[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

I expect to see this to happen. Traditional publishers are too tied to legacy costs and practices to make the transition smoothly.

Or are part of a conglomerate and tied to a legacy corporate structure, which amounts to about the same thing.

One experiment I find interesting is smarter traditional publishers starting ebook-only lines. A friend is a freelance editor for an ebook only imprint of a traditional publisher. (She's a former senior editor at a traditional publisher, and commented when she told me about the new gig that she appeared to have more qualifications and experience than all of the other applicants combined...)

It's a shared risk undertaking: they don't pay advances, but the writer gets a larger than normal cut of the sale. If the book does well, the author does too. And much of the work is done by freelancers operating from home, so the line has far less overhead in terms of office space and the like, as well as lower headcount expenses because freelancers are paid by the book they work on, not a fixed salary, and don't get fringe benefits.

I suspect it may work well, because the publisher is a genre publisher and the ebook line is aiming at a specific sub-genre. They know who their intended market is and what it likes, so there's less of the uncertainty attached to efforts from traditional publishers who try to cover all the bases.

As a reader, I want some kind of culling function between me and books. I am not interested in spending time trolling through endless self-published books. The likelihood of return on my time (in the form of good books) is too low to make it worthwhile. That's not to say that traditional publishers don't miss good books or make stupid calls, but they're also trying to appeal to a variety of tastes.

You want an honest-to-God editor in the mix, to select a decent book to begin with and work with the author to make it better. An unfortunate number of folks fail to understand the role of an editor, and why having one can be critical.

With e-books, there's more creative outlet for writers, even if it means only a handful of people read their work. I'm not against that. For my own purposes when I shop, I wish there were an easy way to filter out all self-published books.

eBooks and Print On Demand self-publishing have made it possible for anyone to produce a book. They have not made it any easier to produce a good book, nor have they made it any easier to connect with your market and sell your work.

If you are trying to make a living writing, ebook/self publishing is the wrong way to go.
______
Dennis