# Thinking of Ebook publishing -- am I insane? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 9, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711 "2005-03-09T20:16:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/21 "2005-03-10T20:20:55Z")
eBooks follow the same rules as vanity presses or self-publishing: if you have a specific niche publication, then you can make a success of it. Usually, that means nonfiction. If your book were a history of your local area, for instance, you could probably do OK with it. Fiction does poorly. Readers of fiction are not going to pay to download a file from an unknown author. Hell, even Stephen King couldn’t make an eBook pay – so an unkown author is not going to be successful. Readers will buy fiction in one circumstance: if it’s been published elsewhere. Reprint fiction does OK in eBook format. I’ve had a bunch of short stories republished by Fictionwide; the money wasn’t great, but it was more than enough to take my family out to a couple of dinners in a nice restaurant. since I had already been paid for the stories before, the extra was a nice bonus. People don’t buy short story collections – even in regular books – so your chance of eBook success is not good (Ask yourself: how many short story collections you’ve bought yourself?) You’re better off submitting the stories individually to paying markets – one or two sales will probably earn more than ePublishing all of them. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/22 "2005-03-10T20:38:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Is there a lot of book market left for this kind of thing, or have videos sapped it. I’d say it’s decent, as a market. The quality is higher in print than in video (at least for what I look for), and cheaper–8-10 racy scenes for $5 in paperback or $35 in film. It’s still a niche market in that you have to actively go looking for it, whereas video porn has heavy promotion and wide distribution (Hi, Internet!). The returns may be lower, but so is the investment. I know Borders carries the most mainstream stuff–usually in anthology format, and a good porn shop will have a paperback section. And there’s people like me, who aren’t visually-oriented, and prefer reading to seeing. But that’s annecdotal. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/23 "2005-03-10T23:00:34Z")
> [@yosemite](#): > > I lean against e-Books, however, because they’re so easy to copy and share. (Unless you set some sort of security into the eBook, which may or may not be worth the hassle.) If you are not concerned about people buying your eBook and then emailing all their buddies a copy (or sharing it on P2P), then eBooks could be okay. But a regular print book sounds better to me. I much prefer to read an actual paperback, rather than scroll through a PDF eBook on my computer screen. I just want to address this paragraph. First, let me say - I agree wholeheartedly that an actual dead tree edition is better than an e-book. Especially since I have no PDA, can’t afford a PDA, and the places I like best for reading are my bed and on the can. Neither very suitable for my desktop computer. However, the portability of ebooks is actually less of a handicap than it might appear. First, while a lot of people are willing to start an ebook, especially for a new author, they do prefer a real book. Secondly, how many times have you been loaned a book by a friend, and then gone out to buy a copy for yourself after you’d finished it? This is actually a very effective means of marketing for smaller print run books. As an example, a few years ago Eric Flint got into an argument with his publisher, Jim Baen, about the idiocy of the various record company lawsuits against Napster and file-sharing. Baen ended up challenging Flint to do what he was suggesting the record companies do. Flint took up the challenge and offered his first book, Mother of Demons online for free. After a couple of months they went back and checked out the sales figures - this was several years after the book had originally been published, and back sales for relatively new authors are never the best, but of all the books on Baen’s backlist, suddenly Mother of Demons had gone to the top of the list for sales figures. Since then Baen has set up a Free Library of ebooks available for download - with no restrictions. And seems to be doing quite well by the experiment. I communicated with Jim Baen myself last year on the topic, and he’s got no plans to shut down the Free Library. Nor is he planning to change his policy for his for-pay ebook site: Which allows unlimited downloads, and no protection on the contents. Oddly enough he’s still selling books. In fact two years ago he and Eric Flint tried a new experiment - a magazine of short stories set in Eric Flint’s 1632 universe. This was originally planned to be an ebook release _only_. The sales figures were so good that there is now a continuing series of this magazine, and the first issue has since been published as a traditional book where it is also making money, AIUI. So, I don’t think ebooks are quite as problematical for theft as you’re implying, **Yosemite**. I’ll admit it’s a niche market, and even confess that SF fans can be a little weird at times, but also think that habitual readers like owning books, especially books they really enjoy. Whether they’ve read it before, or not. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/24 "2005-03-11T01:38:47Z")
