[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Without any free/cheap sharing options, authors and publishers are stuck doing a lot of advertising that isn't necessary for print books because of the used book market. There isn't any ebook equivalent of "moving out of parents house and into my own apartment; never reading these again--here, you take three boxes of books and see if you like them"--and deciding that one or two of those authors, you like very much and want to buy their newer books.

The used book market only helps so far. If an author has more than one book out, you might buy an older title used, decide you like the author's work, and buy the new one at the regular price. Baen's Free Library addresses this: it offers back catalog by participating authors free. It promotes authors - you read one of more books by the author, decide you like their stuff, and buy the author's latest when it comes out, and likely in hardcover. (Some participating authors reported gratifying pops in backlist sales, too.)

And there are reviewers where negative=positive: if the reviewer hates it, it's likely I'll like it, because I know the reviewers tastes are diametrically opposite mine.

One interesting question is how you find out about new books to begin with. At this point, my experience is skewed. Buying new books becomes very much a matter of "Which of my friends has a new book out I ought to buy/read?" Fortunately, they're good enough writers that it's not exactly an imposition.

But it takes a while for a book to hit the used book store, and many books never do. And it doesn't help the case of "first novel by a new author". They have no prior work available used to sample.

The used bookstore is a useful source of knowledge if you happen to have one nearby with a good selection and you visit it. Not everyone is in that happy circumstance.

Right now, ebooks are piggybacking on the print industry for publicity; that's not going to work for e-only publishers.

<shrug> They'll have to find other methods of reaching the audience. But if a publisher is doing both print and ebooks, some publicity is applicable to both. And everybody is actively looking for new ways to connect with the reader, and exploring things like social media as marketing channels.

Even new, single-novel authors benefit from the exchange of older books; if someone's book is advertised as "like Heinlein's early works!" or "if you liked The Shining, this will blow you away!" those let readers know something about whether they'd like it.

It may well. The question is whether you trust the testimonials and reviews. The real test is actually reading the book for yourself. I've read books with that sort of recommendation, and the response has often been "Well, yeah. The author is trying to work the same territory as Heinlein's early works. But Heinlein knew how, and this author doesn't."
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Dennis