For-free and priced ebooks doable?

[Moejoe]

Hello all,

I've been approached by two fledgling authors who want to go the ebook route (with a little backend help from me with website and such) on their own. Both writer's are youngish and technically savvy enough to see the benefit of the ebook publishing route over the traditional print merry-go-round, and both writers are supporters of Creative Commons copyright.

They'd like to offer their books for sale through Amazon and other outlets and at the same time allow the books to be downloaded for free under the creative commons copyright. I'm researching different publishing routes at the moment, with Fictionwise/Amazon/Feedbooks etc but would love to know if anybody have any experience in how this works. Would there be a conflict between any agreements with the ebook publishing entities and offering the downloads for free through a website, cross-promoted with Bittorrent etc?

At the moment we're just at a planning stage, with a novel a piece from each author (Horror and Sci-Fi) and two more going through editing and would like to get up-and-running before the end of this year. They are both steadfast on the idea of free offerings, rather than samples, but would also like to have the priced versions as a form of 'pay-if-you-like' option.

[pdurrant]

This seems like an odd way to go. Cory Doctorow offers free ebooks because he gets his money from the sale of paper books.

If you do decide to give it a go, also put a direct payment method on your web pages - there's no point in giving 65% of the price to Amazon if the potential buyer has already found your web site.

Paul

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Hello all,

I've been approached by two fledgling authors who want to go the ebook route (with a little backend help from me with website and such) on their own. Both writer's are youngish and technically savvy enough to see the benefit of the ebook publishing route over the traditional print merry-go-round, and both writers are supporters of Creative Commons copyright.

They'd like to offer their books for sale through Amazon and other outlets and at the same time allow the books to be downloaded for free under the creative commons copyright. I'm researching different publishing routes at the moment, with Fictionwise/Amazon/Feedbooks etc but would love to know if anybody have any experience in how this works. Would there be a conflict between any agreements with the ebook publishing entities and offering the downloads for free through a website, cross-promoted with Bittorrent etc?

At the moment we're just at a planning stage, with a novel a piece from each author (Horror and Sci-Fi) and two more going through editing and would like to get up-and-running before the end of this year. They are both steadfast on the idea of free offerings, rather than samples, but would also like to have the priced versions as a form of 'pay-if-you-like' option.

[Moejoe]

I think theyr'e both more concerned (and I share the concern) about geting their work out there than any actual payment. We're looking into Donation-ware, payment of any amount if you like the novels, we've also settled on .epub as the defacto release format.

I think, and this is from conversations with both of them, that their prime motivation is the writing, rather than the payment. I told them both they could go the traditional route, as I think the work is very good, better than some other stuff I've read recently. But they're adamant that they don't want any involvement in the traditional publishing industry in any way and I can understand this. They don't want the strangling contracts, the power structures or the hierarchies. What they do want is control over their own work and a more direct contact with the reader.

The idea of going with Amazon et al was more of a direct marketing opportunity than any idea of payment. We're also looking into publishing on the iPhone too. Exposure, I think, is what they're after, not to gain any fat publishing contract, but to gain readers.

Thanks for your reply.

[zelda_pinwheel]

interesting idea. perhaps they should consider offering their book for free, with the option of paying if the reader enjoys it, like a tip jar or donation (paypal could work for that). that seems a little more straightforward than trying to sell *and* give away the books for free, and less likely to run into conflict with amazon.

if they do this, they could also take advantage of other distribution plateforms, like feedbooks.com for instance, as well as in the mobileread upload forum. feedbooks distributes a lot of books (for free) every day, including to iphone readers via Stanza. and there are a lot of readers here who are very happy to support authors directly and are always happy to find new ones. if they are most interested in exposure these could be quite valuable. if they do that, they should definitely mention the url of the website in the ebook, at the beginning and at the end.

also, i'm very glad to hear you're planning to publish in epub format. excellent choice.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

interesting idea. perhaps they should consider offering their book for free, with the option of paying if the reader enjoys it, like a tip jar or donation (paypal could work for that). that seems a little more straightforward than trying to sell *and* give away the books for free, and less likely to run into conflict with amazon.

if they do this, they could also take advantage of other distribution plateforms, like feedbooks.com for instance, as well as in the mobileread upload forum. feedbooks distributes a lot of books (for free) every day, including to iphone readers via Stanza. and there are a lot of readers here who are very happy to support authors directly and are always happy to find new ones. if they are most interested in exposure these could be quite valuable. if they do that, they should definitely mention the url of the website in the ebook, at the beginning and at the end.

also, i'm very glad to hear you're planning to publish in epub format. excellent choice.

We just voted for Richard Herley's book "Refuge" for our book club, and he does the donation thing that Zelda mentions. I downloaded and donated I like my authors to get paid for their hard work.

[RWood]

I bought all that were available from Steve Jordan at his web site about 2 years ago. Great stuff. Good prices. He also sells through Amazon for the Kindle.

As you have pointed out, the problem is exposure. Getting noticed. There is so much out there it is often hard to rise above the noise level.

We are happy to have CC books here at MobileRead. There are many already in multiple formats.

Keep us posted as to your/their progress.

[Moejoe]

Just a quick update.

After some further research we're foregoing Amazon and the Kindle altogether as they don't allow UK based publishers to sign up with them and both of the authors are a little bit wary of the DRM scheme used with Amazon. It's a shame, because the Amazon exposure would have been nice, alas DRM has created another digital ghetto in its wake.

At the moment it looks like a 2-pronged approach. Release on Feedbooks and other Creative Commons friendly sites (Including here) and link back to a web-site with more info on the authors, upcoming works etc and have a donation button there on the site. I think they're both happy with that route, but there's still a long way to go yet.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

They'd like to offer their books for sale through Amazon and other outlets and at the same time allow the books to be downloaded for free under the creative commons copyright.

I suspect that when they get the Amazon ebook contract they will discover that they can't offer the book at a lower price to anyone than they offer the book to Amazon. So if they offer it free under the CC license, say here at MR, they will have to offer it free to Amazon. Amazon, OTOH, will be able to sell it for whatever price it desires and reap the total profit.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I suspect that when they get the Amazon ebook contract they will discover that they can't offer the book at a lower price to anyone than they offer the book to Amazon. So if they offer it free under the CC license, say here at MR, they will have to offer it free to Amazon. Amazon, OTOH, will be able to sell it for whatever price it desires and reap the total profit.

Bang on the money. Looking further into the Amazon contract (not that we could sign up as we're UK based) we're discovering that it isn't something we want to be involved in anyway. The DRM is a big sticking point for all of us as we're all in agreement that it does very little, apart from hinder the end-user/reader.

So far we're going to go this route (preliminary)

Feedbooks / P2P / MobileRead and any others we can discover (all in ePub)
Books linking into a website
Some form of dontatiion/tip jar button (Paypal is in the lead at the moment)

We're also thinking of doing a steady stream of short-stories (we're all fans of the short form) in a monthly newsletter and collecting these at quarterly intervals for release. This is just in the playpen at the moment and subject to change.