> [@](#): > > 'd love to have a big pay me huge sums of money and invest huge sums of money in marketing and promoting my work, but I would feel stupid waiting for it to happen, expecially in the area of bondage erotica. It worked for Pauline Reage and that chick who wrote 9 1/2 Weeks, and practically no one else. There are actually several paying markets, e-publishers and otherwise, for bondage erotica. You can start [here](http://www.erotica-readers.com/ERA/G/G-Main.htm). It’s updated regularly. At least once a month, if not more. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/25 "2005-03-11T02:14:08Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Liquid Silver. I tried Ellora’s Cave first, but apparently, it wasn’t smutty enough for them. Heh, whatever. Liquid Silver bought it under 2 months after I submitted it. Congratulations on your success! That particular genre is a tough one - it’s hard to read the publishers and understand what they want - some want more romance than sex, while others want really raunchy sex and little plot. Still others will accept almost anything. Liquid Silver is one of the better e-publishers for erotica, I’ve heard. Good job. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/26 "2005-03-11T13:55:01Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Fiction does poorly. Readers of fiction are not going to pay to download a file from an unknown author. Hell, even Stephen King couldn’t make an eBook pay – so an unkown author is not going to be successful. > > Readers will buy fiction in one circumstance: if it’s been published elsewhere. Reprint fiction does OK in eBook format. I’ve had a bunch of short stories republished by Fictionwide; the money wasn’t great, but it was more than enough to take my family out to a couple of dinners in a nice restaurant. since I had already been paid for the stories before, the extra was a nice bonus. > > People don’t buy short story collections – even in regular books – so your chance of eBook success is not good (Ask yourself: how many short story collections you’ve bought yourself?) You’re better off submitting the stories individually to paying markets – one or two sales will probably earn more than ePublishing all of them. Having already had the experience of getting paid repeatedly for my fiction, I have to contest your notion that fiction doesn’t pay. It does. That said, the number of people who have bought my stuff are a tiny fraction of those who visited my site. You have to have lots of visitors to make a few sales. I am hoping however that people who visit ebook sites are looking for quality and already have their wallets out of their pockets. I think the thing is, people will pay for quality in fiction. Most of the free bondage erotica is just reporting out of sex fantasies. The writing tends to be very poor quaity and have very low standards as far as plotting and characterization. There are some notable exceptions, but most of the porn on the Internet – of any description – I would pay a fair sum of money not to have to read. People will pay for the quality stuff, but you have to demonstrate that you can write it. Some do so by distributing their short stories for free as samples of their work. Others do so by writing articles. I plan to market my ebooks by writing articles. I’ve already written lots of them. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/27 "2005-03-11T14:41:23Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > There are actually several paying markets, e-publishers and otherwise, for bondage erotica. You can start [here](http://www.erotica-readers.com/ERA/G/G-Main.htm). It’s updated regularly. At least once a month, if not more. I’ll check your site out but I still don’t understand the rationale for “selling” my work to anyone when there are sites out there that will distribute my work for me just for a cut of the sales. ---
**Author:** ![butter\_pie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aca169/32.png) [@butter\_pie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butter_pie)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/28 "2005-03-11T21:33:44Z")
I’m about to go to bed and my eyes are really tired, but I wanted to say (I didn’t see anyone mentioned it at a glance) that I am in the process of moving my trade paperbacks over to [lulu.com](http://lulu.com) and so far everything with them looks really good. Apparently you can do pretty good sales just through their marketplace and they make getting listed on Amazon and B&[N.com](http://N.com) pretty easy if you’re so inclined. Publishing is free, you only have to pay up front if you want and ISBN or to be marketed at all, and those fees are pretty reasonable. It is print-on-demand. I just ordered my proof copy last week and it was shipped recently, if you’re interested email me in about a week and I will let you know what I think of the book quality after I receive it (though I have heard very good things.) You’ll need to email me to ask because I won’t remember, but I’ll be happy to help. You can also distribute ebooks through them, or sell both formats simultaneously, and they pay royalties quarterly. They even have a function to customize your own storefront for your customers similar to CafePress (which I also use.) CP’s paperback books are good quality, but they don’t offer ISBN or marketing and their base prices are higher. I looked into some of the other publishers but as I’m operating on razor-thin budgets I had to go with one of the ones that doesn’t charge up front for it’s basic POD service. Lulu also has a really nice little message board with a ton of people on it, so you can ask them pretty much anything you want to know from actual users, before you try it. