What are eBooks?

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by cfFairy

Is self publishing just not a good way to go or is it a good way to get started? Any opinions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I've had almost two dozen non-fiction, highly technical books published by some of the smaller houses and one of the biggest in the tech field, Addison-Wesley. I didn't become associated with A-W until hooking up with an agent, in 1990.

However the agent came to me rather than vice versa, based on an earlier contact before she established her agency. Once we finished the original project, we worked together on quite a few more -- and I still get a royalty check from her once a year, for about $10 each time. That's pretty good for a computer book first printed in 1995; most go out of print within just a couple of years! All my others had that fate.

Before getting the agent, I wrote as "works for hire" for a flat fee upon delivery. The agent negotiated royalty and found new ideas, leaving me free to "just write."

However now that I've finally, after more than 60 years trying, learned how to write (possibly) salable fiction, I've chosen the self-publishing route. The only piece I've put on the market, to date, has sold just one copy, and I suspect that was to some friend or relative. However I've done no marketing of it, and the sample size is too small to reach any conclusions. I do, though, plan to continue direct marketing on line and to submit, without an agent, to some of the smaller "micro-press" houses.

The odds of getting read by any of the major houses are far too small to justify submission without an agent -- but that isn't the only way of getting into print. My recommendation is to use every method open to you!

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're partially correct.

Baen is the only publisher from whom I buy books "sight unseen", knowing nothing about them. I buy every one of their "monthly bundles" not knowing what's in it. Ie I trust Baen to deliver me a good package of four new books every month, which may be authors I'm familiar with, or they may be authors entirely new to me.

While Baen is my favorite publisher these days, I can't go quite as far as you do. There's been at least one, in each bundle I've ordered from them, that I found to be a total waste of effort.

While I've discovered a number of authors in their catalog who now number among my favorites, I've also found several that I dislike so strongly that I refuse to even read their blurbs. The traditional publishing houses don't serve as gatekeepers for me. The major advantage I see to dealing with them is that, if you can get accepted and produce acceptable (to them) sales with your first effort, then you have entree to all the major marketplaces with no additional effort on your part.

Of course, you approach that with outlets such as Smashwords, but then you suffer from a general belief that all their titles are crap. Sturgeon was right, of course, that this is true of 90% of everything -- but in marketing, perception is critical, and many folk do trust traditional publishers as gatekeepers.

As for the original question, I'd agree that an "ebook" is simply any book, of any size, that's available via electronics. Subject matter, format, even the source, are not relevant to the definition.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We've already had this discussion earlier in the thread, so there's no point in re-hashing it all again. Basically, though, to summarise, people have a wide range of tolerances to such errors, and mine is very low. I am therefore wary of recommendations of self-published books because although I might know that the recommender share my taste in subject matter, generally speaking I won't know how tolerant they are of errors.

See earlier in the thread for a much fuller discussion.

Well, your indiepub experiences are clearly very different from mine.

The books that don't have a very good story never make it onto my radar.
And the ones that make it onto my radar are usually pretty well edited -- or so I would guess, based on the general lack of spelling and grammar errors.

I would say, they tend to have about as many errors as a tradpub book, which is to say, a few.

[HarryT]

Whatever works for you is what matters.

[dickloraine]

A different view could be, that self-published books could produce for markets, that aren't interesting for traditional publishers. Like sub-sub-genres. It doesn't make much sense, to put a book in every book store, if it is only interesting for a very small percentage of the population. But a very small percentage could be a big enough absolute number, to be profitable for one person, especially without the logistic costs.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, your indiepub experiences are clearly very different from mine.

The books that don't have a very good story never make it onto my radar.
And the ones that make it onto my radar are usually pretty well edited -- or so I would guess, based on the general lack of spelling and grammar errors.

I would say, they tend to have about as many errors as a tradpub book, which is to say, a few.

I could recommend some very good authors that are self-published. Matter of fact, they are usually error free. Most of them are even more careful about errors than even the big publishers.
Several have been on the NYT bestseller list.
This is across several genres.
I don't for 2 reasons. 1 is I don't want to play favorites.
2 is I don't want Don mad at me. I try very hard not to break the self-promotion rule.

[HarryT]

Recommending books that you enjoy is precisely the purpose of the "Reading Recommendations" forum. The rules about self-promotion only apply to authors or publishers promoting their own books. So please feel free to recommend any books that you've read and enjoyed.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Recommending books that you enjoy is precisely the purpose of the "Reading Recommendations" forum. The rules about self-promotion only apply to authors or publishers promoting their own books. So please feel free to recommend any books that you've read and enjoyed.

I was under the impression that self promotion also included recommending books by friends.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The books that don't have a very good story never make it onto my radar.
And the ones that make it onto my radar are usually pretty well edited -- or so I would guess, based on the general lack of spelling and grammar errors.

I would say, they tend to have about as many errors as a tradpub book, which is to say, a few.

Self-published does not automatically mean "self-edited", "self-formated", "self-proofed", or even, "self-designed" cover.

Indie publishers have access to the same pool of freelance professionals as the BPHs, most of them being veterans "made redundant" by the mergers that have been consolidating tradpub for the last 30 years.

Some authors are talented enough to create their own covers, for example, or are able to edit their own work but the majority simply contract out to freelancers.

The only unavoidable production difference between going Indie or tradpub is that producing market-ready Indie books only costs the author a fixed, one-time fee, not 75% of net for the life of the copyright.