Neptune Crossing - Jeffrey A. Carver

[llasram]

Originally Posted by starrigger

There are many choices here, none of them obviously better than the others.

I wonder how many authors are in your position, holding the e-book rights to their work, interested in using them, but lacking any clear way to sell them? It's interesting that e-reads has a production backlog at the moment -- I've bought a few e-books published through them and found the production sufficiently minimal that I assumed they were purely a conduit for getting texts from authors into bookstores. If enough authors are in your position, I wonder if there might be demand for a website which let authors sell e-books more-or-less directly to readers? If readers find the e-books sold by e.g. e-reads sufficient then probably most of the book production process could be entirely automated.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Jon -- You beat me to the conversion question! I'd be delighted if you made a Sony reader conversion for me. I haven't really looked into the question of uploading my books to this site (or others) yet, so for the moment, I would prefer to have all downloads from my own site. That may change, but I'm taking this one step at a time.

While I realize that once books are out on the net, they're out there forever, I don't necessarily promise to offer personally sanctioned downloads forever. Right now, I control the e-book rights to these novels (not Tor), but that could change in the future. If, one day, a publisher wants to do a commercial e-book version and it seems viable, I want the right to say, "Thank you for enjoying the free downloads," and take them down. Obviously, they would still be out there on bittorrent sites and whatnot, but the official offer would close.

This is something I'm still mulling, but it's for that reason that I decided not to use the Creative Commons license at this time.

Jeff

I don't have any problem if you want to keep the files hosted on your site. I'll still do the conversions for you. Even the RTF ones you've not yet posted. I'm in the process of converting a book I have in Mobipocket format and after that, I'll do yours. You'll then be able to see how it looks on screen using eBook Library available for free from Sony.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

I am considering offering a free download of Sunborn, as well, to promote the hardcover edition. I haven't made a final decision about that--the current project is consuming all of my time, and I also want to create an audiobook version for free download. Not enough time in the day! If I do, I may offer a reasonably priced Kindle version on Amazon, just on my own. But I need to study their contract more closely.

If you do put Sunborn up on Amazon and not anyplace else, you may find a campaign started to get you to do other formats.

Terry Goodkind signed an exclusive deal with Amazon for his first book as an eBook and it's caused no ends of problems with lots of people. And some do own Kindles. So if you do go Kindle, you'll save yourself a lot less hassle if you also go other formats as well. Basically, MS Reader, BBeB (Sony Reader), eReader, Mobipocket, and AZW. Then you'd be ok for eBook formats.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Because of the way my book contract was worded, eons ago, Tor does not have ebook rights to Sunborn. (And perhaps just as well, because the Tor ebook program is ramping up slowly, and I doubt they would be able to have the ebook ready in a timely fashion. No blame, it's just a complicated, slow-moving business.)

I am considering offering a free download of Sunborn, as well, to promote the hardcover edition. I haven't made a final decision about that--the current project is consuming all of my time, and I also want to create an audiobook version for free download. Not enough time in the day! If I do, I may offer a reasonably priced Kindle version on Amazon, just on my own. But I need to study their contract more closely.

Many of my earlier novels are available in commercial ebook versions through e-reads. I could put Sunborn into that program, but its production line is backed up ridiculously, also.

There are many choices here, none of them obviously better than the others.

For books where you own the ebook rights, would you consider selling them through Baen? They do a great job with formats and with pricing, and have been happy to work deals like this with other authors. And they ask for non-exclusive ebook rights, so you can even sell it elsewhere too!

I have no business relationship with Baen; I'm just a satisfied customer. But I'd be thrilled to be able to purchase your ebooks from them because I really support their policies on both pricing and especially DRM.

Xenophon

[basschick]

couldn't authors who hold the rights to their ebooks sell them at booksonboard and fictionwise? if they offer a deal for the first week, their books would also get mentioned on the weekly emails.

btw, starrigger, thanks for the free download!

the reason that i got into ebooks is that i have no more room for more books - they've taken over the house. that being the case, my buying a hardback is very rare, but i buy several ebooks every week in mobipocket format

[starrigger]

E-reads starts by scanning in the physical books. They do that because most writers don't have the final versions of the texts on their computers. (It's tedious and time-consuming work to enter all the corrections from the copy-edit process, and the galleys-correction process.) So that takes a while. Then they do their own formatting, and in many cases they're formatting for a POD paper edition, also, if the book has been reverted by the original publisher. They probably don't have the rights to the original artwork, so they find cheap art. This all takes time, and they don't have a huge staff to do it. Then everything has to be proofed, and converted and encrypted, and...well, you get the idea.

