Slashdot Mirror
The Ease of Publishing an Ebook
ISoldat53 writes "This article describes how easy it is to publish an ebook. The author details the costs to the writer for a major publishing house to publish a book and the savings to the writer by self-publishing. He looks to make the same profit selling the book at $2.99 on Amazon as he would going though a traditional publishing process. The book is formatted only for the Kindle right now, but the author explains how it can be converted for other readers, since there's no DRM."
is something that publishes add too.
Important things a publisher provides:
1) Editing
2) Marketing
3) Cover and format
4) Industry connections
to name a few. It's possible to publish without a publisher for sure, but it's also easy to make your own band, doesn't mean you'll be rich and famous.
I notice he talks about controlling the book forever, so he would also like a copyright term of infinity?
Seems that getting news of your new book onto the front page of Slashdot will help enormously with sales.
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Not that I've read all of the article, but 2.99 seems too cheap. I mean, there is a correlation between price and perceived value, and selling a novel this cheap at release doesn't seem like a good idea.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Konrath (the author of TFA) has been posting about this for a while, too. I guess the submitter has only just encountered him, but this is nothing new for him. He's well-known in publishing circles as an advocate of ebook self-publishing. He may not have been the first to talk about it, but he's probably the name that comes to mind for most in the industry when the idea is discussed.
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FTA: "Publishers also do promotion and marketing, though I haven't seen much of this for ebooks. Drawing on our fan bases, we sent out 260 advance reading copies of 'Draculas'..."
The undercurrent to all these "internet for the win" stories is the same. This guy's primary advantage is that he's succeeded with major book publishers in the past. This gave him marketing, promotion, name recognition, fan base, contacts with Amazon and Huffington post to get the promotions for this project. Once you have the major-industry name recognition, then it's relatively easy to spin off and use the price advantages of the Internet to do your own thing.
However, the vast majority of EBook self-publishers will not have this advantage, and will not have any chance of leveraging the same success or payoff for the last two month of this guy's labor (which is the entirety it took him to co-write and market this book). In addition, it's quite likely that there's a limited window of opportunity for this -- as book publishers become aware of the "spin-off" effect, it's quite likely that they'll start demanding more restrictive career-long contracts from new up-and-coming authors (same as how the music industry now wants "360 deal" chunks of a performer's outside concert, merchandise sales, etc.)
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I've already read several of J.A. Konrath's books on my Kindle. He is a great writer and I'm sure this new book is worth more than $2.99. I just went to Amazon and pre-ordered it.
I never like articles like this - it reminds me a bit too much of the earlier adopter chatter back in 2000 when my own e-book was published (and, despite having everything going for me except not being Stephen King, proved to have an almost non-existent market). Certainly Konrath is describing some benefits to self publishing, so long as you have the savvy and editing skill to pull it off. But when it comes to trumpeting e-books as a better way in general than the printed book, he's giving a very skewed picture.
Will he get a greater percentage of the royalties by self publishing an e-book through Amazon? Absolutely. Part of self publishing is keeping all the profits. Will he make more money than he would releasing a printed book?
That, however, is a much different question. And for that, you have to run the numbers.
Depending on the time of year, the total American book market (net sales) can be anywhere from around $450 million to $1.5 billion per month (there are large peaks and valleys, which is why you get the huge variations). The e-book market occupies around $22 million of this per month (it, oddly enough, has a general but very slight upwards slope, and does NOT have large peaks and valleys). As far as I recall, the audio book will take up around $15 million or so per month, but that's not a number I pay too much attention to, so don't quote me on it. So, for every dollar earned by an e-book, print books will earn anywhere from $20 to $65, depending on the time of year.
Now, these are all very rough figures. The Association of American Publishers tracks this in far more detail on a month-by-month basis. The point is, though, that while a well-established author with a loyal fanbase can mitigate a large portion of this disparity, an average book published only as an e-book can deprive itself of over 90% of its potential income.
(That, for example, is why in my business I use e-books mainly for promotional stuff - they just don't have a large enough market base to support them outside of marketing for what I do.)
