Many years ago I heard it said that the print book was dead, and the e-book was the thing of the future. Then, last
month, I read an article suggesting that, actually, the e-book was dead. It had all been a load of hype.
Well, no. It wasn’t all a load of hype even if there was a little bit of over-enthusiasm from its early supporters.
The e-book has not only survived, but has grown rapidly in the ten or so years it’s been around. Somewhere between 10
and 15 % of all books sold today are e-books, and the industry almost doubled between 2002 & 2004. Not bad when we all
know the print industry is tightening – especially if you’re new to the scene.
So, what exactly is an e-book? The main difference between e-books
and print books is that to buy an e-book, you use the internet to purchase, then download a file containing the book onto
your computer, your palm pilot, your e-book reader etc. You don't need masses of bookshelves to store your e-books. They're convenient to
buy – you receive them instantly – and, because of lower production costs, they tend to be an awful lot cheaper
than traditional print books.
Just to confuse the issue, however, many e-books are also available as trade paperbacks. Many publishers choose to
use print-on-demand (POD) technology to make these trade books more widely available. POD is a printing process that
allows extremely small print-runs at reasonable prices. In turn, this makes it affordable for small publishers to send more
books into print. It’s probably safer to simply think of e-book publishers and publishers who choose to use POD technology
as ‘electronic / small press’, or even ‘independent publishers’, – which is exactly what they
are.
You’ve probably also heard the accusations that the e/small press industry is little better than vanity publishing,
or that it’s a last resort for those authors who can’t get published with a ‘real’ publisher. Yes,
some of the printers who provide POD services to e/small press publishers also provide POD services to the individual
authors who choose to self-publish. Those particular individuals are still self publishing and, no, the quality of most self-published
books is rarely as good as the ‘real’ thing. Unfortunately, those poorly produced books give the serious self-publishers,
and small press, a bad reputation.
BUT, let’s not get our apples and oranges mixed up. E/small press is not vanity publishing. They are
two very different things. A good e/small publisher will publish work of
exactly the same quality as a traditional publisher. Due to their lower production costs, they’re also more willing
to take risks on new authors and subject matter that’s ‘outside the box’. Reputable e/small publishers provide
full editorial services, they arrange for the lay-out of the book, they pay a graphic artist to design the cover, and they
market the final product. They do not charge the author for these services. They may not pay an advance, but royalties are
paid quarterly in most cases, and they’re usually considerably higher than traditional publishers – up to 35%
is not uncommon.
As a writer of erotic romance, the e-publishing industry is the best choice for me. The reason
is simple – how many women do you know who’d confidently walk up to the sales clerk at the bookstore brandishing
their copy of a book with an NC17 rating? When you’re downloading books from the web, you’re not likely to be
embarrassed. Women’s erotica is the most popular genre in e-books.
Within the e/small press market you’ll find almost anything. Technical manuals and university
texts are becoming popular, as is a broad range of non-fiction and, of course, all genres of fiction are covered. Romance
and its sub-genres are the most prominent, but there is everything from horror, to suspense, to literary fiction. E/small
publishers print both relative unknowns and the ‘big names’ of fiction.
Cruising the ‘shelves’ on-line at Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com), the top 20 e-book best sellers for the past few
months were an interesting mix. Stephen King, Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) and Isaac Asimov were all there. But, at
least five of the highest rated were e/small press authors. These were mostly romantic suspense and erotica. This shows pretty
clearly that e-books are not only for ‘un-publishable’ authors; it also shows that the general public are quite
open to reading new authors.
In the US, distributors like Baker & Taylor and Ingrams both list POD books from e/small publishers.
These books are available in Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and Borders. Unfortunately, in Australia and
the UK, it’s much more difficult to source an e/small press book in the chain bookstores.
There are many benefits to e/small publishing. A very important one is that it’s actually
possible to make a reasonable living out of it. A good e-book author will have a higher income than a mid-list traditional
NY author. This is partly to do with the fact that the average shelf life of a traditionally published book is six weeks –
about the same as a tub of yoghurt! E-books and POD can stay on the market indefinitely at no extra cost to the publisher.
Many e-book authors also make good sales in the traditional market – Angela Knight, Jennifer
Skully, Leigh Wyndfield and Carolyn Lampman to name just a few. A lot of traditionally published writers also choose to release
their backlist in e-book format. Have a look at Fictionwise or eBookAd.com and you’ll probably be surprised by just
whose work is available.
Even if you still desperately want to get published in traditional format, don’t dismiss
being published by a reputable small publisher first. It really does make a huge difference – both agents and traditional
publishers are more likely to at least look at your unsolicited ms. As one traditional publisher told me, being small
press published proves that you know how to work with an editor. Writing the ms isn’t where the author’s work
finishes, but how many of us ever think of that before we’re published? There’s a huge learning curve after
you get published, and you can learn with e/small press as well as you can with traditional. It’s worth remembering
that most of the successful e/small publishers are run by people who learnt the business in the traditional publishing industry
– they are totally professional.
One of my favourite
benefits of being small press published is that I get artistic input into the cover. The publisher actually asks for my ideas,
and I get to work with the artist to make it just right. The publisher still has the final say, but that’s okay too
– after all, they are the experts.
If you’re considering e-publishing for your ms, finding a reputable e/small publisher is
no more difficult than finding a reputable print publisher – the information is readily available. Like anything, the
answer is research, research and more research.
Join some e-lists (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebooklove/?yguid=211518052 is
a good starting point) and see which publishers do the most promotion, and which authors are appearing most regularly both
in chatrooms and on lists. Check the quality of their books. Read the submission guidelines every publisher has on their website.
Cruise the shelves at e-retailers like Fictionwise. BUY a few e-books. Know your market! Small publishers are the same as
traditional ones in that they don’t like receiving work in the wrong genre. Changeling Press, for instance, publishes
only erotica under 25,000 words – don’t send them a category-length, regular romance. And if a supposed publisher
asks you to pay for editorial services, or a manuscript assessment? Run away!
So, is the e/small press really the big bogeyman we occasionally hear it made out to be? No. Our attitude
towards it is probably quite similar to the early reaction to Gutenberg’s books. Why would you want to read those mass-produced
things when you could have a beautiful, hand-illuminated manuscript? Why would you want to read a book on your palm pilot
when you could have the nice paper-version? Sound familiar? Technology changes, and e/small publishers are simply utilizing
that new technology. For authors, it’s a new market with wonderful opportunities.
Information Box
Approx 750,000 e-books were sold in the 2nd quarter of 2004 – that’s
3 million books a year. And the industry is growing at about 5 – 10% per quarter! (statistics from Open eBook Forum)
