The Realities of E-Publishing

This forum is for epublishing, which can be self-publisher or publisher published. I suspect you may be looking for the self-publishing sub-forum?

Also, how do you define you goal of 'breaking into the industry'?

Finally, what kind of books do you write and what resources do you have to set yourself up as a one person publishing house?

Are you talking about epublishing, or self publishing (there's another forum for that).

I think you're asking about self publishing, in which case I'd suggest that it is *a* way for new writers to get started, not *the* way.

But I like the other question better. So I'm going to run with it. There's a bunch of new small press companies getting started these days, specializing in just producing ebooks. Otherwise, they work just like a print publisher: they take submissions, accept the ones they like, maybe offer a small advance, edit the book, get a cover made, format it, upload it, and pay the author 25-50% or so of net on each sale.

Their costs are very, very low. This is the sort of business you can run out of your garage, practically. More realistically, you can run it in small town USA renting a fifth floor office someplace for $500 a month, running things with a staff of a few people and maybe a couple of freelancers for cover art.

Because the costs are very low, the companies can afford to put up a higher than usual number of books. In fact, I'd say that in theory the number of books put up is really only limited by the number of quality submissions sent in and the number of quality employees which can be hired - which given the job market today might be easier than ever.

So - in theory, mind you - I think these sorts of small presses might be a great way to break in. I mean, yes, you *can* do it all yourself. You can hire an editor, hire a cover artist, hire a formatter or do formatting, and market the book yourself. But there's a few grand in capital investment involved in that decision, a bunch of time spent, and no guarantee of a payback. Partnering with a small epress like this might be a valid/valuable way to launch a career.

On the flip side, watch out. There's a lot of these companies springing up, and some of them sound like they literally *are* run out of someone's garage - i.e. not very professionally. Most small businesses fail within 5 years (about 95%, if I recall right), so make sure you have ironclad version clauses if the company goes under, or maybe write the contract for a couple of years at a clip, and renew based on how they're doing? Most importantly, I would look carefully at the experiences other writers have had with them. Is the editing good quality? Are the covers professional? Is the marketing done strong, consistent, effective? I mean, you're giving them half the income of the book (or so) for their services. You want to make darned sure up front that those services are worth the cost.

So be careful, but yeah, I'd say these are worth looking at.

KevinMcLaughlin said:

There's a lot of these companies springing up, and some of them sound like they literally *are* run out of someone's garage - i.e. not very professionally.

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Who needs a garage? My e-publishing company is run from my sofa (or will be once the registration documents come through).

Though if I ever start publishing books by other writers I may have to buy a bigger sofa.

If you have an edited story with a decent cover image then the actual process of publishing it is simple; you can, for example, upload it to Smashwords in the right format as a Word document and they'll distribute it to many of the main ebook stores for free as well as selling it themselves. They will, of course, take a cut of any profits and because uploading is a free service it can be slow.

The main reason for going with a competent e-publisher instead of DIY would be because they can do editing, formatting, cover and some marketing for you, but then you have to decide whether that's worth paying them a percentage -- possibly a large one -- of any sales you make.

IMHO epublishing is just a format. It is used by large, small and indie. It is used alone are alongside print publishing. Epublishing is not, in itself, a business model with any distinctive level of success. And it is a part of the industry, so if you do it you have broken into that industry.

May want to check this out for the terminology:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211120

Just so we know what you're talking about as well

What I gather is that you're really trying to decide whether to self-publish or go commercial, with e-publishing being one of many considerations in that decision.

What Veinglory said.

Digital books are a format, just like print and audio books. The fact that they were in February the largest single format (wild, that!) - with greater sales than hardcover, trade paperback, or mass market paperback (according to the AAP at least) - is noteworthy: it means that hardcover and paperback rights will probably start being considered subsidiary rights within the next year (although some folks like Mike Shatzkin have implied that's already begun). In other words, the rights considered most important in a contract will end up being digital ones soon, if not already.

That's true for every publisher in the USA, and probably soon most publishers around the world as well. So "epublishing" is something done by pretty much every publisher, whether it's a one person operation producing his/her own work, or a massive corporation.

What you seem to be asking is "should I publish traditionally or independently?" That's a harder question. I *strongly* recommend you read up on the subject as much as possible. But at the same time, if you get published traditionally and the publisher goes under (I'm of the opinion that some major publishers might die in this transition, to be replaced by small and mid sized ones that made the leap better - but opinions on the subject vary WILDLY, so read up and form your own), well - you already got the advance, and only a small percentage of books sell out their advances anyway. If you self publish and wind up hating it, and want to go trad pub instead, there's nothing saying you can't market that book to agents or publishers - and certainly nothing wrong with marketing your next book that way.

