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I would like to hear from some of you old pros out there.

If you've been published, which do you prefer? Digital, or paper? Do you see any trends in benefits or any drawbacks to the two methods.

johnson1010 wrote:I would like to hear from some of you old pros out there.

If you've been published, which do you prefer? Digital, or paper? Do you see any trends in benefits or any drawbacks to the two methods.

Though I have written for many years, publishing in various paper based trade newsletters and just for fun, I am a new pro. With that aside, I can make a comparison.

Traditional publishing is a quagmire of disaster upon disaster. With traditional paper-based publishing being an established industry, victimization of authors is common by the toll-keepers.

Except for one newspaper article, for which I was compensated $50.00, all of my paper-based works were for non-profit journals, which were begging for content and never paid. (If they publish my work but I’m not paid, does that mean I’m not professional?)

Here is my two cents:
Paper publishing requires a lot of commitment from many people. Why? It is expensive. Once a book is printed, glaring flaws are set in stone. To make any money, a complex system of checks and balances are necessary. The hours, days and years invested in evaluating, editing, printing and shipping are only a part of the overall process. This makes a book viable, but also limits the resources available for new or untested authors. If the work makes it to print and the book is available, an advantage of the traditional publisher is their distribution chain, which can put your book on shelves for readers to find…if they go there.

Digital publishing gives control to the author. Once published, a glaring mistake is simply a repost to replace the defective version. For the sake of readers, I would recommend not allowing the situation to happen in the first place. The traditional editing and fact checking process should still take place, but a mistake won’t trash tens of thousands of dollars. Turnaround time is significantly reduced. More recently, digital publishers, like Smashwords.com, are improving distribution channels. With broader acceptance of digital books, the volume of this type of publishing will be staggering.

In either case, will you see true success one way over the other? Not necessarily. Marketing is an issue either way. Many traditional publishers are looking for volume combined with the occasional best seller to survive. Again, they have limited resources so the chances of getting top reviews, book signings, etc. to market your book are still slim. With Digital publishing, you have the potential for greater exposure through the internet but, so far, the author does the bulk of marketing.

Several excellent points, GreggMattson! I happen to be acquainted with a romance author who has published multiple books before the multi-national conglomerates bought up most of the publishing houses and changed to a bean-counting method of book editing. E-publishing is becoming more and more the way to go, if I might be allowed to make my own opinion plain.

At most of the authors conferences in the past few years, the discussions at the various workshops agree that e-publishing is pretty much the future. It is attractive because of the control over distribution the author has and the increased royalty per book the author gets, but the biggest bonus is that the authors aren't required to cram an entire story into 80,000 words. Since digital space is pretty much free, the authors can return to the art of crafting a well-told story, and to hell with the paper costs. The bean counters nearly assassinated the art form during the 90s and now here too in the 21st.

But this brings us over to the point you made about marketing. I am not well versed in this area myself, though the romance author I mentioned has re-published most of her works for kindle and other e-readers. Her publisher handles most of the marketing for that. I seem to remember that at some point, someone mentioned that smashwords was increasing its marketing capabilities for authors who publish through them. Does anyone know if that is true? Also, have there been any new developments in websites or tools that self-published authors can use to spread the word about their works? What are the best forums and/or venues through which an author can most effectively work as we come closer to 2012?

I have been trying to research this very question myself since I will be publishing my first fantasy trilogy of novels sometime next year, but I have yet to come up with very much. If I learn anything promising, I'll share it here for others to take advantage of too, though hopefully someone who knows more already might share the knowledge first!

-Damian Lake

Thanks, all.

Welcome to booktalk, Damian.

Can’t really say that I have any particular personal preference, but I can report that, starting about a year ago, sales of my novels in electronic-reader form began to increase dramatically and now account for nearly 80% of all my sales (up from zero some 18 months ago). This has, it appears, come at the expense of some of the paper sales, which have not increased at near the rate of the electronic sales. Still, I’d have to speculate that the advent of the Kindle and other electronic readers has contributed substantially to the overall increase. One reason for this could be that the electronic versions sell for $7.99, whereas the paper versions sell for between $10.79 and $14.99. But then again, sales of electronic readers have increased considerably over the past couple of years, so it’s probably a bit of both.