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/29 "2005-03-11T22:42:45Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I’ll check your site out but I still don’t understand the rationale for “selling” my work to anyone when there are sites out there that will distribute my work for me just for a cut of the sales. Well, I guess it’s a matter of works best for you. I think selling your work to a market has definite benefits, including editing. Every writer needs a good editor. Other benefits might include more royalties because the market has a wider readership, offers for more paying gigs, and wider distribution and promotion. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2005, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/30 "2005-03-11T22:44:18Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > Congratulations on your success! That particular genre is a tough one - it’s hard to read the publishers and understand what they want - some want more romance than sex, while others want really raunchy sex and little plot. Still others will accept almost anything. Liquid Silver is one of the better e-publishers for erotica, I’ve heard. Good job. Thank you 🙂 I wrote the novel on a lark for some friends and realized it had the potential to be something more…or you know, at least something I could make some money off of. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/31 "2005-03-12T01:15:22Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Having already had the experience of getting paid repeatedly for my fiction, I have to contest your notion that fiction doesn’t pay. It does. That said, the number of people who have bought my stuff are a tiny fraction of those who visited my site. You have to have lots of visitors to make a few sales. I am hoping however that people who visit ebook sites are looking for quality and already have their wallets out of their pockets. But you’ve written what I have indicated does have a chance: a specific niche publication. In addition, it’s clear from the number of porn sites on the Internet that people are willing to pay for access to porn. In your specific case, you may be able to make a go of it. Non-porn fiction is not likely to succeed as an e-book, though. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/32 "2005-03-14T22:15:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Ah, a niche market, and I wish I could find an appropriate pun correlating niche and bondage! Is there a lot of book market left for this kind of thing, or have videos sapped it. Yeah, prolly more of a book market than for other kinds of porn. The thing about bondage and discipline is that it lends itself very well to crossover work. Bondage and dominance imagery can go right along with the plot. Hence the Gor novels. There are also some other series that are, shall we say, Gorean in nature, though not all are femsub/maledom. In fact, one of the leading bondage artists wrote the fourth book in a series based on the Dirty Harry series (The Long Death) and Irving Wallace’s “The Fan Club” is pretty much a bondage-fest. Most people might not recognize them as soft-core bondage porn on first reading, but if you are aware what’s up and reread them, it’s kinda obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/33 "2005-03-14T22:17:25Z")
[quote=Voyager}What publishers do for you is to certify that of all books submitted, yours was so much better than the rest that it got selected. (Important for new authors - not so much if you or your lover has killed someone. 🙂 ) But, if you are looking for a book to read, would you choose something that likely got rejected by professional editors over something that got accepted? If you are looking for a book in an area that is so small that there is nothing professionally published, that’s a different story.[/quote] I diasgree. As a reader, I’ve never paid any attention to who the publisher is, or given diddly-squat about it. All I cared about was, is the book by an author whose work I liked in the past, or does the storyline, etc., appeal to me. The publisher’s imprimatur meant nothing to me. I do think a lot of AUTHORS seek validation by publishers. This makes a certain amount of sense – anyone can put together a string of words and call it a novel, and in my opinion, that makes them a writer. But it doesn’t make them a good writer. Being published by a third party at least means that something other than their own ego has gotten them into print. I gotta tell you though, people giving you money for your work really puts a publisher’s validation in perspective, if you know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/34 "2005-03-14T22:24:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I don’t know about your old publishers, but the majors don’t have this requirement. When my wife had an agent for her book, the agent sent