Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
That was true for paper books. Many people follow well-known writers through their websites; if a new book is being released, it'll be posted there. I wager that many would buy it there if it was for sale.
As fjtorres quoted above, there are also many POD (printing on demand) services cropping up that will print books as needed. If an original run of the book is successful (be it digital or on paper) part of that money could be used to have the book translated.
I think that only the very biggest authors of this world see their books translated into 27 different languages before release.
|
Yes, I'm very familiar with POD and it has actually been used for quite some time now. The issue is that an author's name doesn't get out there near as much if they don't have the marketing backing of the publisher. Many authors don't know how to market online. Not that none of them do, there are several who do very well at marketing on their own but it's not like you just put a website up and people start buying books.
Also, POD is good and bad. POD is expensive by comparison to tradtional printers and if you want to make POD economical you have to order a few thousand copies. You can have them go through places like Lulu and have each book printed when they are ordered but then your profit margin is pretty low unless you charge a lot for the book.
Your cost for a typical POD 250 page (6x9)is going to be $9. So, even if you make $3 a copy you still have to charge $12+shipping (about $3). So to ship your book you'll have to charge around $15 and make $3.
Now if you order POD in batches you can bring the cost down to $4-$6 a book depending on how large of a batch you order. Then again, you're stuck with any copies that don't sell.
Self publishing also tends to be a lot more work. You are the marketiing guru, the web design guy, the writer, editor and you have to run distribution, sales, and customer service yourself.