Right now we see bunches of writers jumping to self pub from trad pub, and self published writers selling to corporate publishers. Folks going both ways. Keep your head, don't lose sight of where you want to be in the long run, and don't sign any contracts which *limit* your future options (non-compete clauses for future books, for instance, or contracts which give the publisher any control over the intellectual property of a novel's characters or universe).

And write. The one constant that I think I see is that writers who are able to produce higher levels of quality work will excel in this new field. More work per year = more visibility. Writers who get stuck on one book a year are going to have a tougher road than those who can produce *quality* work faster. Digital publishing has removed the shelf space limits on publishing, and dropped the costs on book production to insanely low levels. Supply on something rarely rises only to meet demand - it rises as much as costs allow. As a result I think we're likely to see an explosion in publishing over the next few years, fueled mostly by writers who are burning out their keyboards regularly because they're pouring so much fresh prose onto the page.

I think the only thing I can add is my own personal experience as a self published author. I spent 2 years querying agents and publishers with two different books and as the market got slower and slower my hopes started to drop too. I began researching self publishing and decided that I would give it a shot. So I took one of my books and took the leap, uploaded to Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. My book has been out for almost two months now and my sales are going ok but I never could have imagined how much time I would have to spend on marketing and networking. I spend at least 2 or 3 hrs a day on promotion and that is after my regular job. I am also trying to finish the second book in the series as well as another series I plan to release. I do love being an indie writer and hopefully the time investment will pay off but I can't urge you enough to do your research and fully understand both types of publishing and what exactly they will require of you.

BySharonNelson said:

My book has been out for almost two months now and my sales are going ok but I never could have imagined how much time I would have to spend on marketing and networking. I spend at least 2 or 3 hrs a day on promotion and that is after my regular job.

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I know it's cheeky to ask about sale figures, so I won't. But would you be willing to tell us, based on your current SP earnings and, say, 2.5 hours per day spent on promotion, what that's coming out to as an hourly 'wage'? And it's okay if you don't want to share that info, either. But if you're willing, I do think that would be interesting to know for people who are thinking about getting started.

KevinMcLaughlin said:

Digital books are a format, just like print and audio books. The fact that they are now the largest single format (wild, that!), according to the AAP at least, is noteworthy.

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I don't think digital books are now "the largest single format"; I think e-book sales are growing rapidly while others remain constant or drop; but as e-books were all at zero sales until relatively recently and print books have sold in the hundreds of thousands, of course e-books are going to have a much more rapid rise in sales.

I could, of course, be completely wrong in which case I'd be very grateful for a link to point me in the right direction. Thanks.

Terie said:

I know it's cheeky to ask about sale figures, so I won't. But would you be willing to tell us, based on your current SP earnings and, say, 2.5 hours per day spent on promotion, what that's coming out to as an hourly 'wage'? And it's okay if you don't want to share that info, either. But if you're willing, I do think that would be interesting to know for people who are thinking about getting started.

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I am happy to share I have done it several times already, I think it helps to give one persons real world experience. This is the middle of the second month. I am still selling about a copy a day on one of the three sites I publish on. So at an average of .50 cents a book I am making like less than .25 cents an hour. LOL I have heard that it takes at least 6 months and multiple books to build up any kind of momentum at all so I am just trudging through and praying that is right. I have 11 reviews coming out over the next couple of months on book blogs so hopefully that will boost sales. I also have 2 more books scheduled to come out in the next month or two.

This is what I suggest you do. Make a list of things that are important to you - and weight each one. Some of the things on the list will be more "inline" with big-si trade publishing. Some will be more "inline" with self publishing and some will be inline with small press indie publishing.

For instance...time to market. If you want something out fast - self is the fastest, big-six slowest, and indie somewhere inbetween.

When making your list evaluate your ability to do the tasks yourself or how expensive it will be to hire (say cover design). As you make the lis if you are unsure which category something falls into - post here and we can give you some help. It is through an analysis like this that I think you can best see what fits for you. All three paths are totally valid in today's publishin environment - you just have to look to see how you fit into each.

BySharonNelson said:

I am happy to share I have done it several times already, I think it helps to give one persons real world experience. This is the middle of the second month. I am still selling about a copy a day on one of the three sites I publish on. So at an average of .50 cents a book I am making like less than .25 cents an hour. LOL I have heard that it takes at least 6 months and multiple books to build up any kind of momentum at all so I am just trudging through and praying that is right. I have 11 reviews coming out over the next couple of months on book blogs so hopefully that will boost sales. I also have 2 more books scheduled to come out in the next month or two.

