E-Books and print on demand...

[The Wizard Gethwin]

Just curious...

Has anyone had much luck selling work through either of these mediums?

[Lyn]

The key, I think, to long term success, is to have enough of an inventory available (either as POD and/or ebook) - and to regularly add to that inventory of quality stories - so that when readers do discover your "brand" they will have other books to choose from and buy. Many readers are loyal and when they find a good series they'll stick with it (or buy all the books to catch up), so the larger the backlist of books you have, the better. But this takes time. According to Dean Wesley Smith in a recent blog post on the "math" of writing, self-publishing four novels a year will eventually yield a 80k to 100k/yr income after about 4 or 5 years...if one does it the right way (quality writing and appropriate pricing).

[The Wizard Gethwin]

Interesting! Thank you!

[Window Bar]

Has anyone had much luck selling work through either of these mediums?

I have to agree with Lyn: The writer ought to have a workable inventory of completed books. Series books work better here than stand-alones, in that the opener can be given away or sold for almost nothing. Several independents, such as Brian Pratt and Amanda Hocking, have sold many, many books this way (Hocking is north of one million by now). BTW-- for the obvious reason of pricing, ebooks work better than POD for this strategy.

To self-publish an ebook, visit Smashwords (covering Apple ibooks, Barnes&Noble, Diesel-ebooks, Kobobooks, Scrollmotion, and Sony) and Amazon (covering Amazon's downloads in US, UK and Germany). There may be others as well. Participation in all of these is free until your books sell, at which moment the vendors collect commissions. Make sure to get a lot of editing help before you embark on the publishing side. There's so much junk out there, you will need to differentiate yourself from it.

I've finished only one book, and giveaways went well above expectations: Somewhere over 25,000 copies. If only there had been a next-book-in-line. There wasn't, so paid copies have been a modest 130.

-- WB

[The Wizard Gethwin]

wow- that's interesting Window. I've finished 6 in a series, and am working on numbers 7, 8 and 9. Might be the way to go. Thank you!

[JoshBrown]

if we are talking self-publishing, then expect to spend more time marketing than writing (and expect to spend some money on marketing as well) after you upload your first few books.

[Lyn]

Here's a great blog post from author Lawrence Block on Kindle guru John Locke's marketing tips:
http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/2...russell-blake/

[Tomolan]

Welcome to the post-Napster age, when people are more than willing to take your book for free than actually put money up to read it.
From what I've been reading about book marketing and self-publishing, you have to remember that 90% of books never sell well (if at all).
You don't have to go far on the net to see sites give away books (and e-book) to attract readership.