I have no inside knowledge, but I doubt they've made any net money on this, so far. They essentially advance production costs to the writer, then recover it from royalties, but for people like me, that's a long time in being recovered. We get a pretty good royalty rate, but sales are very low. So, it's a business model on which the jury is still out.

The public perception is that authors should be able to simply stream their text into some kind of ebook-maker black box, and it comes out effortlessly, but in truth it's a lot harder than that. (Which is one reason ebooks aren't yet cheaper than paper books. There might not be printing and paper costs, but there are many other costs.)

[starrigger]

I'll try to answer a number of replies at once.

Thanks, Jon, for offering to do that conversion.

As for other means of getting ebooks out:

I'm still on the learning curve here, but...you could spend a lot of time placing books individually through Amazon (which I don't believe requires exclusive rights, though I'm not positive) and places like fictionwise, which hosts my e-reads books, but where sales have been low. I did not know that Baen had worked with non-Baen writers to sell their ebooks, so that's something I need to check out (thanks for the tip).

I don't know if the Amazon program that lets authors sell directly through them includes formats beyond the Kindle or not. Something else I need to learn.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone! I'm going out for some fresh air.

Jeff

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by starrigger

(Which is one reason ebooks aren't yet cheaper than paper books. There might not be printing and paper costs, but there are many other costs.)

Yes, but those costs are also occuring with normal p-books - I need editing, layouting, etc for p-books just as I do for e-books.
I agree that it is a tedious work for authors - but then publishers should be able to do it for them.

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by starrigger

The public perception is that authors should be able to simply stream their text into some kind of ebook-maker black box, and it comes out effortlessly, but in truth it's a lot harder than that.

What would you need to make it easy to produce ebooks?
And yes, that's a serious question.

Whoever wants to answer is welcome - perhaps per PM to not lead this thread totally OT

[llasram]

Originally Posted by starrigger

The public perception is that authors should be able to simply stream their text into some kind of ebook-maker black box, and it comes out effortlessly, but in truth it's a lot harder than that. (Which is one reason ebooks aren't yet cheaper than paper books. There might not be printing and paper costs, but there are many other costs.)

Oh, wasn't saying it could be quite that simple end-to-end. But in your case you've got electronic versions of your books which have (I understand?) already gone through the primary stages of the editing process and you are integrating the final bits of copy-editing yourself. And from there you really are streaming it directly to your readers, at least for these give-aways. A system which primarily handled just the final stages of e-book production and storefront could operate by taking only a small cut of each sale. And I guess I just like the idea of radically decentralized markets .

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by tirsales

What would you need to make it easy to produce ebooks?

A staff.

And conversion software that didn't trash my formatting. And that made pdfs that would reflow properly without huge files. All-in-one, spit out all formats. Which I could afford.

Think I'll see that soon? :)

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by llasram

...you are integrating the final bits of copy-editing yourself. And from there you really are streaming it directly to your readers, at least for these give-aways.

If you include all the conversions and reconversions when files don't come out right the first ten times, you are describing about a week of work. At least on the first go-round.

I hope it'll go faster, next time.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by starrigger

you could spend a lot of time placing books individually through Amazon (which I don't believe requires exclusive rights, though I'm not positive) and places like fictionwise, which hosts my e-reads books, but where sales have been low.

I hadn't realized sales were low through fictionwise. It's where I usually check first for ebooks (other than Baen, which I think would be a very good place for you to go through if you can arrange it).

Quite a few of us do realize that it's not trivial to release books as ebooks, even when an author owns the rights. I think here in the Mobileread community we might be able to offer some help, however. We have a lot of enthusiastic ebook readers, many with relevant skills. Perhaps we can work something out.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Terry Goodkind signed an exclusive deal with Amazon for his first book as an eBook and it's caused no ends of problems with lots of people.

Yes, I think about 4 people in the other thread agreed with you that this was worse than a Communistic move and everyone should now boycott Amazon and the Kindle. Pffftt.... No one should be an iPhone either because they made an exclusive deal with AT&T.

BOb

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Next, questions: Will your new book be available from Tor as an ebook?

Sorry, I never answered this. No, Tor doesn't have ebook rights to it; that's just how the contract was written, long ago.

I've been weighing whether to make this a free download, too, and I think the answer will probably be yes (that's not a promise, but it's how I'm leaning). Partly to publicize the book, and partly because I think frankly it's the only way to have an ebook at all, in any reasonable time frame.

The other thing I'm hoping to do is to create an audibook podcast for free download. That promises to be another time-intensive project, which is why it's listed as "planned" rather than "coming soon."