So in the weird scheme of things I might have been proven wrong.
Being inside the industry, and having a couple of resources not meant for the general public (meaning recommendations, my own research, that sort of thing), I have discovered that yes, there may actually be a viable market for Epub Fiction.
It comes after more than just a couple if people ask about the Kindle/nook/whatever ever versions of the latest publication. Basically, I base the way I promote and the medium which I distribute based on who actually reads what. There's a growing gap between hard copy and electronic format. It's been a nightmare of mine since I started selling books. Where to place money? Do I drop it hard copy contracts? Or take the risk of simple E-publishing?
Frankly the whole thing freaks me out. It runs absolutely counter to what I have been told and shown. People, intelligent, thoughtful people reading my fictitious work on a Kindle? You see, from the numbers I had gathered, as well as some reports, blogs and my own sales figures, the E-publication realm for fiction was all but non-existent. There are two reasons for this:
One, people seem to prefer hard copy. I remember John Stewart making a joke about falling asleep with a Kindle on your chest instead of a paper back, and everything I found concerning the electronic device since then has reinforced that train of thought. There's numerous problems with Electronic publication, the least of which being shelf-life and price tags that are the same as the physical copies. People, especially since Electronic readers are less than a decade old, still prefer to hold a hard copy and manually turn the pages. If there's science behind this, I'm not aware of it, but I tend to agree.
Second, Social Class. Mid to high end earners tend to read more non fiction. They like their how-to guides and the idiots guide to this or that. They read manuals because their occupation may require them to stay at the top of the game, or else their paycheck goes to somebody younger and more energetic. For instance, medical professionals don't buy physical copies of every journal which they wish to read, which they are almost required to in order to stay aware of the growing technology of the medical community, as well as our understanding of the human body. They tend read those journals online, where they can reference them later with a simple search. That's far more efficient than keeping bookshelves of publications and having to search through them every time somebody comes in with a less than common disorder. Lower wage earners don't often front the 150 or 200 dollars for an electronic device simply to read, so they buy, often at the same price as the electronic format, the physical copy of the book. Not trying to suggest anything or start class warfare, that's just the current trend, subject to change decades from now.
And that's how I've treated publishing all this time. I'm not out to sell you the secret to life, I just want you to enjoy what I wasted my time filling the blank page up with. Fiction is my preference, and in the one instance I wrote a How-to book, I published strictly on Kindle instead of fronting the contracts and filing copyright and ISBN's and NDA's and so on and so forth. That's just how I thought, and I supposed that many others, thought it would work.
But now people are asking about electronic formats of my book, enough to give me serious pause and reevaluate my publishing methods. Might 'How to Sell Fiction' ever see a hard copy? Sure, I'd love that, but it's got to work in my favor first. Will 'The things I Left Behind' ever see an e-publication? Sure, when I have the time. And maybe it's that mind set that is costing me readership... Since I'm not a major contributor to the lit world, I'm limited in my marketing capacity, but based on what way too many of you are asking about, I'm reconsidering the whole business structure. The Question is, is it worth another thousand dollars to publish something, in a genre I'm not familiar with, in a way that goes against my established logic, to see if I'm actually wrong?
Your purchases will tell me in December.
I know there are grizzled, hardened authors and people set up as publishing houses that are looking at this blog out of the corner of their eye. Everything I've written here runs counter to the general view and marketing scheme of e-books. But remember, they had to market the Kindle, the Nook and so forth, they have to make us believe they are the answer to all our reading woes. Once you get past the talking points and dive into the numbers for small self-publishers, I can vouch that physical formats work out better for fiction, at least it looked that way until a year ago, and I have months until I'll have a clear vision of how this year went. So the surprise for me is the sudden change. I'd encourage you, if your a small publisher and you publish both physical and digital copies, to look at your own reports and statements. Hell, come back and tell me about it. Maybe I've just lost the plot.
Being inside the industry, and having a couple of resources not meant for the general public (meaning recommendations, my own research, that sort of thing), I have discovered that yes, there may actually be a viable market for Epub Fiction.
It comes after more than just a couple if people ask about the Kindle/nook/whatever ever versions of the latest publication. Basically, I base the way I promote and the medium which I distribute based on who actually reads what. There's a growing gap between hard copy and electronic format. It's been a nightmare of mine since I started selling books. Where to place money? Do I drop it hard copy contracts? Or take the risk of simple E-publishing?
Frankly the whole thing freaks me out. It runs absolutely counter to what I have been told and shown. People, intelligent, thoughtful people reading my fictitious work on a Kindle? You see, from the numbers I had gathered, as well as some reports, blogs and my own sales figures, the E-publication realm for fiction was all but non-existent. There are two reasons for this:
One, people seem to prefer hard copy. I remember John Stewart making a joke about falling asleep with a Kindle on your chest instead of a paper back, and everything I found concerning the electronic device since then has reinforced that train of thought. There's numerous problems with Electronic publication, the least of which being shelf-life and price tags that are the same as the physical copies. People, especially since Electronic readers are less than a decade old, still prefer to hold a hard copy and manually turn the pages. If there's science behind this, I'm not aware of it, but I tend to agree.
Second, Social Class. Mid to high end earners tend to read more non fiction. They like their how-to guides and the idiots guide to this or that. They read manuals because their occupation may require them to stay at the top of the game, or else their paycheck goes to somebody younger and more energetic. For instance, medical professionals don't buy physical copies of every journal which they wish to read, which they are almost required to in order to stay aware of the growing technology of the medical community, as well as our understanding of the human body. They tend read those journals online, where they can reference them later with a simple search. That's far more efficient than keeping bookshelves of publications and having to search through them every time somebody comes in with a less than common disorder. Lower wage earners don't often front the 150 or 200 dollars for an electronic device simply to read, so they buy, often at the same price as the electronic format, the physical copy of the book. Not trying to suggest anything or start class warfare, that's just the current trend, subject to change decades from now.
And that's how I've treated publishing all this time. I'm not out to sell you the secret to life, I just want you to enjoy what I wasted my time filling the blank page up with. Fiction is my preference, and in the one instance I wrote a How-to book, I published strictly on Kindle instead of fronting the contracts and filing copyright and ISBN's and NDA's and so on and so forth. That's just how I thought, and I supposed that many others, thought it would work.
But now people are asking about electronic formats of my book, enough to give me serious pause and reevaluate my publishing methods. Might 'How to Sell Fiction' ever see a hard copy? Sure, I'd love that, but it's got to work in my favor first. Will 'The things I Left Behind' ever see an e-publication? Sure, when I have the time. And maybe it's that mind set that is costing me readership... Since I'm not a major contributor to the lit world, I'm limited in my marketing capacity, but based on what way too many of you are asking about, I'm reconsidering the whole business structure. The Question is, is it worth another thousand dollars to publish something, in a genre I'm not familiar with, in a way that goes against my established logic, to see if I'm actually wrong?
Your purchases will tell me in December.
I know there are grizzled, hardened authors and people set up as publishing houses that are looking at this blog out of the corner of their eye. Everything I've written here runs counter to the general view and marketing scheme of e-books. But remember, they had to market the Kindle, the Nook and so forth, they have to make us believe they are the answer to all our reading woes. Once you get past the talking points and dive into the numbers for small self-publishers, I can vouch that physical formats work out better for fiction, at least it looked that way until a year ago, and I have months until I'll have a clear vision of how this year went. So the surprise for me is the sudden change. I'd encourage you, if your a small publisher and you publish both physical and digital copies, to look at your own reports and statements. Hell, come back and tell me about it. Maybe I've just lost the plot.
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