R. LeBeaux wrote:I can report that, starting about a year ago, sales of my novels in electronic-reader form began to increase dramatically and now account for nearly 80% of all my sales.

Well, you were available at just the right time. I haven't had the chance to look at your book, (though I must confess the cover art certainly attracts attention). What I mean to say is I can't comment on the draw of your book's content, but I do know that since the ipad came out, sales of e-published materials have been skyrocketing. You see, most of the younger trend crowd weren't really into kindle. That was a sad attempt to sell technology to grandmothers, (their view, certainly not mine). But with the ipad in their hands, a multi-purpose tool capable of so many different things, all of a sudden there was a desperate need for content to pour into its flat-screened universe. Now that it was trendy to read electronic books, (thanks in large part to apple's commercial campaign demonstrating the device's versatility), a whole new market segment of millions upon millions of souls were thirsty for literature.

And, as I mentioned, I am sure a lot of people thought your cover would look awesome on their ipad screens. I hope they loved it once they read it. Don't ever let it be said that a cover didn't sell the book. I am having some designed for my own works right now, as a matter of fact.

DamianLake wrote:I am sure a lot of people thought your cover would look awesome on their ipad screens.

Never thought of it that way, but you might be right. Another of my novels that has a somewhat sexy cover has also done considerably better in the Kindle version than in the paper one, so the cover art thing might have something to do with that as well (as my marketing people are constantly reminding me, sex still sells, though I was hoping that wouldn't have to be the primary draw for my work). Anyway, I don't know if you were talking about the actual cover of CUTE, or my profile image, but I wanted to include both covers here to see if you (or anyone else) think these designs and people's desire to have them on their Kindles has had some influence on sales of the Kindle versions.

I'll be honest, but I think Cute might have sold more copies than were read. I mean nothing disrespectful about that. It's just that you have no idea how may idiots I have run into that have bought books, (in any kind of format), mostly for the cover, and years later STILL had not gotten around to reading them. If Cute seems to have dramatically outsold Barbara, then I would put money on that being at least part of the reason why.

It is a phenomenon that an author can try to tap into to goose their sales, but I am going to try and avoid that with my own books next year. I'm having some quasi-minimalist fantasy themed covers worked up. I'll post the first one on here for reactions once the art student who is working on them finishes her mid-terms and has some time to finish up the first one.

DamianLake wrote:I'll be honest, but I think Cute might have sold more copies than were read. I mean nothing disrespectful about that. It's just that you have no idea how may idiots I have run into that have bought books, (in any kind of format), mostly for the cover

Thanks; and you're probably right. Still, the covers are pretty much up to the marketing department, so I don't have much say in them.

Just my $.02... I'm relatively new to writing. I have a small management book and a novel self-published so far. Both in the last two years. I had not attempted to get the management bok published, but I did reach out to maybe 12 or so agents for my novel. When non of the 12 accepted it, I simply self-published.

My mindset to self publish: Better to have a work out there and available than sitting on my hard drive waiting on that one, right agent.

On to the point (and ebook vs paper): I chose Lulu to self publish. IT's pretty much the cost of a proof copy plus $25 for the distribution package... nice. This is a paper copy with a pdf available for free. I like to physically see the book and I think it is good to see it in that format. At least for my satisfaction. I think self publishing is the way of the future... its fast and low cost. However, I think paper will fade to maybe 10-20% of the market before it plateaus. The ebook is growing rapidly and will take over the market share. It's completely free, very fast, and easy to update to new revisions. No publisher can top that. The ebook will (or already has) revolutionize what is available for readers. It will be data overload... A few large publishers will remain but not much. Their marketing machines will become cleverer and more eficient. The challenge for all of us is marketing and getting our work out to the readers who will enjoy it the most.

Like I said... my $.02, from a newbie.