The idea behind Grassroots Writer’s Guild (GWG) is to provide writers, published or unpublished, with a platform to assist them in marketing their books directly to readers and agents. For a low annual fee ($3.50 per book), authors may post a photo of their book cover on our catalog site here on WordPress (http://gwgbooks.wordpress.com/browse-our-books/), along with a short synopsis (250 words maximum) and a link to their own website or blog. Authors without a blog or website may substitute their mailing address or other contact information.
Why do writers need a place like GWG? Let’s face it, the chance of getting an agent today is about as likely as winning the lottery. The same is true for landing a publisher. That doesn’t mean we should give up of course, but while we’re searching for representation, why not take our take our work directly to readers? Readers who can receive our books in PDF format via e-mail and be enjoying them on their computers within minutes. Or, if preferred, the books can be printed out and read the old fashioned way. (Authors who don’t wish to make this an option may set security measures in their PDF files to make printing unavailable.) The beauty of the direct buy format is that we as the authors get to keep 100% of the royalties.
Let’s crunch some numbers. If your book sells to a conventional publisher in hardcover, the cover price will range anywhere from $18 to $40 dollars, depending on the length, type of paper and binding, number of photographs, etc. Most softcover books retail for $12 to $20. Our royalties as authors amount to a paltry 10% of that. So, if our published book sold 10,000 copies at $20 each, we would make $2 per book, for a total of $20,000. Subtract the agent’s cut of 20%, and we are left with a total of $16,000. (And that’s assuming the book actually makes it to market in this ever-shrinking economy. Publishers cut books from their lists every day.) Now, let’s say that same book sold for $4 directly to readers. The author would have to sell only 4,000 copies to make that $20,000. Raise the cover price to $5, and the copy count shrinks to 3,200. Those are reasonable sales predictions if you are willing to work hard at marketing your book.
It’s an unsettling reality for most of us who would prefer to spend our days at the keyboard writing new books, but the days when conventional publishers are willing to spend money to promote new authors are over. They cannot afford it. How long can we as writers afford to wait for our one big break that may never come? As long as we have gone through the necessary steps to become skilled at what we do and have ample proof we are not being rejected for lack of talent or good story content, then it’s time to take matters into our own hands. Bottom line, whether we sell our books on our own or via traditional methods, we have to be willing to market ourselves.
There is no question electronic readers have begun to make an impact on the publishing world. Any author may list his or her book for sale as a Kindle title. However, Amazon currently takes 65% of the cover price. Most Kindle books sell for $9.99. That leaves us, the authors, with a take home cut of 35%, or $3.50. While that’s still more than convention royalties, the format itself is limited to expensive electronic readers with very small screens. 
You must have a Kindle reader to read books purchased on Kindle. Currently, there are several different electronic readers on the market, none of which are compatible with the other readers’ books. But, consider this: If you put your book into a PDF file, it can be read on any computer, PC or Mac, with a free downloadable reader from Adobe. How’s that for cost control?
Again, to clarify, we still believe conventional publishing is the best option for most writers. It’s still possible to beat the odds, become a breakout author. If you have done so, we’d love to hear your story and post it here on our blog to encourage other writers. Selling books is what we all want to do. No self published title is going to equal the sales of a success title from any mainstream publisher. However, as we sit here hoping for our ship to come in, surely it makes sense to get our work out there and build an audience any and every way we can.
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