Everyone has an opinion on the traditional vs. self-published debate, but I think there needs to be a specific distinction between "traditional" self-publishing of print books and e-publishing. Self-publishing print books requires the author to pay for the printing, store the books and carry them around to venues where they can sell them. E-publishing requires none of that.
As far as I can see, there is no longer any benefit at all to traditional publishing. Most of the money you earn goes to the agent and publisher, while you have to do all your own promotion. In many cases that involves the same effort as those who self-publish in regard to setting up readings and signings and literally hand-selling your books out of a box.
Additionally, it takes months or even years for your book to be available to readers. You have to negotiate with editors about revisions and often you don't get to choose the title or cover of your book
Self-publishing e-books is easy, fast - and FREE. You have total control over content, edits and presentation. You get to keep most of the money you earn. You still have to do your own marketing promotion, but all writers, however their books are published, have to do that to be successful. And if people want a print copy of your book, e-books can also be made available in print form.
What used to be the only drawback to self-publishing e-books was that people thought all such books were poor quality. Very few people still feel that way, especially with many bestselling writers switching to e-publishing and strongly promoting e-publishing in general.
If your book is good, it can become a phenomenal success, be offered in print form, make tons of money and be on the bestseller lists - all without the trouble involved with securing a traditional publishing contract. In my opinion there are only positive aspects of self-publishing e-books.
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
Showing posts with label self-publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-publishing. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
E-publishing
LWC - we should change our name to "World's Greatest Writer's Group" - has been having much discussion lately about the state of the publishing industry, the new opportunities afforded authors through electronic and self publishing and pros and cons of self vs. traditional publishing.
I heard somewhere that the decision to self-publish or not has much to do with why people wanted to have their work published. Do they want to be famous, make money or simply have the personal accomplishment of having been published? It seems silly to ask if writers want their work to be read, but considering what kind of audience they are hoping to reach is important. Does genre have any impact on whether to self-publish or not?
I don't have answers to these questions, but one of my two main reasons for writing is that I enjoy reading stories and hope others will read my stories and enjoy them as well. My other main reason for writing is a quote from somewhere: "Writers write because they can't not write." That is so, so true.
While I think all writers feel that to some degree, many are happy not to ever be published or have their work read by anyone. That fascinates me. I don't want to be famous or rich (though I wouldn't mind being either) but I do want people read my work and enjoy it.
I was reading a book the other day (one of the latest in Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series) and one of the characters is a musician. He is part of a duo and he is considered the "second banana" to the more charismatic other half. The character says he never cared about that. Even if the other guy always got credit for all the lyrics or the music or the singing, it didn't matter to him. All that mattered was that he was creating music and people listened to it.
I have to wonder: would I feel that way? Would you?
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
I heard somewhere that the decision to self-publish or not has much to do with why people wanted to have their work published. Do they want to be famous, make money or simply have the personal accomplishment of having been published? It seems silly to ask if writers want their work to be read, but considering what kind of audience they are hoping to reach is important. Does genre have any impact on whether to self-publish or not?
I don't have answers to these questions, but one of my two main reasons for writing is that I enjoy reading stories and hope others will read my stories and enjoy them as well. My other main reason for writing is a quote from somewhere: "Writers write because they can't not write." That is so, so true.
While I think all writers feel that to some degree, many are happy not to ever be published or have their work read by anyone. That fascinates me. I don't want to be famous or rich (though I wouldn't mind being either) but I do want people read my work and enjoy it.
I was reading a book the other day (one of the latest in Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series) and one of the characters is a musician. He is part of a duo and he is considered the "second banana" to the more charismatic other half. The character says he never cared about that. Even if the other guy always got credit for all the lyrics or the music or the singing, it didn't matter to him. All that mattered was that he was creating music and people listened to it.
I have to wonder: would I feel that way? Would you?
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Self-publishing And E-publishing
I, and several members of Living Writer's Collective (the world's greatest writing group), recently attended a seminar on self-publishing and electronic publishing hosted by author Ramon Presson. He highlighted the pros and cons of various forms of publishing: POD (print on demand) self, vanity, traditional.
The fact is that traditional publishing is becoming less and less of an option for new writers as publishers just don't have the resources to take risks on new books and new writers. Of the other options, POD and self or e-publishing are much less expensive and have better rewards than vanity press.
