Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
With a publishing contract, the author doesn't have to pay those fees up front. Also, a publisher has contacts--advertising, distributors, news reporters--that individual authors generally don't, and no amount of money can get them.
I do think we'll see a lot more self-published books in the future, and some of them will be good. But a lot of them will be poorly (or not) edited and shoddy, and "self-published" will retain its stigmatic reputation.
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That's true and I've considered that as well. Authors who would hire their own to bring their ebooks to market would be well established authors who are already prepared financially to produce their own ebook, and would also be able to hire someone to take care of any and all details that it would entail. They would have a financial burden up front, but their back end would be much larger. I also believe that eventually an entirely new business will crop up that specialize in producing ebooks only. As ebooks take over the larger market share, print only publishers will be forced to sign contracts to produce only an authors physical books while they are allowed to sell all of their digital copies on their own. As an author, if I sold 80% books digitally, and 20% paper, I'd likely consider cutting a publisher out that wasn't willing to work with me, or finding another paper publisher that would.