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Thanks, Sharon. I do hope your sales rise and that your hard work pays off.

Old Hack said:

I don't think digital books are now "the largest single format"; I think e-book sales are growing rapidly while others remain constant or drop; but as e-books were all at zero sales until relatively recently and print books have sold in the hundreds of thousands, of course e-books are going to have a much more rapid rise in sales.

I could, of course, be completely wrong in which case I'd be very grateful for a link to point me in the right direction. Thanks.

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I did say "according to the AAP" (Association of American Publishers). Their numbers are the industry standard for tracking sales; that said, one cannot be 100% confident in their numbers. They're only tracking the 84 largest publishers, and only 16 of the largest for ebooks. While that represents *most* sales in the US, it's not all, so the data is undoubtedly off by a bit - probably underestimating digital sales slightly, because they have less data sources.

http://www.publishers.org/press/30/

Ebooks represented 29.5% of sales in Feb., higher than any single format (hardcover, mass market paperback, trade paperback, audio, etc.). Sorry if you thought I was implying ebooks were higher than print in general (re-reading my post, it could have been construed that way, which was not my intent!). Print is still bigger than digital; but digital sales were in February bigger than any one specific format of print.

Lots of reasons for that (ebooks had a banner month, and print sales are traditionally down in Feb), but it's still an interesting trend.

Hi Shanley,

I'm learning as much as I can too, and besides here on the AW forums, I found the info on these websites helpful.

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?page_id=3736

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?page_id=860

http://kriswrites.com/business-rusch-table-of-contents/the-business-rusch-publishing-series/

If you do read through these, I would also recommend going through the comment section - they are just as imformative as the posts themselves.

Good luck!

Everything KarenNelson said + if you go into self-pub and/or epub I don't think you can count on these forms for, as you say: to make your living, at least not yet. And while that's also true of trade publishing, I think it's fair to say that if you're published by a trade house you have an outside chance of accomplishing same.

I don't know that anyone can *count* on making a living at writing before they start trying to do so, Scope. But people do make a living writing, thousands of them. And people are doing so whether self published or corporate published these days. I think the number of successes favor the latter, but the trend of growth shows that the former is becoming more possible all the time.

But "count on"? Yowch! These days, you can't even count on whether your 9-5 factory job will be there tomorrow. Counting on what really amounts to starting your own business (which is what writing is, no matter how you're published) is a long shot no matter what industry you're in. Your success will depend upon your skill, discipline, and how much work you're willing to put in to see results. And some small dose of luck helps, too.

Just like pretty much anything else in life.

Writing has never been a good profession "to make a living" at. Many writers with multiple books, even those from large trade publishers, still have their day jobs.

That being said...it's never been a better time to be a writer - you have many options avalable to you today. But it is not a zero to sixty proposition - prepare yourself for many years of struggle before you make it.

Now just to prove that it's not all doom and gloom...I quit my six-figure day job as my husband's writing is supportin both of us now - so it can happen.

rsullivan9597 said:

Writing has never been a good profession "to make a living" at.

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Eh. Can't quite agree with that. If you expand the definition of writers to journalists then as a profession it was possible to make a living out of it for years (that is, until the free-internet came along and 30,000 journos across the US alone lost their jobs).

And before someone says; "Oh, but journalists aren't real writers," many of them feel they are writers doing a job that pays the bills, totally separate from their novel writing. And don't forget many great writers started out as journalists where they had the chance to hone their skills while being paid to write.

Which is sort of how I feel. I am a journo by trade and now work in a big corporate writing stuff for them. Now it's not as exciting as my fiction stuff, but I have it firmly in my mind I am there to write what they want, and my fiction writing is what I want to write.

If you can get such a gig, don't knock it. In fact it can be quite exciting. It does pay the bills, and you get to write and learn. It's just the style and subject matter might be different.

Chris_Wilkins said:

If you expand the definition of writers to journalists then as a profession it was possible to make a living out of it for years (that is, until the free-internet came along and 30,000 journos across the US alone lost their jobs).

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And if you expand the definition to include lawyers (because lawyers write an awful lot), then even more do very well indeed.

But let's stick with book/magazine freelancers, okay?

I was told recently that about 1000 fiction writers actually make their full living writing fiction, in the US. That sounds very low to me, but I have no idea how you would find out the truth.

I'm sure members on the head committees of the RWA, SFWA or similar organizations could come closer to an accurate total. There's some great information in this thread.