Types of Publishing for DTBs (Dead Tree Books)

It has never been easier to publish your book. Publishing is changing before our eyes with the advent of the e-reader and e-books, but regular books are still abundant. There are three basic types of publishing extant:

1. Subsidy

2. Self

3. Traditional

I will go over all three of these types of publishing in detail over the next few weeks and discuss how they work. Today is an overview. There are pros and cons to each method.

SUBSIDY PUBLISHING is often called Self-Publishing, but unless you own the company it ain't. Another name for Subsidy is publish-on-demand. I am extremely negative about subsidy publishing in which you pay a company to publish your book. In my experience, you can more cheaply and with better quality publish yourself. I know of only one subsidy company -- Yav Publications at http://authors.interestingwriting.com/ -- that is not a total rip-off and gives authors a chance to make money while marketing their work. PLEASE, if you are thinking of subsidy publishing, WRITE TO ME BEFORE YOU SPEND ANY MONEY! I will give you a nickel's worth of free advice, hard-won in my own publishing adventures. I am not selling anything, but detest what in my opinion are terrible scams that cost writers their dreams.

In a very few circumstances in which you don't want to market your book, Subsidy Publishing might be a good choice. For example, if you have a cookbook or series of essays that you want to make available to a limited group (church, family, club), and you don't want to go through figuring out how to publish yourself, the subsidy company will produce a nice-looking book. The books will be priced high and you will receive little or no money from sales, so this option is only if you are not trying to *sell* your book to the general public.

SELF PUBLISHING is when you form the company, buy the ISBNs, produce the cover and interior PDFs, hire the printer, and sell the book from your own author platform. It's not as complicated as it might sound, although there are many details you need to keep straight. This can be an excellent choice.

TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING are the companies you're familiar with: Random House, Harper Collins, Tyndale, and so forth. The work you've been doing for the previous few blog entries (query letter, synopsis) are for applying to these companies.

Traditional Publishing is an excellent venue if you can do it. These companies pay you an author advance for your book, and royalties once you've started selling. They also have strong marketing machines behind them to help your book hit the bestseller list.

The best way to approach traditional publishing companies is through an agent. I'll be talking about this in more depth soon.

A fourth type of publishing is E-Publishing, in which your book is available as an e-book instead of or in addition to a DTB (dead tree book). Hmm, I probably should put in a few entries of how to do this also.

So many publishing choices. However, the first thing I always say to anyone telling me he's looking into publishing (finding an agent, forming a company, looking at publish on demand companies) is that you must first make sure your manuscript is ready to go. Yikes, another big topic. Why don't I start with that one on Friday.

Happy Writing.

One Million Kindle Downloads

Well, it happened again on June 21 2011 -- a self-published author hit the marker of one million downloads for the Amazon Kindle. John Locke has created two idiosyncratic novel series that both have devoted readerships. He prices his books at $0.99, and produces them quickly so his readers always have another episode available when they've finished the last one.

E-Publishing is exploding the traditional publishing paradigms since it allows single authors and small presses to compete with traditional presses on an equal footing. It takes just a little time and no money to format and upload a manuscript to Amazon for the Kindle and Barnes and Noble for the Nook. The writer can choose how much money he wishes to charge, and keeps a substantial percentage of the sale price: for the Kindle, 35% if the book is priced below $2.99 (minimum $0.99) or above $9.99, and an amazing 70% if the book is priced between those bookend prices.

Locke has recently released a nonfiction book: How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! He discusses his development of a serial product and methods to place it and develop a readership using social media. Some of his steps are not no-brainers -- for example, not everyone can produce a book every few months -- but it certainly gives one an appreciation for what goes into creating and selling a niche product.

Locke joins Amanda Hocking, the only other self-published author who has sold one million downloads, reaching this goal in March 2011. She also writes book series, in the paranormal romance YA genre, and recently signed contracts for a traditional publisher and film based on one of her books.

Is that inspiring, or what?

E-Publishing

E-publishing is exploding the established paradigms for publishing. It allows the independent author or small publisher to compete on a level playing field with the big traditional publishers to sell books. Since an author can produce and distribute his e-books for free or low cost on the same platforms (Amazon, Barnes&Noble) as the traditional publisher, he may even have the advantage of being able to charge a lower price for his works.

E-Publishing uses e-readers, computer tablets, computers, or other electronic devices to display books electronically on a screen. Some examples of e-readers that display commercially sold books include the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, and Apple i-Pad.

Very roughly speaking, Amazon's Kindle uses half the market, and the other e-readers take up the other half. In August 2010 Amazon announced it sold more Kindle books than hardcover books. In June 2011 Amazon announced it sold more Kindle books than DTBs (dead tree books). E-books in other formats are also selling well.

There are 3 general types of formatting for e-books, and the formatting determines which book can be read on which e-reader. The three types of formatting are: .mobi/.azw, .ePub, and PDF.

The .mobi/.azw formatted e-book is read on Kindle reader, Apple I-pad, and devices such as computers that have downloaded a free app from Amazon. The .mobi format was originated by Mobipocket and bought by Amazon in 2005. It's proprietary to Amazon. The .azw format is, for our purposes, interchangeable with .mobi format

The .ePub format is considered the “default” format for e-books, and is the formatting used to lend e-books from libraries. .ePub formatted books are read by Nook and other e-readers except Kindle. Kindle users can convert .ePub documents to read on their e-reader, but this is a laborious and technical process.

PDF formatting preserves the exact layout of the document across forums. These documents are easy to read on the computer using Adobe Acrobat (available for free download). The advantage is that PDF documents can be viewed on all e-readers. The disadvantage is that text size and layout cannot be manipulated on e-readers, and therefore may make the document difficult to read.

While the .mobi/.azw and .ePub documents are formatted in HTML (hyper-text markup language), there are a number of platforms that can convert Word documents directly into the correct formatting. Smashwords is a well-known site that converts and lists e-books, but I'm not as big a fan of Smashwords as some people because you lose some rights going through them. (They can always list your book, and you can't withdraw it from their site). Over the next few months I'll talk occasionally about how you can format and list your own e-book for sale.