Publishing?

[Diana_Villiers]

Forgive me if there's a thread about this already, but are there any published authors about who can talk about the process, print publishing vs. e-publishing, common pitfalls or just share some tips? It would be much appreciated!

 

[matriarch]

Forgive me if there's a thread about this already, but are there any published authors about who can talk about the process, print publishing vs. e-publishing, common pitfalls or just share some tips? It would be much appreciated!

If you return to the home page of the AH, where you posted this thread, at the very top you will see a 'sticky' thread (one that stays there all the time and does not move down the page according to use), entitled, "Literotica Authors and Their Books (For Literotica Authors ONLY).

This is the thread where published authors notify us of their new issues etc.

You will find some helpful names that you can contact by pm. A much easier route.

Good luck.

'Auntie'

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm replying to you because I'm a great fan of your husband Stephen and his particular friend Jack. Do give them my kindest compliments.

Now... E-Publishers. Anyone literate can be published by an e-publisher. The reason is, it costs them next to nothing to acquire your book and make it available for sale, so any profit they make is pure gravy. Therefore they don;t much care whether your book is good or not, or whether it's about been done before or is about Corsican blood-sucking boot-blacks. It pays for them to get as much stuff up and for sale as possible, so they'll buy anything, and the costs and overhead of e-publishing a book are practically nil, so why not take anything they can?

The down-side to e-publishing is that one you'v sold copies to yourself and all your immediate friends an family, your sales will stop and you;ll be left with a royaly check for about $38.55 and the'll be it. Unless you're willing to work very very hard in marketing and promotion, that's all you'll sell.

The whole thing about selling books is marketing and promotion - advertising. I don't know how many thousands of new titles come out every day, but it's a lot, and unless you're with a publisher who either (a) has considerable market presence, &/or (b) is commuoted to advertising and promoting your book, or (c) you're prepared to spend most of your time and available money advertising and promoting yourself, your book isn't going to sell. Most of the take-anything e-publishers do little or no marketing or promotion. You're on your own.

Still, there are good e-publishers, and with someone like Ellora's Cave you can expect to see a first month's commision of something around $1000-$1500 on a new release. After you have a few books under yu belt you might develop a following and double those figures. They pay 37.5% on e-book sales, and eventually will put you into hard-copy sales. Hard-copy sales have a lot more prestige but they only pay ~7.5% commission becaue prouction costs are so high.

It's hard to break right into the hard-copy market, and generally the better publishers will only accept stuff that comes to them through agents now, so the wise move is to sell your book to an agent first and then let them shop it around. They know the market and they know who's looking for what, and they can concentrate on the business end and leave you free to write.

It's probably not a bad idea to get a few novels published as e-books with the best outfits you can find and then prepare a pitch for an agent and see if you can get one on your side working for you. That seems to bethe path most romance writers take these day.

--Zoot

 

[Alessia Brio]

Well, nothing makes us epublished authors feel more special than to be told that anyone literate can do it.

*thbbbbbt* at Zoot.