The economics of self-publishing a book on Metalabel

Last year, eleven writers and I published a book together about how we live online. No publishers, no complex arrangements — just a shared treasury and automatic splits on Metalabel. The process worked well enough that it's worth documenting.

The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet earned $66,000 in its first year through a novel economic model: contributors split proceeds automatically and pooled a portion to fund future projects. The result struck a perfect balance between independence and interdependence.

Let's look at exactly how it worked.

RELEASE DETAILS

Creator: The Dark Forest Collective

The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet

Release Date: 02/22/24

Format: printed publication, with free and second editions

Collectors: 1,700

Sales: $66,000 gross volume

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ORIGINS

In 2019 I sent a newsletter about why I no longer felt comfortable being myself online called “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet.” The essay struck a chord and went nerd-viral. Within days other writers were building on the idea.

In 2023, I reached out to eight authors of a dozen pieces written in the years since the original essay. I suggested we come together to create a living canon of this idea, linked to this proposal, and suggested this economic structure: 

• I would personally pay for the designer’s fee; initial sales from the book would pay me back

• The costs of printing would be paid for by an advance from Metalabel; those costs would also be recouped from proceeds

• Once costs had been paid for, we would split the money equally  

• Since the book contained pieces by eight sets of authors, each author set would receive 10% of the book proceeds

• The remaining 20% would go to a Dark Forest Collective treasury of money we would collectively spend on new projects (I donated my cut here too)

• Based on this structure, I projected each author set to receive ~$1,500 if the initial run of books sold out

After a little bit of back and forth, everyone agreed and the project began to move forward.

PRODUCTION

To design the book, I connected with Leith Benkhedda, a member of New Models and Do Not Research who also contributed a piece to the Dark Forest Anthology. We agreed on a fee of $3,500 to pay for designing and overseeing the printing. We decided to work with a printer in Berlin, near him. (More on that in a moment.)

But how many books to print? 

One logic said print as many as possible to keep the costs low. However we weren’t sure how many and we liked the idea that the book would feel meaningful to own. We decided we’d rather sell out than have too much inventory, and printed 1,000 copies. We made 777 available on Metalabel, set aside 50 for journalists, and sent 150 to a distributor who would place them in independent book and design stores. 

Cost breakdown:

Pre-production: $3,500 for designer ($3.50 per copy) Production costs: $5,500 for printing ($5.50 per copy) Shipping costs: $3,500 for customs and shipping from printer ($3.50 per copy)

Total cost per book: $12.50

Two things to point out: the pain that came from having to ship the books internationally from the printer to the distributor — as much as the design fee for the book. Also note that I did not pay myself anything for the work I did as editor-producer. In most projects this role should be part of the budget.

ECONOMICS

We used Metalabel to package the release as a First Edition bundle that included a physical book, PDF download, and invitation to a roundtable. We priced it at $35, plus $10 flat for shipping. 

In a private Telegram, the members of the Dark Forest Collective collaborated to share the book to our own audiences that same week in a coordinated way. It worked. Within 72 hours of announcing the book, all 777 editions on Metalabel sold out. Yes!

Totals:

Gross sales: $37,273 (including $7,830 in shipping) Production costs recoup: $12,227 Shipping costs: $8,800 Metalabel fees: $3,727.35 (10%) Stripe fees: $1,509.26 (4%)

Net: $11,894

Including fees, our fixed costs were recouped at 440 books sold. Meaning it took almost half the print run to pay for the costs to make and ship the book. With each contributor receiving 10% of the net profit, this worked out to nearly $1,200 per author for this first edition, and nearly $4,000 in the collective treasury for future releases.

SECOND PRINTING

After the book first sold out, I made a mistake and didn’t immediately make another edition available. Instead the book was unavailable for four months while it was being talked about online. Not a good decision.

In May we finally made another print run, this time printing 1,500 copies, and made 1,111 books available on Metalabel. Because we didn’t have to pay design costs and we printed in a larger quantity, the economics of this edition were much better:

Production costs: $7,355 for printing ($4.90 per copy) Shipping costs: $3,000 for shipping from printer (including customs) ($1.45 per copy)

Total cost of each book: $6.35

As of this moment, 1,000 of these second printings have been sold, about 700 of them through Metalabel, totaling an additional $30,000 in sales. With the lower fixed costs, we recouped our expenses at 350 copies sold. 

So far, this second edition has netted out to an additional $2,000 per contributor set and another $7,000 to the Dark Forest Treasury. 

Add it together across both editions and you get through Metalabel:

$66,000 in gross sales $25,000 in recouped costs $34,000 split between the authors $12,000 in funds for new releases and projects

All of these payments flowing automatically through the Metalabel system.

IRL sales

The book was also carried by a physical distributor who discovered it on Metalabel and distributed it to independent bookstores around the world. We also sent it to individual retailers that reached out. All told, we’ve sold around 300 copies in physical stores. 

Two interesting points to note with this: with the Metalabel editions, 85% of sales went to us. For the retail copies, we’re promised 40% of sales, or roughly $10 per copy. Which covers the cost to print the book itself.

We’ve also learned that payment schedules from distributors work at a very different pace than a web-based platform. Whereas Metalabel payouts are instant, a year after the book came out we’re still waiting for our first payment from distributed sales.

Despite these learnings we appreciate the support and ability to be in physical stores.

LESSONS

Looking back at the overall experience, what advice would we give someone else?

DO release something with other people. The experience is way more fun and less daunting. Collaborating makes promoting the work feel less self-promotey.

DO bring people together under a shared experience you’re all trying to address. Don't just bring people together without a connecting story (ex. we are all painters, lets make a painting show). A deeper reason will make it matter more.

DO project costs in detail before getting started. Accurate budget forecasting is your friend.

DO offer people bundles of digital, physical, and IRL experiences. The multidimensional drop really helped us.

DO plan in group chats. Making conspiracies with friends = highly recommended.

DON’T need the run to sell out to recoup your costs. Too stressful. Will make the experience less enjoyable and more like pure work.

DON’T do it without splits. Managing the money side of this would have been impossible without that tool.

DON’T try to do too many things at once. We appreciated having only one sales channel to focus on, versus trying to fulfill orders from a bunch of different places at once.

DON’T let momentum stop if you happen to sell out quickly. Put up a new edition, let newcomers support you.

DON’T print on another continent. Lesson learned.