So, will Konrath keep a greater percentage of the profit per book? Absolutely. Will he make more money than he would publishing a print volume? Highly unlikely.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
If you start out trying to get a big publishing deal with a big6 house you would likely take many, many years to even get a legitimate read of your draft, let alone a single book published. And after you get that first book published you'll likely not make any money apart from your advance. 5 books later you may be sitting pretty, but only if the publisher decides to non-publish your latest effort because they have too many books in X genre this quarter, and the bigger fish gets more attention.
Don't pay any attention to any author out there.
Konrath has posted on this topic repeatedly. He makes nearly twice what he did with paper books, in a dollars/month basis. More importantly, he makes what he considers to be a fair amount to live quite comfortably on, and feels that he owes something to the readership - that is, a quality / price point equation they can't get with printed material. As long as he can live well on this, he doesn't care whether he could make that much more.
I think you're ignoring a simple fact: some of us buy more e-books than normal books, and even go to such length as not reading printed books anymore given the choice. Me, personally, if I have the choice between a printed copy and an e-book, I'm going with the e-book. When I shop for books, I start with e-books. Because I want to know what I can read on my preferred medium. If I find nothing (unlikely) I may revert to paper.
So, what I'm saying is this: If a thousand people buy my e-book, and they are all people who only buy e-books and not printed books, then me getting with a publisher to have my book published isn't going to achieve a single thing for me.
And, as a related note: Your numbers quoted do not take this factor into account.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Traditional publishers act as brokers, bringing the written word to those who want to read.
They sift through the junk so I don't have to.
Self-publishing works well for:
* Authors with an established reputation in that genre
* The rare person who can act as his own editor. Hint - if you think that's you, it isn't.
* Anyone who isn't motivated by finances and who doesn't need the marketing services of a reputable publisher.
The first group we already know.
I don't know anyone in the 2nd group.
The 3rd group includes people who traditionally self-publish, such as universities and religious organizations, the traditional novelty press market, and niche publications which are one step above the novelty press market in quality but where the author won't mind if nobody buys or reads his material.
I would put most bloggers and others who publish non-tolled Internet content in the third group.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That is a part of it, and large publishers can do much more on that than smaller publishers. However, there is advertising out there. Every time my publishing company publishes a book, I pay for an advertisement that goes out to tens of thousands of bookstores and libraries (I also do a decent amount of advertising with free online samples, book reviews, etc.).
But, actually, that's not the big problem with self-publishing a book.
Self-publishing tends to have a stigma against it, but that stigma is there for good reason - and that reason is that 95% of self published books are utter crap that didn't get past the gatekeepers in the major publishers due to basic quality control. There is, unfortunately, an entire industry based on publishing writers who have more money than brains or talent - these are called vanity presses. Most of these books are terrible, and the publisher in question makes thousands of dollars on the fees they charge to the writer before so much as a single copy is printed.
(Just as a rule, the money flows to the author, not the other way around.)
Another problem with self publishing is that most authors are not the best editors of their own work. In fact, very few writers can both write and edit - they're different enough skillsets that there is that little overlap. But even when a writer can, they tend to be workmanlike at best. This is because if a writer writes paragraph X, that is supposed to say Y, that writer will always know that Y is the message. Unfortunately, paragraph X might not have actually said Y, and because the writer automatically reads Y into the paragraph, s/he doesn't catch the error. In short, the author is just too close to their own work to be the best editor of that work.
Those are actually the biggest problems with self-publishing, and why most self-published books fail. If you look at the self-published market, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the majority of the people who managed to make both self-publishing and e-book publishing successful are the ones who started in traditional publishing, built a readership there, learned the business as they did it, and then transitioned.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
YouTube became the way for ordinary people to create their own movies, videos, etc and have an outlet for other people to view them. The Kindle and other platforms do much of the same thing but for reading material. Some YouTubers have lucked out big time while others simply enjoy having an outlet to distribute their media. I think people are being harsh on the author of this article. I think the article simply was designed to give people an idea of how to publish when they want to do so. The author makes no promises of riches.
