Month: May 2012

E-Book Prices Must Come Down

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This post, by Richard Curtis, originally appeared on Digital Book World on 4/29/12.

If you seek cogency on digital publishing subjects you’ll always find it in Laura Hazard Owen’s postings. A good example is a recent one on the implications for consumers of the settlement agreements with the Department of Justice in its conspiracy lawsuit against five major publishers and Apple.

What does the settlement mean for customers? Here’s a summary:

1. Let the Discounting Begin.

“Readers are likely to see lower prices on e-books published by HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster — at least at Amazon, which expressed its glee over the settlement. But you won’t see those lower e-book prices until at least June…I wouldn’t be surprised to see some shockingly cheap bestsellers from those publishers — think massive summer promotions where big titles by authors like James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and Nicholas Sparks are $1.99.”

2. Amazon rivals will discount too.

“Other e-book retailers, like Barnes & Noble and Kobo, are likely to want to enter into new contracts quickly as well so that they are on a more even playing field with Amazon.”

Owen points out that Amazon competitors “may not be able to afford to discount a wide range of e-books as deeply as Amazon can.” But that has not prevented Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and even the struggling Sony from maintaining a healthy market share of the e-book retail business.

3. Bundling of e-books, and e-book/p-book combo packages

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes two more bullet points and a link to some further analysis on the DoJ lawsuit, on Digital Book World.

Self-Publishing As Meaningful Work

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This post, by Matthew Iden, originally appeared on his site on 4/25/12.

There is a passage in Malcolm Gladwell’s amazing book Outliers that, at its heart, speaks volumes about why writers should self-publish.

[T]hree things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our works fulfills us. …Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful.

Over and over again on websites and in personal correspondence, I hear writers who have chosen to self-publish talk about how energized (or re-energized) they are. While there’s the inevitable grousing about low-sales numbers or promotions gone haywire, rarely are there complaints about the work itself. I know I find myself ready to write every day, eager to get to the page and get my latest words down.

That’s because, according to Gladwell’s definition, self-publishing is meaningful work.

 

Autonomy

The vast majority of would-be writers get up in the morning and write for a faceless agent at an unknown agency. They write so they can add their manuscript to a growing pile of manuscripts so large that at some agencies the interns can sit on them like chairs. That manuscript may be rejected for any number of reasons that, in most cases, will never be communicated to the author, leaving no opportunity for improvement.

The self-published author writes for himself or herself and sets the standard for quality, content, and length. There are no bosses—or, they are the best kind to have: readers and fans. Writing for yourself means there are no barriers or go-betweens. The relationship consists of you and your audience, and that’s it.

Complexity

 

Read the rest of the post on Matthew Iden’s site.

What Goes Into a Book: Case Study: The Catalyst

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I was talking to a reader on my Facebook page and had mentioned a small part of the process for The Catalyst. Her reply was:

I knew that releasing a book was a complicated process, but ‘Wow’. As a reader it’s interesting to learn everything involved in order to get a book out, so that we can enjoy it. If more people understood everything that it takes to get a book out into the world, there would be alot less bitching about having to spend anything over 99 cents for one.

Since I think this understanding is so important, rather than JUST reply directly to her, I decided to make a blog post about it to take you through what goes into a typical Zoe Winters series book:

 

It’s not just writing a book and throwing it out there. In an indie situation all time and money costs are the author’s. There are promotional costs as well as the costs of putting out a truly professional product that can compete with mainstream published work on quality. On the one hand people expect indie books to be “cheap” but on the other, they complain about lower quality. In order to GET higher quality it takes a level of work (and often monetary costs) that require it to not be “cheap”. For example… if I charged 99 cents (making only 35 cents per copy sold), I would feel highly resentful, given what all goes into this both time and money wise.

Here’s what goes into the standard Zoe series book:

Rough Draft (usually I try to get this done in a month or less. Most people can’t do more than 2-3 hours of actual writing in a day because it’s pretty draining. Creative work is not digging ditches, but it can still be exhausting.)

Then I do a read through and edit and send it to the beta readers. (while it’s with the betas I’ll generally work on something else. That’s also when I start getting stuff together for the book trailer and the cover art and start the process for that. I consult on cover art but I’m more involved with the book trailer. I pick music, video clips, images, and write the text and give a basic storyboard idea of how I want it to go. But generally I’m also working on another phase of another project while my book is with betas or with the copyeditor. Like when Catalyst goes to the copyeditor I’ll be writing Lifecycle.)

When it gets back from the betas, I do another round of edits, based on feedback. Then I send it to the copyeditor. (while it’s with the copyeditor, I’m doing other things on other projects, or getting the book tour/promo set up and ready to go, or whatever.)

When it gets back from the copyeditor, I input the copyedits, do a final proofread, format for ebook, register copyright, then publish and run my promo and send review copies out to reviewers.

Then I format for print, send it to LSI and wait for my proof copy. When I get my proof copy, I proofread the print, then approve it for distribution. During all this I get things set up with my narrator and audio production people for the audio book. I consult back and forth on things such as the particular voices each main character will have and answer any questions on word pronunciations that aren’t clear.

As recording comes back for the book, I listen to it and note any audio errors that the editor might not have caught. A mispronunciation here… a part that’s hard to understand… etc. I send notes back and re-listen to the fixed parts, then approve for distribution.

As print and audiobook become available, I promote those with a newsletter, blog post, twitter, and facebook.

Things I spend money on… like for the Catalyst:

Cover art, including audiobook cover.
Copyediting
Book Tour (Blog tour)
Book Trailer and elements for the trailer (music, video clips, images)
Kindle Nation Daily ad
Audio narration
Free signed copies as part of previous promos.

Total costs involved for this book come to about $5,000 (a big chunk of that of course is audiobook narration and production, but I think the costs are worth it to be in audio.)

In the end analysis, writing, editing, promoting, and releasing a book takes me hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of my own personal money. This is why I charge $4.95 for full-length books in the digital format. Digital is my main bread and butter. Audio and print are small sidestreams of income, though Audio will likely grow over time because the market itself is growing.

 

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.

Are the E-Reader’s Days Numbered?

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This article, by Quentin Fottrell, originally appeared on SmartMoney.

By pumping $300 million into the Nook, Microsoft may actually be betting against Barnes and Noble’s e-reader.

The software giant plans to include the Nook app in its new Windows 8 operating system, which experts say suggests the two companies think the future of digital books is on computers, cellphones, and tablets – not just traditional e-readers. “Barnes & Noble will likely become more device agnostic,” says Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords.com, one of the world’s largest distributor of self-published e-books. “Consumers will be able to read Barnes & Noble e-books on a wide range of devices.”

 

As it is, only 41% of people read e-books on the Nook or Kindle, according to a study released this month by Pew Research. Some 29% read them on cell phones, 23% on tablets and 42% on computers. Since most people have their phone with them at all times, it’s not surprising that phones and work computers would be used for reading in addition separate e-readers, analysts say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read the rest of the article on SmartMoney.