e-Book, or Actually Published?

So... if you were definitely going to get published, which type of publishing would you recommend? e-Book, or Actually Publication? (Money Wise)

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@RiordanGeek E-book IS published. You have exactly the same hoops to jump through, the same editing to do, the same angst over the cover your publisher inflicts on you, the same tax returns to make.

The difference is speed. Typically a print book takes at least a year between contract and shelf. An e-book can be done iin months. Of course, a badly-edited self-pub can be uploaded in a day, but I don't recommend this.

The other difference is money. Typical royalties for a first print book by an unknown author is around 8-10% and advances vary from $0 to $1000 (yeah, I can see the dropped jaws, but this is reality for most writers)

E-books pay a lot more. Typical royalties for an e-book vary between 30 and 55% for tradionally published e-books, and up to 75% for sub-published e-books. Payment is also faster, since e-book usually only have a week for returns, while print books could be sitting around a shop for months before they are returned as unsalable.

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This was good info :)

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@Ctyolene but say I would publish a print book right now. Would my book be more popular than e-booking it?

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@RiordanGeek No. No, NO.

Do not even consider self-publishing a print book. It's a guaranteed disaster.

Remember I mentioned how low the royalties are on print books? This is because the bulk of the purchase price goes, not to the publisher, but to the distributor, the company who gets the book from the publisher and onto the shelves of book shops.

If you self-publish, you have no distribution. You might be able to talk a couple of local shops into stocking it (though not if it looks cheap and nasty) but that's all. You need to have your book in hundreds of shops in order to sell enough to make a reasonable return. And all it takes is one typo on the first page, and no one at all will buy it.

You may think that all your family and friends will buy it, but they won't. Some will expect free copies, but the majority will say they have already read it when you were editing, or it's not their sort of thing. My parents sitll haven't read my books.

However, if you e-publish, you can reduce the price to a point where strangers who don't know you will take a chance on an unknown author. And once some people are buying it and putting up good reviews, more people are likely to buy it.

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So you are thinking that e-publishing is the best way?

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@_Me_You_Us_ It's a different market, but a growing one, and it has far less potential for loss than print books.

Most authors think that the worst position is to be an unpublished author. You are approaching every agent and publisher with no track record. It's not. The worst position is to have had a book which was published and made a loss. If your publisher prints 3000 books, and only a few hundred sell, you have cost your publish money and you will not publish a second book.

An e-book, while it may not make a lot of money, will not lose a lot of money. And print books have a surprisingly short shelf life (often only six weeks) but e-books can stay in print indefinitely at no cost.

Of course, with e-books, you are missing the casual shopper browsing in the supermarket. You will never crack that market, but most print books don't anyway.

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@Ctyolene No no no.. I don't mean self publish. I mean if Scholastics had just told me that they would publish my book, and amazon said they would e-book publish mine. Which would be more popular?

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@RiordanGeek Do both. As for which would be more popular, it would depend on the book. What sort of book are you talking about?

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Well... I don't know action and adventure for the genre. @Ctyolene

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@RiordanGeek Should sell well in either format.

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@Ctyolene Do you have any 'pros' for having a book published by scholatics or simon and schuster?

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@RiordanGeek If they take you on, go for it. Are they offering you a contract?

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This is theoretical. But still, if the option was in front of me, what would be good if I accepted? @Ctyolene

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@RiordanGeek Yes. I didn't realise you were getting a contract with a Big 6 publisher. That's amazing.

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@Ctyolene You still haven't answered my question. What aspects of being published (not necessarily the popular ones) is better than being published by e-book?

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@RiordanGeek If you are published by a big publisher, they have the distribution and can get your book into thousands of book shops, as well as all over Amazon, B&N etc. You may well have a media blitz with launch party and book signing. It's likely that you'll sell a lot of books.

Of course, if you are offered a contract with a Big 6, find a good agent pronto, and make sure the contract doesn't rip you off or tie you into a multi-book dead you can't meet.

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@RiordanGeek I actually see a lot of different questions here.

