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The economics of self publishing e-books

I think I missed something -- like how this thread got so skewed.
It must be the Internet doing its thing to warp space.
 
I for one am happy to see the changes taking place that involve indie publishing. Not that it levels the playing field, but it certainly opens the doors that were previously slammed in your face. Also, if anything, it shows that there is a fundamental difference in what the reader is willing to buy and what they want, versus what the publishes think they want. Personally, I'm going to give it a try. Anybody else trying it?
This Writer's Life
 
How I got a big advance from a big publisher and self-published anyway | Penelope Trunk Blog

To be clear, I wrote my book, and they paid me my advance, in full. Three months before the publication date, the PR department called me up to “coordinate our efforts.” But really, their call was just about giving me a list of what I was going to do to publicize the book. I asked them what they were going to do. They had no idea. Seriously. They did not have a written plan, or any list, and when I pushed one of the people on this first call to give me examples of what the publishers would do to promote my book, she said “newsgroups.”

I assumed I was misunderstanding. I said, “You mean like newsgroups from the early 90s? Those newsgroups? USENET?”

“Yes.”
 
I see she doesn't have any guilty feelings about keeping the advance, then again publishers are not known for sending in the heavy dudes.
 
There was probably something in the contract that said if they dropped her, she got to keep the money.
 
There was probably something in the contract that said if they dropped her, she got to keep the money.

Must have been something like that, she would know better than to keep money from a publisher that she is not legally entitled to keep. I can't wait to see what the publisher's next step will be.
 
The hardest & most time-consuming part of self publishing is finding an audience and getting that initial push. It takes more time than writing. That's where you miss a publisher.
 
I have now published some of my longer (5000 word) short stories on Kindle and also Kobo. So far sales have not been great, but I'm hanging in there. I also made the huge mistake of allowing some of these stories to be placed on a local site as freebies and three months later readers are still using their vouchers to buy my books. This means I have not earned a cent on the over 300 (sales).
I'll never make this mistake again. -I mean I'm prepared to pay $2.99-$4.99 for a short story, mainly because I realize that the author has put a lot of effort into producing the story, making a suitable cover and doing the conversion to e-book, -so other people should also learn to pay up with a smile.
 
The hardest & most time-consuming part of self publishing is finding an audience and getting that initial push. It takes more time than writing. That's where you miss a publisher.

Naturally. Selling is always difficult; even established publishers are not sure whether a new author with sell.

The search engines of amazon (and other online stores too) are programmed to display books in the order of rating of the book /author because they pick up New and Popular. You might have written a masterpiece but it will appear only on page 20 or so. It is a vicious circle: visibility is needed for people to read and rate and only rated books are visible!

Unfair? Yes. Alternative? No.

Sorry, should have said this first, 'Welcome to the forum.'
 
Writing and self-publishing, like teaching, is something that a lot of people who don't do it, don't really understand completely. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. I'm sure having a publisher to help with the publicity bit is nice...but like anything there's a downside too.
 
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