self publish ebook or paperback?

[Montero]

Well, various things:
1. Unless you are a total genius, your second novel is likely to be better than your first just because you've had more practice when you write your second.
2. Anecdotally, if you have more books out there, there are more books to be noticed.
3. Some readers are cautious about trying a new author as they've been burnt by unfinished series in the past - they wait until there is a complete series.
4. As a reader I am ecstatic when I discover an author new to me with lots of books out - and I then read from the very start of the series.

Word of mouth takes a long time to get going - I've quite a few times come across a recommendation and it seems everyone has heard of the author except me. I've managed that on Jim Butcher, Lois McMaster Bujold and T Kingfisher to name just some.

So unless you have the rare luck to just hit the market right and become the next big thing on twitter, you are probably looking at sales in the single figures per month when you release your first book. But that is where you grow from.

I do Goodreads on my PC as the larger screen makes it a whole lot easier. I'll come back at some point and suggest a couple of groups, have to go at this point.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm self published and I sell a lot of paperbacks, too. All right, many are through my own shop but I also sell at conventions and through Amazon too.

 

[tinkerdan]

Lots of good advice here.
I'll try to relay my experience.

First however I'd like to say that my experience with ISBN numbers is that if you are new you most likely will benefit by taking the free number from the self publishing venue when possible.
You otherwise need separate numbers for each; the ebook; the paperback; the hardback; and that can become expensive.
That's three for each published work if you make all three
This does have the disadvantage.
When you make a new edition somewhere else you have had to get new ISBN numbers, because they don't share those with each other(whereas if you have your own you can take them wherever; however you still need one for each type of media ). However in such an instances, what I do is in the page of the book with the ISBN number I include a history of other numbers used for that publication.
I don't think it is that much of a problem and that way you can wait until you are famous to buy large blocks of ISBN numbers to use on your work.
However if you have extra money to throw around the advantage of it being portable is worth it when you do change publishers.

The larger expenses are going to be editing and cover art. If you go for the best in editing you will probably pay more for the editing than the cover if you have more than 75k words. And good cover art can get expensive.

My first two books I used Xlibris to publish.
The plan was expensive and included editing, cover art, interior design, limited advertising(which end up being worthless), three free ISBN, and a copyright certificate that was registered and 10 copies of the hardbound and 50 copies of the paperback for my own personal distribution. All three- the ebook, the hardbound and the paperback were available through POD(Print on Demand)to Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and many other on line book venders. This worked for me because I had many people who wanted to buy the hard or paper copies--which I signed for them.

Otherwise; very few of the paper editions have sold.

I have since published three books using Amazon to produce the paperbound and the ebooks.

I have not published those in hardback--however ingramsparks has a fair plan and they recently started offering free ISBNs.

IngramSpark: Self-Publishing Book Company | Print & Distribute

IngramSpark is an online self-publishing company that allows you to print, globally distribute, and manage your print and ebooks. Bring your story to life!

www.ingramspark.com

I have not tried them, if I do I'll post something about it later.

The paper editions have never sold as well as the ebook for me.
As far as ebook; Smashwords has sold more than Amazon has and I created a separate edition for the first two book for Smashwords.

Doing print on demand with the minimum cost makes it a non-issue and I think that everyone should offer a paper edition if they are serious about writing. The paper edition cost nothing more to publish through Amazon unless you buy more services from them.
A hard edition from ingramsparks would be maybe around 50 dollars US unless you buy more services.

What is more of an issue is how you are going to promote and advertise--that can become expensive.

The only extra cost I have from the paper books with amazon is the cost of review copies so I can be sure everything prints out as I expect.
That is the very minimal cost of setup and printing; and it's well worth it to be sure you have covered all the bases.

Good luck with whatever you chose.

Added thought:
You definitely want to do the best that you can no matter whether you sell a few or thousands or more.
The more respect you have for your work, the more respect you show for the customer.