One is self-publish vs. publish through a publisher (doesn't matter if it's print or eBook). I know people who would say the publishers are a dying breed and you should self-publish. They say that's the future. I hope they're wrong. For me, you get a lot from a publisher. You get professional editing. You get marketing. You get distribution. And the most important thing you get is that an expert says your manuscript is good enough to publish.

Now for the print vs eBook question. If you get a printed book on a shelf in a bookstore, it stays there for a few months (if that). If you have it available as an eBook, it could be available for years. Why? There's no shelf cost with an eBook.

Now there's a third aspect to this riddle. Print or eBook? If you self-publish, you can go the POD (print on demand) route. There's no upfront cost for printing the books where a publisher can lose money doing so.

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@Ctyolene @Blayde I appreciate you guys telling me so much information. It's just that I feel like more people go to Barn & Noble than surf the web to find books...

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@RiordanGeek At the last count, there were more e-books being sold than paperbacks. As Kindles and Nooks and other e-readers get more popular, that is likely to increase. But yes, B&N still sell tons of books (literally), and if your book is on the shelves of that sort of shop, it should sell well. The problem is that they have limited shelf space and can only carry a certain number of titles, and only put them on the shelves for so long.

Six weeks is the typical shelf-life of a paperback from an unknown author. Don't be fooled by the way you can always see Harry Potter and Twilight on sale, they are still selling thousands every day. Most books spend less then two months on the shelf and are then returned to be pulped.

Because of this, most print publishers are very selective about who they take on, and often only take on a dozen new authors a year. They have to invest at least a million in printing and distribution, so they want to be sure they'll get it back.

In contrast, e-publishers are more willing to take on new authors. I recently interviewed the publisher of Ellora's Cave. They sell 190,000 books a month! They do print as well as e-books, but all the profits are in the e-books.

If you get taken on by a Big 6 publisher, it's because they reckon you are worth an investment of a million. (and yes, I'm deeply jealous). So good luck.

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@Ctyolene, I apologize if this sounds childish, and totally out of line - but e-books can ONLY be read on the internet, or Kindle/Nooks and cannot be printed, and you can flip pages with physical fingers, correct? Or like on Amazon, you create an e-book, and they send you a print version (I think)?

Please correct me if anything I have just mentioned is wrong.

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@Ctyolene Where would you suggest self-publishing an e-book. My book is far from ready, as you said, but I would like to keep it in the back of my mind. I was so set on print, just because I LOVE print books, but you are putting forth quite an excellent argument for self-published print authors.

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@RiordanGeek Some e-books can be bought in a form that can be printed out. Many e-publishers have different formats, so you can read it on a Kindle, a Nook, a Sony e-reader, a phone or even a playstation. Or your computer. Or print it out and bind it yourself.

Some websites allow you to print out a book if you want.

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@puppycakes21 Amazon is your best bet. Or Smashwords. Or both. The great advantage of Amazon is that your book can show up on searches in a way that a book in a bookstore won't. Of course, if it is bad, the reader will spot that as soon as she clicks "Look Inside" and you won't sell. But at least Amazon are transparent about sales and royalties.

By all means, print out a few books for yourself, but realistically, you are not going to sell them to more than friends and family.

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I have self published a book (in Spanish as I'm from Argentina) both as an e-book and as POD. I never even tried sending it to a conventional publishing house (didn't want to wait so long). The printed edition is on Createspace (which I recommend as it doesn't have high costs and it isn't expensive to buy copies for yourself and to distribute in the local shops). Then I published in Kindle. I signed it to Kindle Select's program, which allows people to borrow your book and lets you offer it for free during 5 days each 90 days (but you can't offer the book elswhere). Anyway, I have sold hundreds in Amazon but just a few in print. Maybe because the ebook is much cheaper or also because it is indeed a growing market. if you self-publish, I recommend doing both, even if you don't sell many printed copies. Why? Many fans will ask for a printed copy (mine do), and even if you won't sell much, it is nice to have that option available. You can sell more that to just a few friends and family, but for that, you will need to invest some time and money on advertising, which most of us can't afford.

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