A key thing that many writers are not aware of is that even successful writers who have traditional publishers are turning down advances from publishers and giving up their contracts in favor of publishing their work themselves. They do this because it allows the author to keep all profits and because having a publisher no longer benefits writers the way it used to. Today, even if you have a publisher, YOU have to do all the PR and marketing yourself, the same as if you were self-published.
Ramon spoke about a friend's experience with publishing on Kindle and how easy and quick his friend said it was. It amazes me that more people haven't looked into this.
I am the most tech and computer challenged person you could meet. I can now send an email with attachments, but until several months ago I had to call my husband and ask how to do it (again) each time I needed to. Even so, I have successfully e-published several stories and one novel for both Kindle and Nook. NOTE: Kindle and Nook pay you a percentage of royalties on sales of your work, but there is NO COST to you at all to publish with them. It's a win-win.
I thought I would share the details of how easy this is. The first thing I did was "attend" a FREE webinar by Daniel Hall, about how to publish a book to Kindle through Amazon's DTP (Direct To Publish) site. The webinar lasted about an hour and not only walked you through the process and explained every step in detail, but offered lots of information and advice on marketing and format and other things I don't know the actual terms for. Hall has another webinar about publishing to Nook using Barnes and Noble's Pubit! program.
Following this instruction, I was able to publish my work for both Kindle and Nook and the whole process is very quick and simple. I started out, as an experiment, publishing a short story and now have several short stories and my first novel available for my many (all four of them) fans to purchase and download to their e-readers. I highly recommend all writers try this form of publishing.
As far as I know, you can still Google Daniel Hall's webinars for self e-publishing and view them FREE. Hall has lots of webinars on many subjects regarding writing, marketing and promoting your work (not all of them free, but his clients that pay for other services is what allows him to offer some things to the rest of us at no charge).
I advise everyone to do this with some of their writing just because it's a great experience. Ramon suggested it also looks good on your writing resume. And once your work is out there, it may become wildly successful. What have you got to lose?
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
The fact is that traditional publishing is becoming less and less of an option for new writers as publishers just don't have the resources to take risks on new books and new writers. Of the other options, POD and self or e-publishing are much less expensive and have better rewards than vanity press.
A key thing that many writers are not aware of is that even successful writers who have traditional publishers are turning down advances from publishers and giving up their contracts in favor of publishing their work themselves. They do this because it allows the author to keep all profits and because having a publisher no longer benefits writers the way it used to. Today, even if you have a publisher, YOU have to do all the PR and marketing yourself, the same as if you were self-published.
Ramon spoke about a friend's experience with publishing on Kindle and how easy and quick his friend said it was. It amazes me that more people haven't looked into this.
I am the most tech and computer challenged person you could meet. I can now send an email with attachments, but until several months ago I had to call my husband and ask how to do it (again) each time I needed to. Even so, I have successfully e-published several stories and one novel for both Kindle and Nook. NOTE: Kindle and Nook pay you a percentage of royalties on sales of your work, but there is NO COST to you at all to publish with them. It's a win-win.
I thought I would share the details of how easy this is. The first thing I did was "attend" a FREE webinar by Daniel Hall, about how to publish a book to Kindle through Amazon's DTP (Direct To Publish) site. The webinar lasted about an hour and not only walked you through the process and explained every step in detail, but offered lots of information and advice on marketing and format and other things I don't know the actual terms for. Hall has another webinar about publishing to Nook using Barnes and Noble's Pubit! program.
Following this instruction, I was able to publish my work for both Kindle and Nook and the whole process is very quick and simple. I started out, as an experiment, publishing a short story and now have several short stories and my first novel available for my many (all four of them) fans to purchase and download to their e-readers. I highly recommend all writers try this form of publishing.
As far as I know, you can still Google Daniel Hall's webinars for self e-publishing and view them FREE. Hall has lots of webinars on many subjects regarding writing, marketing and promoting your work (not all of them free, but his clients that pay for other services is what allows him to offer some things to the rest of us at no charge).
I advise everyone to do this with some of their writing just because it's a great experience. Ramon suggested it also looks good on your writing resume. And once your work is out there, it may become wildly successful. What have you got to lose?
www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com
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