 

[tinkerdan]

Examples of people who respect:

Jo Zebedee: books, biography, latest update

Follow Jo Zebedee and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Jo Zebedee Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Brian G Turner: books, biography, latest update

Follow Brian G Turner and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Brian G Turner Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Toby Frost: books, biography, latest update

Follow Toby Frost and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Toby Frost Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Stephen Palmer: books, biography, latest update

Follow Stephen Palmer and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Stephen Palmer Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Dan Jones: books, biography, latest update

Follow Dan Jones and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Dan Jones Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Francis Knight: books, biography, latest update

Follow Francis Knight and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Francis Knight Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Teresa Edgerton: books, biography, latest update

Follow Teresa Edgerton and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Teresa Edgerton Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Nick M Lloyd: books, biography, latest update

Follow Nick M Lloyd and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Nick M Lloyd Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Bryan Wigmore: books, biography, latest update

Follow Bryan Wigmore and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Bryan Wigmore Author Page.

www.amazon.com

A K Lambert: books, biography, latest update

Follow A K Lambert and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's A K Lambert Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Dennis E. Taylor: books, biography, latest update

Follow Dennis E. Taylor and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Dennis E. Taylor Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Simon West-Bulford: books, biography, latest update

Follow Simon West-Bulford and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Simon West-Bulford Author Page.

www.amazon.com

Chris H. Stevenson: books, biography, latest update

Follow Chris H. Stevenson and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Chris H. Stevenson Author Page.

www.amazon.com

There are several more and I have paper editions from each of the above.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

The reason i started this thread was because someone on 20Booksto50k said to me that "the self-publishing market is for eBooks only" and "traditional publishing is a completely different market".
Is this true?

That's complete rubbish! A lot of readers still prefer paperbacks to ebooks, even among self-published books. I don't sell a lot of paperbacks, but I have sold some and expect I will sell more once I have more than one book out there. Speaking as a reader, with indieauthors, I'll often read the ebook first (especially if it's available on KU) to see if I like it enough to buy in paperback. I now have a fairly long list of self-published books I plan to get paperbacks of eventually.

Offer both, that way you don't limit your potential audience of readers. Also, offering paperbacks gives you the possibility of getting your books into bookstores, libraries, gift shops, and taking them to conventions or other in-person events.

 

[JohnM]

I'm reading a lot of completely unsupported drivel here. Yes, get rich quick is appealing but it does not equate to doing next to nothing. And the idea of putting out 20 books is guaranteed to produce a certain return of USD? That's fantasy.

Prior to ebooks, the number of books published consisted of the Great Lakes in the US. As someone with decades of experience covering the before and after the internet, I can assure you that people did not magically become better writers now that we live in the 21st Century. Don't let some small group of anonymous schemers become your source of information.

Here are the facts. When ebooks hit, the vast majority of the manuscripts that I, and every established publishing company, rejected could now be published. And quickly and cheaply. Send over the file and voila! You are now still not a professional but your book was published which, for some, meant that they were indeed professionals. After all, real editors with years of experience were barring you from getting your book published. Not true. That was never the case. Prior to the internet there were vanity presses who would publish whatever you gave them and even provide cover art, for a fee. But no, because certain commercial interests were going to release small, portable ebook readers, they had to say "Ebooks are the future of publishing." In the book publishing trade press I read how ebook readers given as Christmas gifts in the UK just collected dust.

People want printed books. A review of the trade publications show this to be true. A review of the number of books printed per year shows this to be true. If prior to the year 2000, the number of printed books were a total of 10,000, ebooks quickly added another 100,000 per year. And how to tell the good from the bad? And if you read an average of 10 books per year, will you add another 10 or 100? The amount of hours in a day to read has not changed.

People do not want to live in a world of screens. The TV screen, the computer screen or the ebook reader screen.

Let's look at Print On Demand. I'll focus on one outlet that is quite large. I found a few items of possible interest but quickly dropped the idea of buying anything since I had no idea if any of the offerings were any good. Amazon started out as just books for a discount. A very smart move since Amazon had now become a virtual bookseller. Beyond that, I never buy ebooks since I prefer printed books.

Call some printers. Do the research. Don't think, 'Oh, it's such a chore.' I'm directly involved in talking to printers in the US. I ask for samples of the finished books. If their work is good, I ask for a quote. Unfortunately, writers just want to write and most can't be bothered with this but that is the wrong mindset. You can even even send the printer you like a copy of the kind of book you want them to print. You can't just say "I want a paperback" like you're ordering a pizza. They will ask you questions and you had better know the terminology. If you don't, just ask them to explain it to you. For example, if your book is all text, it's "All black ink, no bleeds and no halftones." If you don't understand that, ask what it all means. "What kind of paper stock?" You will be asked to specify a particular weight of paper: 50 pound, and so on. If your book includes black and white illustrations: "Line art." And so on.

