a subset of publishing that inherently skews toward having more engineers and programmers and scientists who can build tech. we can, and we MUST do better—we are equipped to do this, it’s just ALWAYS been the dinosaur publishing industry mindset that’s been broken

[tw #suicide findahelpline.com] fuck’s sake, amazon is so untrustworthy now that they sell suicide kits, and remove reviews on them from grieving people

do you truly think they will give even one shit about us???

do you really want to sell on a marketplace like that???

buying I can understand more because capitalism is hell

but with selling, you have more of a choice

and at some point—if it has not happened already—amazon affiliation will DAMAGE your brand

from a business side, it’s just smarter and safer to not have everything dependent on one platform

you might as well take this opportunity NOW to create your “in case ANY of my streams stops, what is my backup plan” business plan

and if you don’t have a business plan… make one

practical steps to take NOW if you are a publisher affected by kindle subscriptions being phased out:

(1) MAKE A MAILING LIST

you should have one anyway. for now, if navigating the software is overwhelming, you can make a google form that collects email and consent to email

this looks like:

You can join our mailing list by entering your information below.

Email: _____________

[_] Yes, you may email me with updates about your publication.

[Submit]

PLEASE NOTE, I am not a lawyer, check with you relevant GDPR/CA privacy/etc. laws to be compliant

(2) MAKE A PAGE ON YOUR SITE FOR MAILING LIST SIGNUPS

you should also have a site. no, a seller page on amazon does not count. you need something that is your own platform and that minimally puts you under the whims of someone else

anyway, put the mailing list signup form on your site with a memorable permalink (like magazine.com/newsletter)

this is to ensure people can remember it, and that even if you, say, switch from a google form to mailpoet, your customers are not impacted on the front end

(3) MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT COVER FOR A NEW ISSUE

you should have at minimum:

[MAGAZINE TITLE/LOGO]

Special Announcement

[just The Editors as bylines]

if you need images, pexels.com is a good resource

the goal is to not look like a glitch but still get attention

(4) MAKE ANNOUNCEMENT ISSUE

this announcement should include:

• what’s happening (kindle subscription ending)
• how this impacts the customer (you will have to migrate if you want to keep subscription)
• any other channels you already have
• link to newsletter signup

(5) DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR ISSUE

click all the links! make sure they’re going where they’re supposed to! you will inherently lose users because of this change, but you can make it easier to retain people by ensuring their experience navigating to your site is smooth

(6) PUBLISH ISSUE

and then hope that people will sign up for your newsletter, because currently you don’t have access to subscriber info anyway, but this way you can recover some to update about subscription changes

some other things to do now if you haven’t already:

(7) REVIEW YOUR SALES FIGURES AND UNDERSTAND THEM

you should know how much money you spent putting together each issue and the cumulative total of sales for that issue, and you should know which channels the sales came from

you should understand enough math and statistics to know what mean/average, median, mode, sum, net, and range are

if you want sample data to test your comprehension on, here are my figures for my book: s.qiouyi.lu/royalties/in-t…

DO feel free to ask me what any of the numbers mean

if you don’t understand the money figures for your publication, you just will not have a solid business foundation—you won’t understand which actions you took earned you money & which actions lost you money, and how long it takes to break even (another term you should understand)

(8) DETERMINE YOUR THRESHOLD FOR ACCEPTABLE LOSS

most of us are working at a net loss when we publish. and we’ve accepted that. but you need to know exactly how much you CAN lose and still stay open. only then can you understand where you can cut expenses

(9) DETERMINE WHETHER YOU NEED TO CUT COSTS OR INCREASE REVENUE

are you already operating low-cost? then it doesn’t make sense to cut costs more. focus on how to increase revenue

is your loss higher than you’d like? maybe you can cut costs or slim issues, at least temporarily

from there, you can now:

(10) REVISE BUSINESS PLAN

because once you have all this info, you basically have a business plan. so: are there grants you can apply for? prices you can increase? bc lbr, even print gossip mags now are like $12/issue, why do we charge like $2/issue

if we charge $2–$4 an issue for an ebook, we kinda imply that it’s the materials cost that makes up the difference with print, when really… the value is the art. the art is worth paying for. the ebook does not have to be priced so low. no physical costs means MORE PROFIT MARGIN

anyway, after following all those steps, you should have some leads for ways you can supplement your revenue aside from amazon. and hopefully you will feel less stressed out. it’s going to suck to lose this stream. and you gotta just roll with it and keep going.

perhaps the biggest killer of magazines is not necessarily financial, but despair. despair that ppl aren’t valuing the magazine properly, which we use money as a shorthand for, but which also happens when ppl burn out. so it’s really important to develop resilience against that