Wednesday, August 8, 2007

What about Epublishing?

Many authors are considering epublishing. Epublishers produce your writing in an electronic format that is bought and downloaded by readers instead of published in a hard copy. There are advantages and disadvantages to this and Margaret Riley, epublisher of Changeling Press, gives and overview of the process at BookEnds, LLC.'s blog.

She makes some great points. It can take years in traditional publishing to get an agent, sell your book, and then finally get that 5,0000 or 10,000 advance. In the meantime you get nothing.

However if you publish short novellas around 20,000 words on a regular basis, you might make $500 within a few months. No advance up front - it's all based on sales. But your books continue to sell as you publish new ones, and the checks can be steady. But of course you don't get the respect that comes with publishing in print.

That attitude may change one day, but it hasn't yet. One number I saw said epublishing sales are up 1,000% over last year. It's a market with big growth potential, and Amazon and other publishers are starting to get on board.

From what I've seen, genre rules in ebooks. Erotica, sci fi, and supernatural romance are big categories right now, but many companies publish non-fiction and other genere fiction too. EPIC, an organization for electronically published authors, has a list of epublishers to check out. I am assuming they've vetted them, but always do your own research to make sure the companies are reputable and pay on time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

E-gad! You're providing too many outlets for my writing compulsion, ha. Blogging is my version of epublishing - others read my writing, hence I'm published. Seriously, given more time (!), I would definitely try epublishing. For now, I'm going to stick to NaNoWriMo - that has totally captured my imagination. I was writing lesson notes last night and incorporated the young writers program. I'm definitely going to sign up myself.

zeldadg said...

I did it last year and actually got a draft of a manuscript I've been working on since. I plan to throw my body into the chasm again this year. I was shocked how much I actually write with no time to stop and think about it. I bet your students will love the competitive aspect of it. Thanks for the link, by the by.

Anonymous said...

Have you ever read this book ART AND FEAR by David Bayles? I just read the section "Perfection", which makes the point about quantity over quality yielding better results.

I'm so NOT a competitive person, but I've learned that students LOVE LOVE LOVE competition, even if it involves writing.

I think I have write a post about "quantity over quality" some day...

john said...

Publication through digitization is the emerging trend and most of the publishers are following. There is a website called www.pressmart.net providing the services of digitization for print publication like books, news papers, magazines, journals, etc. Most of the publishers are using pressmart.net services for e-editions of print publications.