The ebook revolution is upon us. People predicted it for years, but most authors published by traditional print houses tuned it out as annoying chatter. As recently as a year ago, I and others had the same prejudice against self publishing and ebooks that I had ten years ago when my first romance novel, Drive Me Wild, hit the stands. Self publishing and ebooks were an inferior path taken only by those writers who couldn’t get a contract with a major publisher. If you wanted to make it in mainstream fiction, traditional print publishers were the golden ring on the carousel.
That was the way it had been for decades, and the way many of us thought it would remain no matter how much proponents of e-publishing shouted about the wave of the future.
Well, my friends, the wave of the future has crashed over our heads. The world of publishing is changing even as I type this.
The sea swell started about a year ago and, oh, what a difference a year can make. It started like a whispered conversation over in the corner among a handful of authors, the most notable of which was J.A. Konrath. Those authors asked the simple question, “What would happen if we offered our out-of-print novels as Kindle books on Amazon?” What happened rocked all of us on our collective rear ends. And if you haven’t heard about Konrath’s staggering success with his Kindle books, you must be living in vacuum. You can follow his experience from the beginning at his blog. Or buy a compilation of those blog posts as a Kindle book, The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.
After witnessing his success, numerous authors have jumped on the bandwagon, and more are joining every day; myself included with the soon-to-be-released ebook version of Falling for You. As more authors openly share their experience with real numbers and figures the more exciting I find this new craze.
Are all authors making a killing off of Kindle? No. Like traditional publishing, many things factor into a book’s success: the author’s name recognition, quality of the writing, the book itself, and promotion. The biggest of those may well be promotion. For ebooks, that means being active online.
The New Game in Town: Promoting Books Online
The Internet is a total game changer in every aspect of how books (traditional or digital) are promoted. Gone are the days of printing up expensive bookmarks and postcards or taking out a budget-busting ad in a fan magazine. Today, promotion means Twitter, Facebook, and blogging, with all of it pointing to a Web site designed to monetize traffic. Whether you’re a newbie to social networking, or a seasoned pro wanting to share what you’ve learned and learn even more, you are in the right place. That’s what Julie’s Journal is all about, helping authors learn effective online promotion.
Search through past posts by using the “Select Category” option in the left sidebar to find lots of helpful tips like How to Customize Your Facebook URL and What’s the Point of Twitter?
The Biggest Winners in the Kindle Craze
As exciting as I find this brave new world of publishing for authors, the biggest winners are readers. Not only will they have access to more quality fiction at an affordable price, with most authors offering their ebooks at $2.99 or less, but they’ll have access to a greater variety of fiction. And that, my friends, is a revolution worth cheering — and joining!
Have you published an ebook? Was it a re-release of an out-of-print novel? What has your experience been? Or, are you like me, on the verge of getting in the game?
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I am very, very excited to see so many authors starting to Kindle their backlist– and in some cases, new books. You’re right; this is going to be awesome. All those cheap and wonderful books to read! *rubs hands together*
I’ve talked at boring length about my Kindle experience on my journal. Suffice it to say, it’s been pretty good. My sales are not approaching New York sales, of course, but I’m making more on my e-published backlist this time around then I did the first time. There are simply a lot more readers of ebooks than there used to be!
I love hearing about your ebook experience Ellen. In the past few months, I’ve gone from being worried and depressed about the future of publishing to being very excited.
I have three novels which were originally and only published electronically, back when that meant snail-mailing 5-1/4 floppy disks. They’re being re-issued in e-reader formats over the next six or so months.
Meanwhile, I’m publishing short story collections myself. Just getting into that game, so I’m still waiting to see if a grow a “long tail”. Love your blog!
About a year and a half ago I decided to “go indie” and forgo the traditional publishing path. I put a novella on the Kindle, and just this week released my second novella. The first novella has sold almost 6,000 copies and is on target to sell 900 this month (it has really picked up velocity in the past several months.)
My second novella is already under 2k in the Kindle store and the “customers who bought this also bought this” part of my page isn’t even up yet.
I’m very excited about the platform I’m building and the readers who seem to love what I’m writing.
I think now is the time to get in on this because I want to be in the water waiting when the wave gets here, not up on the beach drinking a pina colada and wondering what happened.
That’s impressive, Zoe. I checked out your website and noticed you write paranormal romance. Do you think certain subgenres do better than others in ebook form? I’ll be interested to see how my straight, single title contemporaries do.
Hey Julie, I’m not sure about subgenres. Paranormal Romance “may” do a little bit better than contemporaries just considering the reader demographic. I think readers of paranormals for the most part “may” be a little bit younger and may be coming off the Twilight craze.
Right now most of the ebook reader early adopters seem to be: Tech heads, younger people (twenties) , and senior citizens. So anyone writing and appealing broadly to any of those demographics is going to see stronger sales right now.
But… I think “All” romance sells better in E than a lot of genres. Mainly because romance readers as a group seem to have embraced ebooks better than other genres. We’ve seen the rice and success of Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Loose ID, etc.
I think romance does really well in E because a lot of readers are still embarrassed to take romance books up to the checkout counter. Ebooks are a way to get what you want to read discreetly and quickly.
Oh, and thanks!
LOL oh and I meant to type “rise and success” LOLOL @ rice.
I hope we’ll see the green beans and success of epublishers soon enough!
i usually buy books online because i do not have time to visit the local bookstore :
books online are great, wether they are e-books or conventional hardbound and paperback books ,:;
I just joined the world of Kindle publishing myself! It’s pretty exciting! I think the world publishing is changing very rapidly!
Brian January
http://amzn.com/B005WM0HN6