I debated a lot before deciding to ePub The Sweet Sixteenth. I spent many hours trying to make the story the best it could be. Among those 70,000 words there is probably a mistake or two, but it happens. I've even seen mistakes in professionally printed books by top authors. The nice thing about an eBook, is that if a mistake is found it can be corrected. For instance, someone who bought my book pointed out a mistake/typo in chapter 7, I fixed it and uploaded a new version. So anyone who buys it from here on out will get a new version without that mistake. That's the good part because sometimes uploading can jumble things.
I'm now two weeks into my eBook experience, and so far it has been very good. For me, it was not about making money, so anything I make is just extra. It seems that a lot of first time ePubbers are looking for a quick score. I guess maybe I'm not among that group. I'm under no illusions that I'm going to sell 100,000 copies, I'm shooting for 90 copies, one for each agent that rejected my query on The Sweet Sixteenth, not to make any sort of point just for the heck of it. It just seemed like a good number.
The main reason I decided to go eBookin' was because I could. Five years ago, The Sweet Sixteenth would be just another "trunk novel" sitting on my hard drive, or burned to a CD (remember those?) or sitting on a flash drive. Obviously, I like the story, but I can admit it's not anything so Earth shaking or original. Even though I shopped the book at 85,000 words, and it's now at 70,000, it would still be likely be rejected based on the fact that serial killers chasing a woman for odd reasons has been done...to death...
With the option of eBookin' now, I just cannot see any point to letting a story rot on my hard drive. Unless I think it sucks. I have a lot of trunk novels that will never make it to eBook, but The Sweet Sixteenth was not one of them. There is something fun and quirky about the characters and their story, and I wanted people to enjoy it. I'm still debating dropping the price, I really resisted the $0.99 cent deal, maybe I'll meet in the middle and drop it to $1.99.
Overall, so far I can't complain. The feedback has been positive, and I'm working on my next eBook. What I've learned so far is that eBookin' is a controversial topic among writers and agents. It seems like no one can really make up their minds about how it's all going to effect the future of writing. When I first asked an agent if ePub was a good idea, I was told "no way" because then no agent or publisher will ever touch that title again, even if in the future it becomes a viable sale. But now that stance has totally changed, and they are willing to consider ePub works that have sold, and/or titles that have been professionally presented.
No one seems to know exactly what to expect from all this. Which was my main reason for getting involved. At this point I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. I can't learn things from the outside, I must dig in and get my hands dirty. So I am... how much money I make is irrelevant to how much I learn from this experience.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
eBook not a Free book
The publishing world is changing so fast, that people's heads are spinning right off their shoulders and rocketing into the clouds. One of the major complaints and controversy points seems to be pricing. I talked to a lot of writers and did a ton of research when it came to pricing my new eBook The Sweet Sixteenth. What I learned is that this is a touchy subject for many writers, especially those who are already established.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
Friday, April 15, 2011
eBook on the loose
After a few days of wrestling with formatting issues and such, I finally got The Sweet Sixteenth up on Smashwords for sale. The Amazon version is still being worked out, but it should be available in a few more days. In comparison, so far, Smashwords seems to be the faster service, but it also requires a bit more formatting.
For Smashwords, the less formatting you have the better. They offer your book in so many different formats including Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, PDF, HTML and even Java. For me it was not such a huge problem because I write in very basic formatting. I don't use different paragraph setting, I like everything uniform. The only real problem I had, was that I had page numbers on my document, and they are no good for Smashwords. For some reason removing them did not work, as Smashwords was still reading the page numbers as text boxes, so I had to go nuclear and blow out all formatting.
Smashwords and Amazon both require you to use page breaks, and not multiple returns to set paragraph spacing. So if you are doing that five returns after a paragraph deal, get out of the habit and use page breaks for Word.
The cover art is another animal... but it is the more simple process because you can upload another image easily enough. If you don't have any graphic arts experience it might bode well to hire someone, even if it's just a college kid. It will make a difference to have a good cover that catches the eye, just like in print books.
All in all, it's been a fun experience so far. If I actually sell anything that will be another story...err...blog post.
For Smashwords, the less formatting you have the better. They offer your book in so many different formats including Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, PDF, HTML and even Java. For me it was not such a huge problem because I write in very basic formatting. I don't use different paragraph setting, I like everything uniform. The only real problem I had, was that I had page numbers on my document, and they are no good for Smashwords. For some reason removing them did not work, as Smashwords was still reading the page numbers as text boxes, so I had to go nuclear and blow out all formatting.
Smashwords and Amazon both require you to use page breaks, and not multiple returns to set paragraph spacing. So if you are doing that five returns after a paragraph deal, get out of the habit and use page breaks for Word.
The cover art is another animal... but it is the more simple process because you can upload another image easily enough. If you don't have any graphic arts experience it might bode well to hire someone, even if it's just a college kid. It will make a difference to have a good cover that catches the eye, just like in print books.
All in all, it's been a fun experience so far. If I actually sell anything that will be another story...err...blog post.
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