anytime you’re thinking about some other promotional activity—a blog post, a trip to a convention, an hour on Facebook—you have to measure the value of that time against the value of writing and publishing a new story. The new story earns money, both for itself and your other works. The social networking stuff doesn’t.

Joe: We can make 70% by self-publishing. And we can set our own price. I have reams of data that show how ebooks under $5 vastly outsell those priced higher.

Barry: Right, my essay examining Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four as a thriller, which I wrote at NPR’s invitation. The blog post examined the way NPR edited the essay, and how NPR’s edits revealed that fundamentally, NPR is an establishment media player. Joe: Your editor was pissed. Barry: He was. NPR called up Random House and complained about my

Smashwords,

Joe: We figured out that the 25% royalty on ebooks they offer is actually 14.9% to the writer after everyone gets their cut. 14.9% on a price the publisher sets. Barry: Gracious of you to say “we.” You’re the first one to point out that a 25% royalty on the net revenue produced by an ebook equals 17.5% of the retail price after Amazon takes its 30%

In other words, the more stories and novels you have available, the more you’ll sell. Barry: Gotta just jump in here to point out the significance of this. It means that a writer’s best promoting tool is once again her writing. Advertising costs money. New stories make money.

Joe: Because I dropped the price.

Joe: And despite all this, legacy publishers don’t realize a revolution is afoot. Barry: I think they’re aware of it, but in an abstract way. I talk to a lot of people in the business, and when most of them talk about digital and the changes it’s causing in the industry, you can tell they’re imagining a future that’s safely abstract and far off.

What happened when digital sales became so big that even the Times recognized it was beginning to look undeniably foolish and antediluvian in pretending digital didn’t exist? Joe: They said, “All right, we’ll include digital. But not by indie authors.” Barry: Yes. Apparently, bestselling indie authors aren’t “real” bestsellers. Some sales are more