No, I'm sorry, I'm afraid you're the one making the assumption. You're assuming that it's an either/or when it comes to e-book and print book editions, rather than an "and." The figures I'm working from are for the entire market, and in a lot of places and genres, there are concurrent print and e-book editions (in fact, these days that's in many cases the rule rather than the exception).
So, if a thousand people want the book as an e-book and not a printed book, then they buy the e-book instead of the printed book, and it gets reflected by the figures. So, sorry, but what you mention is already built into the statistics.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Most self-published books fail because most books fail. The difference is that electronic self-publishing is easy and inexpensive so lots of books that would have stayed in the author's trunk under the old system get a chance. Most fail, of course, but some will succeed that would have never been given a chance under the old system.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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Of course, the fun thing isn't so much doing the book for Kindle (that's dead easy, especially if you've used something like LyX + Calibre), the hard bit as always is breaking into the market. Independent authors/publishers are becoming great in numbers with everyone screaming "me too!" it reminds me of the earlier days of places like Freshmeat where ~2000 the place exploded with packages that were near clones of already existing packages, after a while you just had to tune out because of the noise levels swamping out the legitimately good independent/OpenSource packages.
I'm an independent publisher for my wife's fantasy novels - most of the time and money is spent just trying to differentiate oneself from the pack, at $2.99 on Amazon (or even direct) you it's really not a profitable venture for quite a while because of essential costs like editing ($5000), proofing ($500), artwork ($1000) and many other things. Trying to sell a few thousand copies of a book is quite a task.
Paul.
I notice he talks about controlling the book forever, so he would also like a copyright term of infinity?
Is his book about cryogenic freezing?
It's logical that the first person to live well beyond a normal copyright term would also want to write a book about doing it.
Just sayin'.
I just wrote a book which is compilation of the blog/articles on my website over the past years. By going through LULU.com, we were able to publish the book for free when no other people wanted to publish our book. My family members who don't use computers got to read what I wrote and they enjoyed it. If you ever have some information available to you, put it in book form, maybe someone will want to buy it. Like I said,"You can do something as simple as compile all your blogs/articles over the past few years, and turn it into a book!"
God spoke to me.
I'm not a traditional published author. This is my first book. Using the logic that an ebook has numerous formatting considerations that make it easier (far less worry about page numbers, page size, left/right concerns, etc...), I decided to go with the ebook in the hopes of making enough $$ that it'd be worth my time to properly format a print book.
The book is about Shakespeare (specifically, a collection of Shakespeare wedding material), and I knew two things - I should have some sort of credentials in the area I'm writing about, and some sort of way to market. I run a number of Shakespeare sites (http://www.shakespearegeek.com primarily among them), and have done so for a number of years. They've got a pretty good following. I thought I'd be all set there, at least as far as getting a jumpstart goes. I'm also a web guy for a living (though not a designer), so arranging a domain and getting some content on it was not much of a worry (http://www.hearmysoulspeak.com did I mention that?) My strategy has been "Have something acceptable up, then drive traffic, and then once you've got traffic up, worry about making a prettier site."
I did have an editor. You need an editor. You will make stupid typos, if nothing else, and you'll need another set of eyes to spot them. An editor also serves as your first reader, and can say things like "This part didn't make sense to me" or "You said the same thing here that you said over there." Get an editor. I lucked out, one of my regular readers who happens to be a college professor said he'd do it for me, and was very helpful.
The publishing part is actually the easiest. There are a zillion "ebook converter" apps out there. But instead of doing that, just go straight to Calibre (http://www.calibre-ebook.com), as it does everything. I originally started mine in LaTeX, because I was heading for print. Then I switched to PDF (easily converted) until eventually ending up with EPUB since it seemed popular. EPUB, for the curious, is basically just a zip file of HTML with some organizing context thrown in). See below, though, for thoughts on how to handle multiple formats.
Here's the tricky part of publishing, even if you do crank out multiple versions of your book : a) every publisher wants a different one, and b) you have to do it individually for each. I started out on Lulu, because that was the most efficient way I saw into the iPad store. iPad wants EPUB. Fine. But then I wanted to release a PDF version as well, to cover the wider case for people reading on a PC. Lulu can handle that - but it can't apparently associate them both on a singe page. So I'll forever have two products in their catalog. I can live with that.