Covers. The more fancy the more the cost. Dust jacket with foil. Sure. No problem. But drop the foil and the price per copy goes down. I know this from recent direct experience. And you must query more than one printer to get the best price.

Back to ebooks. Quick and relatively easy means the already flooded market gets more flooded. And those searching for something actually worth reading will have more trouble when wading through the garbage to find a gem. Prolific production is the answer? No. Not at all. Unless you are a new publisher with a stable of quality writers.

I've seen hundreds of manuscripts and most are bad. Most are written by amateurs. The same with a friend of mine who worked as a Hollywood script editor. The manuscripts he saw were mostly bad.

Anyone posting on the internet who cannot back up their claims is likely lying to you. Even if they "think" what they are saying is true, that only means they are self-deluded. The only difference between ebook publishing and printed book publishing is quality. In other words, where am I most likely to get something really worth reading? It doesn't matter if ebooks are selling for around $3.00 USD. Cheap does not mean as good, much less better.

 

[Montero]

@JohnM

Would you mind adding a little of your background to this thread, so we know what your experience is? It is implied in places, but not stated.

 

[JohnM]

I work for a small, independent publishing company. We started with a loan of $2,000.00 USD and gradually grew into the company we are today over a 40 year period. I have no degrees in anything. Both me and the company founder learned everything we know off the seat of our pants. I am an editor and researcher. When publishing fiction, there is still a great deal of research to be done. If you've never been to Hong Kong or the Orient then you had better find out how things actually are there. The same with world mythology. I have been assigned to find the best reference books on various subjects during this time. Being an editor is not just spelling and grammar. I have to be familiar with the material I'm reading, including military and technology references. Part of our readership may not know certain things but a certain part do. I'm also asked to locate printers from time to time and to keep up with printing and publishing trends as reported in the trade press. The internet is limited in terms of providing a balanced picture of what's actually going on, including book distribution.

 

[Montero]

Small comment on self-pub and eBook vs paperback. When I'm tired or a bit under the weather I tend to pick light reads. There are quite a lot of self-pub cozy paranormal mysteries out there, some of which by my standards are fluffy and sacchine and yacky and get dumped after a page of the sample. Others are fine when I need something well written for the genre, but undemanding. So Amazon offers me recommendations. I try a sample on my phone. If the book is 99p or not very much more I may then buy it and read it. I do try to leave a review to support the author. But it is rare that I continue reading the series. Not enough to grab me. There are a few series that fall into that slot I have continued with - Belinda White is one of them - but she has a bit more zing and less fluff.
None of these would I buy in paperback. However, with a few exceptions, all of these have been well edited - no typos, prose is fine - as far as I have observed yacky is a style choice in the cozy world rather than necessarily an editing failure (though occasionally it is also an editing failure).
This is just one data point, but I am saying that to some extent what you do in self-publishing depends on what you are publishing. Cozy paranormal mysteries have very obvious branded covers generally with almost cartoon people - sort of avatar cute witches. Quite often they have the classic pointy hat on their heads - but these are never worn by the characters in the book. It is just a code to say "cozy witch mystery" on the cover.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I think that some impressions of self-publishing - the people reportedly aiming to publish 20 books a year and make $50K, the modest numbers of people who self-publish and do well at it, and the glossy notices on Amazon telling you that you just have to publish your book with KDP and you will make lots of sales - all tend to give it an unduly positive spin.
However if you dig out the statistics you will see that while some self-publishing authors do well, there is a very long tail of books that barely sell at all.
If you do all the right things - write a fantastic book, have a fantastic social media campaign, spend on great covers and a professional edit, and on advertising, your chances of success should increase, but it cannot be guaranteed. There are millions of titles competing with yours.
The public, by some accounts, are ever more keen to download stuff for free, and now (as I discovered) will not download free short stories - they want free novels. There are anecdotes of people having to buy a second Kindle to accomodate all their free downloads - stuff they will probably never get around to reading, much less reviewing.
So if you do your best to sell and end up wondering why you bothered, don't be surprised, you may be closer to the norm than you imagined.
I have seen fantasy trilogies offered on Amazon for 99p or 99 cents - representing a royalty of a few pence per book. What does that tell you?