it to several publishers at once. I know you can send query letters to several agents at once, and I need to look up my notes on sending mss’s to several at once. It is based on not asking an agent to waste time reading your ms when you’ve decided to place it with someone else. Back in the day when I was looking for publication by trad publishers, it was VERY MUCH the requirement, and the word was that a writer who did multiple submissions of a query letter was NOT gonna get considered by publishers if caught at it.I considered this to be insanely restrictive – it’s one thing to say, “You can’t sell you manuscript/car/business to more than one person.” It’s another thing ENTIRELY to say, “You can’t even TRY to sell your mansucript/car/whatever to more than one person at a time.” It was insane, but it was the standard. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/35 "2005-03-14T22:27:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Oh come on. In software those who are good developers may not be good marketers. Good writing and good marketing are not linked. A writer should go out in support of a book, but it seems silly to ask someone who is a great writer but a mediocre marketer to take time from his strength to focus on his weakness. It’s just division of labor. I’m not saying everyone should have to market their book. but I do think that it is important for an author to support their book. And if you enjoy it, as I do, them more power to you … or me. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/36 "2005-03-14T22:30:33Z")
> [@Yosemite](#): > > I lean against e-Books, however, because they’re so easy to copy and share. (Unless you set some sort of security into the eBook, which may or may not be worth the hassle.) If you are not concerned about people buying your eBook and then emailing all their buddies a copy (or sharing it on P2P), then eBooks could be okay. But a regular print book sounds better to me. I much prefer to read an actual paperback, rather than scroll through a PDF eBook on my computer screen. I think there may be problems here, too. But if the alternative is to get published and have lots of people distribute my book without my permission (or profit) or not get published,I’ll go with ebooks. I do plan to look at POD, however. That sounds viable. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/37 "2005-03-14T22:39:12Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I feel that writers need publishers the way prostitutes need pimps – that is, not at all and they do better without them. To put my comments in perspective, I have made about $16,000 on my novels in stories by selling them in a membership format on my Jolly Roper website, but I want to make more, greedy bastid that I am, and have little interest in giving a publisher a cut of the money to do something I’ve already proven that I can do myself. Having published several books in the traditional manner, I have to say that I disagree. Publishers are not printers, they are marketers. They are able to sell books by getting them into brick and mortar stores and selling directly to other markets that you won’t have access to (libraries, for example). They sell wholesale (ie, in volume) by advertsing your books not to readers but to purchasers at book stores, book clubs, and retail outlets. You have an established customer base already. That’s great. A good publisher can help to substantially increase the size of that base, and to sell books to the millions of people who have never heard of you. A bad publisher is everything you described, but I’d wager that with your track record, a good publisher will make you a lot more money. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/38 "2005-03-14T23:04:32Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I do plan to look at POD, however. That sounds viable. I really think you should consider POD. In my case, I did my own book layout, and was going to do it either way (eBook or print book), so it wasn’t as if it was more work to go with POD. And with POD you don’t have to pay much up front, and you have a much “classier” end product (a nice paperback). I know that eBooks have their place, but given a choice, I’d go with paper books any day, for the reasons mentioned above. Even if I wasn’t concerned about unauthorized copying, I’d _still_ prefer a paper book. They look so nice in the bookcase. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/39 "2005-03-15T02:08:32Z")
**Evil Captor** a lot of what you are saying about publishing makes me hear warning bells. I’ve seen/heard all of this before. Generally the result is that the person making the claims publishes with **PublishAmerica** or **Author House** or other scam publishers (and agents). I’m not saying you’re looking to get scammed, but they prey on people who have the same impressions (publishers don’t do marketing, it’s up to the author. Publishers aren’t interested in your niche. Publishers amount to printers, etc) as you and they make a good living at it. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711/40 "2005-03-15T14:53:54Z")
Pepperland Girl, I appeciate the warning, but I am the very LAST person in the world who would ever give a publisher money to publish my work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-of-ebook-publishing-am-i-insane/293711.md?page=3)