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Originally Posted by pietvo
His problem might well be that he doesn't have fans.
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Well, if that's true, then that's a lack of marketing on his part. Or possibly a lack of proper marketing.
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70%?? I would rather think it's more in the neighbourhood of 95% that still buys pbooks only. And of the remaining 5% some also buy pbooks. The people that are ebook only are a tiny minority. That looks more in line with your 1:100.
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Exactly. As I said, I've seen surveys and studies quoting numbers between that 70/30 number, and 95/5. But it wouldn't be at all hard to believe that 95/5 would in fact be the more correct number. But either way, that's water under the bridge compared to the more detrimental number of readers vs non-readers these days. That's a ratio that's disturbingly going in the wrong direction, with the number of people who no longer read increasingly regularly.
But with that aside, of the readers who are out there, even if the 70/30 number is accurate, Steve Jordan has limited himself too severely by doing *only* ebooks. I'm not saying he should abandon ebooks in the slightest. But he most definitely needs to move to offering his books in dead tree format (aka print format) and pushing them at shows, conventions, signings, etc. He could advertise on the radio (be aware that you had better have print books on hand, and quite a considerable quantity at that, because you'll get mobbed the day the ad comes out), put up a billboard (not quite as bad a mobbing, but you still get hammered), take out a newspaper, web, or tv ad (much lower return on these, but you do get some, but the exposure rate needs to be much higher), or any of a variety of other things.
98% of being known and selling your books is marketing. The less you're known, the worse you'll do. And yes, marketing is a royal PITA, as I speak from personal experience, but it's necessary. No publisher, no matter how good, is going to be able to get you the same level of exposure you can get yourself. I've seen guys who write complete crap sell millions of copies of their books. Why? Excellent marketing, exposure, and face time with fans. So if an author who writes complete crap can hit it big, what does that say to someone who's good who uses the same system, and goes out and does the same marketing? Well, if experience is any clue, their novel should easily sell 10-20 times more copies.
Failure to market, or improper marketing is the single biggest reason authors fail. Well, in most cases anyways. There is always a niche for every book, even if it sucks completely. I say, if you're really serious about getting your books into the public, and you suck at marketing, then *HIRE SOMEONE*. Tell them what you want, have them interview you to get an idea of what your book is and where it should go, and where you'd like to go, take whatever advice they give you for changes or suggestions, and then run with it. Either way, to go back to the original starting topic of this thread, it's not piracy or "theft of rights" that's the issue here. It's failure to market, and failure to give the reader (who is also your customer) what they want.
Take a lesson from the failings of the music industry. Don't treat your customers like dirt and/or criminals. Treat them like you'd treat your best friend, or your mom, or your most beloved person. You wouldn't stab your mom in the back, would you? (if you would, you've got issues) So listen to their wishes, and then grant them to the best of your ability. Do that (as well as the other suggestions above) and success will find you, rather than you finding success.
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Now getting a publisher interested in producing a print run may not be easy. But if he wants to do it all himself he could start with POD, for example at lulu.
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Well, if he's self published, I actually have a better idea. Lulu is fine, but if he's already got the ISBN for his book, and the copyright, he doesn't need Lulu. All he needs is a local printing company who does perfect bound books, an EAN number (you can get that from any of several different software packages available out there), insertion into Bowker, and submission to Ingram or any of the other major book distribution networks. If he can't get those on his own, then yes, he'll need to go with a publishing house that can. And if he needs to, I'd recommend using my publisher, 2 Moon Press. They'll gladly take guys who are already published and help them get everything they need to be successful.