Are ePublishers Good or Bad?

Depends on the genre and the publisher, really. If you're writing superhot erotic romance epubs aren't a bad option at all, and you may very well end up making good money. If you write sweeter romance or other genres entirely you may not.

To say "All epublishers are bad" isn't accurate. Like anything else, there's good and bad.

I don't know for sure but I don't think that is a top genre for selling online.

Although epublishing may be the wave of the future I myself am wary of them now. They aren't tried&true enough for me yet. I am used to pounding the pavement with the traditionals and some habits are hard to break.
GT

It really does depend. I have made as much as $1500 from an e-novella that would probably make me about $50-$200 in a mainstream print anthology. That is an exception to the rule, but worth keeping in mind.

I think for YA fantasy it is not a good option. YA gets its publicity from reviews of physical books, which makes stores and libraries more likely to pick up the book and make it visually available to YA readers/buyers. Sure, there are plenty of teens on line, but I think their use of the internet is for purposes other than reading novels. Obviously there are other genres that can work out in e-book format, but I just think for MG/YA (unless it's fanfic), the physical book is where it's at.

Epubs as a whole are neither good nor bad, just their own form of publishing.

Epubs can be a good choice for you if:
1) you only want/expect to make an average of a few hundred bucks (and often much less, possibly more)
2) You want to see your book published online and understand that you wont see it in bookstores (though some epubs also do print copies which must be ORDERED at bookstores or amazon-- it wont be stocked).

Epubs are not a good choice for you if:
1) you truly want to be traditionally published. Editors and agents DO NOT look at an epub credit as a true publishing credit, and in fact if you use it in yoru query letter it can actually work against you and screams "novice".
2) You want your book stocked in stores and nothing less.


Epubs are perfecty fine as LONG AS YOU RECOGNIZE THEM FOR WHAT THEY ARE.

Also--- always google search any prospective Epub, becuase like any new wave, there are good companies and there are bad companies, and you want to avoid the scammers. Its a plus if the epub lets you retain all rights to your work.

Also wanted to add-- YA and MG novels-- ESPECIALLY fantasy are whats REALLY hot right now-- so you'd be better off researching traditional paths.

Totally depends on what you want from getting published.

If you just want to hold your book in your hand, it's fine.

If you want to make a living from your writing, then epubs work best for what's not readily available cheaper and easier to buy from traditional print publishing. (As examples: For many years, Paranormal Romance was only available from epubs--but they sold well enough the NYC Romance publishers started up with them and now most of the epubs that sold them are out of business. At the moment Erotic Romance has blossomed to the point in epublishers that NYC has picked up that ball and the competition for that market is hot and heavy right now.)

It all depends on what you want from your writing.

Amanda Hubbard said:

Epubs are not a good choice for you if:
1) you truly want to be traditionally published. Editors and agents DO NOT look at an epub credit as a true publishing credit, and in fact if you use it in yoru query letter it can actually work against you and screams "novice".

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As a point of reference, this isn't strictly true. If your epub book sells over 5,000 copies a title, those are numbers that the majority of editors and agents look at. It doesn't always happen, true, but I have several friends who sold well enough writing Romance epub'bed books who've been picked up by print agents and editors because of strong sales numbers with respectable epublishers. One acquaintance actually got a six-digit deal with a major NY house and has hit the NYT best-seller's list because her epub sales were so strong.

And that goes for self-published as well as e-published, FWIW. Publishing is a business--the numbers can make all the difference.

Amanda Hubbard said:

Epubs as a whole are neither good nor bad, just their own form of publishing.

Epubs can be a good choice for you if:
1) you only want/expect to make an average of a few hundred bucks (and often much less, possibly more)
2) You want to see your book published online and understand that you wont see it in bookstores (though some epubs also do print copies which must be ORDERED at bookstores or amazon-- it wont be stocked).

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Also not strictly true. Ellora's Cave and Samhain books--among others--are stocked in most bookstores in the US and have been for years.

Epubs are not a good choice for you if:
1) you truly want to be traditionally published. Editors and agents DO NOT look at an epub credit as a true publishing credit, and in fact if you use it in yoru query letter it can actually work against you and screams "novice".
2) You want your book stocked in stores and nothing less.


Epubs are perfecty fine as LONG AS YOU RECOGNIZE THEM FOR WHAT THEY ARE.

Also--- always google search any prospective Epub, becuase like any new wave, there are good companies and there are bad companies, and you want to avoid the scammers. Its a plus if the epub lets you retain all rights to your work.

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Most editors and agents say a reputable epub credit is in fact a credit--using it as such certainly does not scream "novice"--and no publisher is going to allow you to retain all rights to your work--they're buying (or renting, or whatever) first publishing rights. That's what they do. If you mean letting you keep subsidiary rights, that's fine, but that isn't "all" rights.

Moving this from Bewares & Background Check to the POD/epublishing forum, where it would seem to be more appropriate.

- Victoria

You're right of retaining rights-- I was thinking of vanity publishers and not epubs-- an epub would likely buy your rights and not allow you to keep them.

As far as Ellora's cave, Samhain, et all, these are stocked in stores becuase they are also print publishers. I was thinking of "epub" in the strictest sense of the word. Ellora's cave has had unparallelled success in the epublishing world (Though one can argue that a couple of others--samhain being one of them-- are close on its heels).

And yes, SOME books sell thousands of copies and go on to be traditionally published but those are one of thousands of others that do not, and I think if someone is getting into epubbing with this being their sole goal they will be disapointed. They'd have better luck getting an agent and going the traditional route. Epubs, in my opinion should NOT be looked at as a direct route to new york, but rather as their on sub-industry.

Amanda Hubbard said:

And yes, SOME books sell thousands of copies and go on to be traditionally published

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Oh, this isn't what I was thinking of at all. I was talking about authors who sold books to epubs then went on to sell subsequent books to print publishers. I don't know of anyone who's even tried to sell reprint rights to NY once there's been an epub version. Honestly, that never would've ever crossed my mind.

Except that it can happen in-house, such as when an epub and print press have a formal relationship (e.g. Samhain/Kensington). Really, nothing cam be said to always happen or never happen. But with e and POD the onus is even more on the author to do their research before deciding where to submit.

If you're going to epublish you might as well do it yourself. The advantages to epublishing is the price for entry is relatively low, you maintain control of your copyrights and keep about 97% of the profit, but this is only if you publish your own material. Once you bring in another party you start to dilute many of the perks that epublishing offers. For greater details visit the pages below:

makemoneyselfpublishing.com
selfpublishforprofit

I would disagree entirely. Loose Id can sell over a thousand copies of my book. I doubt I could get anywhere even close to that on my own even after paying a very large 'price' in terms of my own time.