Question on distribution media: Flash for Books

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden

...Now, if you had the chance to no less than triple you sales merely by doing a few book signings for those "poor out of date people who are behind the times and/or locked in the literary stone age", could you honestly say no? Dude, it's simple economics. Heck, if standing on your head for an hour a day clucking like a chicken could increase sales, I'd do it. Never dismiss a potential sales avenue just because it's "out of date". Sometimes those "out of date" people are loaded and have friends who are too!

Sure I can say "No," for two reasons: One it's not practical for me (I have a day job, and a life); and Two, those "poor out of date people who are behind the times and/or locked in the literary stone age" aren't being held there at gunpoint...

I'm not saying the strategy you've outlined doesn't work. What I am saying is, I've been doing exactly that by cultivating a presence on this site and others, and have already achieved those increased sales from exposure, recommendations and positive reviews that have been seen by others. By being online, I've accomplished the same results as being on book-signing tables all day, every day, all over the world.

And I didn't have to blow thousands of dollars on a city-by-city tour, still leaving out fans who were too far away to attend any of them.

In the same way that I'm moving beyond the printed book, I'm moving beyond the 20th century ways of publicizing the printed book. I don't mind if some people don't want to take this trip yet... but I'm already on-board, and this train is a-movin'.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Jonas777

I am not a writer but I think it sounds like something you should try. To be able to sell it anonymously in a package and move it from the memory card to a mp3-player or e-book reader, you would probably need to get rid of the current kind of DRM. Which is fine by me but may be hard to convince the publishers to do.

Actually, my publisher is very anti-DRM just like me, hence why I went with them. And no, I'm not talking about Amazon, I'm talking about the new publisher I'm moving to, and the same one that is actually game for this idea. Amazon's being thrown out with the bath water. I'm sick of them. So yeah, any ebooks or audiobooks I'll be selling will be 100% DRM free. I won't have it any other way. To allow DRM'ed media would be the greatest level of hypocrisy I could put forth, given how much I despise it and how long I've fought against it.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Sure I can say "No," for two reasons: One it's not practical for me (I have a day job, and a life); and Two, those "poor out of date people who are behind the times and/or locked in the literary stone age" aren't being held there at gunpoint...

Point 1: Alright, fair enough. If it's not working for you, I guess that something like that would be best avoided then.

Point 2: Very true, but...ah, forget it. You already answered this in point one. lol.

I'm not saying the strategy you've outlined doesn't work. What I am saying is, I've been doing exactly that by cultivating a presence on this site and others, and have already achieved those increased sales from exposure, recommendations and positive reviews that have been seen by others. By being online, I've accomplished the same results as being on book-signing tables all day, every day, all over the world.

Well, I am working on the online thing too, but I want the "boots on the ground" exposure too, and it's also a good way, for me at least, to interact with my readers and get feedback by seeing them in person.

And I didn't have to blow thousands of dollars on a city-by-city tour, still leaving out fans who were too far away to attend any of them.

lol. I actually have fun doing those tours. Yes, there's more practical ways to do things, but for me the opportunity to actually get out, go to other cities, meet people, sell books, etc is just too much to pass up. Of course, I don't have a day job, so I suspect that gives me a lot more freedom to do this kind of thing. At some point I suspect that it too will become impractical, and when it does, I'll stop doing it. Until then I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Day jobs.

They can be bothersome, can't they?

[Steven Lake]

Well, yeah, they can be. That's why each of us would like to become popular enough so we don't have to be bothered with such silly things.

[Steven Lake]

Ok guys, here's something that's gonna blow your mind. People are actually interested in this idea. I kid you not. The consensus has been that either ebooks on a mini-cd or a low capacity SD/MicrosSD card (512m or 1gb) would be perfect, plus a signing card for those who want an author's signature with the item. So we're already researching with some of the major flash OEM's (transcend, lexar, sandisk, kingston, etc) on who will give us the best deal on these, and once we have a couple cases, we're going to go about packaging them, and then seeing how they sell in general. If they don't go over well, we'll realize we got it wrong (which I doubt, given the response so far) and end the experiment there, or we'll sell out like mad and actually have to find a way to create these in bulk.

I'll keep you appraised to what happens.