Aha, but what about Kindle? Kindle has its own store, for one. And, it wants MOBI format. Ok, did that. Now I've got to maintain my book in two places.
Guess what happened last week? Barnes and Noble opened up their Pubit! store for the Nook. Yayyy, three places to maintain my book. I hear Borders has a project in the works as well.
I generated every format (EPUB, MOBI, PDF) of my book in Calibre, and then tweaked them by hand until they looked the way I wanted (or at least, as close as I could get). Although all of the ebook stores will do automatic conversion for you, keep in mind that your copy will end up looking terrible.
Your pages on all these stores will also look very plain, until you get some reviews. Seriously, go get some reviews. Give away as many copies as you can, and beg reviews. This is the stage I'm in now. I've got web reviews, but I'm trying to get people to take the time and go give Amazon or iPad reviews. They help. Nobody wants to feel like they're the first one taking a chance on what could be a piece of garbage.
Lessons learned so
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Um, no - ONLINE sales are a large part of the future. But even your claim of bookstores closing every day doesn't take a couple of things into account:
1. The North American economy has not yet recovered from the recession, so sales are down across the board. Five years from now, it will be a different story (I hope).
2. In over a decade, the e-book has barely managed to carve out 5% of the total book market, and it only manages that on months where book sales are low.
E-books will have a place in the future of the book, but they are not going to replace the printed book. Now, you can legitimately ask me why I say this, and I do, in fact, have an answer.
Way back when, the VHS won the format war with BETA, and dominated the home video market. A new, better optical format that had superior video and sound, and even special features, was developed. And for 15 years, the laserdisk struggled to make some impact on the home video market, and failed. Around ten years ago, a new, better optical format that, like the laserdisk, had superior video and sound, and even special features, was developed. And within 5 years of the DVD hitting the market, the VHS became an endangered species.
So, why was this? Why did the DVD succeed, while the laserdisk failed? Both were better technology than VHS.
But, there was a difference between the laserdisk and the DVD. The laserdisk was about 30 cm in diameter, and could only hold around 45 minutes of video per side. So, it was better on a technology level, but when it came to convenience, a VHS was smaller, and you didn't have to interrupt the movie you were watching to flip it over. The DVD was both better AND more convenient - it was smaller than a VHS, and it could hold the entire movie on a single side.
Now, apply the lesson to the printed book and the e-book: the e-book is more technologically advanced than a printed book - no disputing that. But, it's not more convenient. With an e-book, you will always need a reader, and to deal with file formats, and a shorter shelf life. A printed book is about as simple an object as you can get - unlike the e-book, the printed book has NO technological requirements for the consumer. So, if market domination is based on creating a product with more convenience to the consumer, the e-book just does not have what it takes to supplant the printed book.
Now, if something did come along that was more convenient than the printed book, you'd see the DVD vs. VHS situation repeat itself, and the printed book would become an endangered species within five years. But, in the comparison, the e-book is the laserdisk, not the DVD.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
It isn't - it really isn't.
The problem is that most of the vanity press industry is very much a scam. They tell writers that they will be professionally edited and published, for a nice low fee of $5000, or something like that. Then, if they even do an editing pass, it's a very limited and cursory one. They're already thousands of dollars in the black for the book, so there isn't any real need to make it more successful.
So, the author - who even though s/he was told there would be a professional editor involved, probably didn't have any real editing help at all - gets his/her book, and it appears on Amazon, where it usually sells less than ten copies. The authors who manage to sell more than that are the ones who have busted their hindquarters marketing and moving the book. But, when people generally talk about "self published" authors, vanity press authors are what the term has referred to for years.
There is a very large difference between that and an author who has learned the business and decided to go it alone. Those people get business licenses, found their own publishing house, get the help of a good editor, and deal with the printer directly. But, they are in the smallest minority compared to the thousands of would-be writers who get sucked into vanity publishing.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive