Selling your books without being published!? - Writers Forum

MichaelSlevin · 04-16-2006, 05:06 PM

Hi, my name is Michael Slevin (you may have guessed from my username). I would really appreciate it if you would spare 5 minutes of your time to read and answer to this post.

I am posting here to get the opinion of yourself, as a writer, on a possible service I may provide in the future.

As many of you I am sure will know, being published is not an easy task, and even if you are the amount of money you get per book sale is miniscule. Is 15% of each sale adequete? And of course that presumes you will sell 15000 books...

I propose to build a site in which you can submit your upcoming and already written books, including a summary, to the web. This will then be available for purchase by readers from across the globe, who will be able to download your book (in .txt format) from their computers; to print themselves, or to read from their computer.

Unlike publishers, we would charge a submitting fee of $10 per book, and a small commission of around 20% per sale (which would decrease for more popular books).

The service will also allow readers to subscribe to their preferred authors, meaning your readers will be notified every time you release a book, keeping them coming back for more.

What i would like form you is whether or not you would be interested in such a service. Thank you for your time

ammended in light of mammamaia's comment

kalibantre · 04-16-2006, 05:12 PM

I wouln'dt sorry. the old fashioned hard slog for me thanks.

Aztecsfinest · 04-16-2006, 05:16 PM

That's a good idea. But would writers really trust a website? What you gotta do, is tell us how much you can be trusted! People find it hard enough to post on writingforums!
Well, some do.

It's a good idea, but don't potential readers need to know the writer before they spend their money on the book?

You should ask this of already published writers! Then news of this amazing new site comes to the readers ears, then to other writers ears who amazingly discover that they too can have their work on this site.

An entrpreneur (inore spelling please) in our midst!

MichaelSlevin · 04-16-2006, 05:32 PM

kalibantre: Ok, thank you for your feedback.

Aztecsfinest: Aah yes i understand where you are coming from with the trust issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by "Aztecsfinest

It's a good idea, but don't potential readers need to know the writer before they spend their money on the book?

One of the features of the site would be that on purchasing the book (/e-book), the reader could then rate the book, and leave a comment. In this way readers would be able to view a non biased opinion of the book, and therefore good feedback would go a long way. The problem is selling books which had just been submitted; a possible solution being that a independent party would be hired to review each book that was submitted.

Thanks a lot for your time, and entrepreneur is spelt that way

.

mammamaia · 04-16-2006, 06:24 PM

first of all, publishers do NOT get a 'commission'... they take all the money from sales and pay the author 'royalties'... it's agents who get a 10-15% commission...

secondly, what you seem to have in mind is just yet another e-book publishing site, when there are jillions of them out there already... and, since you seem to know nada about the business of publishing, i strongly suggest you learn the ropes before attempting to get unwary writers to pay you money to do whatever it is you think you can do with their books...

e-publishers are born and die daily... the attrition rate is probably higher than for any other web venture... the reason is that, like you, most who think it's a good way to make money don't know beans about how to go about it and don't have the wherewithall to do it well enough to succeed...

finally, who is going to use up all their costly ink and paper to print out books?... as for those who just download them to read, the competition in that line is so huge you'll likely be buried before you even get a good start...

and, fyi, doing what you propose is called 'e-publishing'!... so you couldn't say your clients would be 'selling your books without being published'... sorry to shoot you down, but you really need to learn the basics of flying solo, before jumping off this cliff...

love and hugs, maia

MichaelSlevin · 04-16-2006, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mammamaia

first of all, publishers do NOT get a 'commission'... they take all the money from sales and pay the author 'royalties'... it's agents who get a 10-15% commission...

secondly, what you seem to have in mind is just yet another e-book publishing site, when there are jillions of them out there already... and, since you seem to know nada about the business of publishing, i strongly suggest you learn the ropes before attempting to get unwary writers to pay you money to do whatever it is you think you can do with their books...

e-publishers are born and die daily... the attrition rate is probably higher than for any other web venture... the reason is that, like you, most who think it's a good way to make money don't know beans about how to go about it and don't have the wherewithall to do it well enough to succeed...

finally, who is going to use up all their costly ink and paper to print out books?... as for those who just download them to read, the competition in that line is so huge you'll likely be buried before you even get a good start...

and, fyi, doing what you propose is called 'e-publishing'!... so you couldn't say your clients would be 'selling your books without being published'... sorry to shoot you down, but you really need to learn the basics of flying solo, before jumping off this cliff...

love and hugs, maia

thanks for bringing me back down to earth maia. Could you possibly point me in the direction of some e-publishers?

Just to add a little, the starting idea was to let readers who enjoy the books of lesser known authors be able to "keep tabs" with their favourite author.

I'm sorry if i come across to not be that knowledgable in the area of publishing, and to be blunt, i am not. However I would love to someone to answer a few questions possibly.

Please continue to add feedback

Oh and maia, i do not want to come across as a "money grabber", i am simply here to find out if there is room in the market for my idea, i figured that writers would be the best people to ask. I am simply doing some research, not trying to woo "unwary writers" into making me some quick money.

mammamaia · 04-16-2006, 06:51 PM

i didn't assume your motives were underhanded, michael... but many out there are just in it to make money... that's what capitalism is all about...

to learn about e-publishing and e-publishers, just google the terms and you'll get all you need to know in no time at all... one of the biggest e-publishers is lulu.com...

if you have more questions you can always email me, if you don't want to post them...

love and hugs, maia
maia3maia@hotmail.com

mammamaia · 04-16-2006, 06:54 PM

this site is a must-read!

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/epublishers.html

MichaelSlevin · 04-16-2006, 07:17 PM

Thanks a lot maia.

Please continue to add feedback. Would this service benifit anyone here?

mammamaia · 04-16-2006, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Would this service benifit anyone here?

i don't see how... most writers' goal is to sell their work and be considered 'published authors'... not just to get a few people to read it...

and anything they paid you to post on your site would never be able to be submitted to paying publishers any time in the future... so, they'd be wasting their work on only maybe being able to make comparative pennies... chances are they wouldn't even make back the cost of the ink cartridges and paper it took to write it...

bamagirl1984 · 04-16-2006, 09:47 PM

Michael-

I would never consider your idea because research shows that online reading (as in, reading books online) is not a growing trend. There aren't enough people willing to read books online or print them out on their own to make this plan worthwhile. If anyone does manage to pull off the online reading shift, it'll be a publishing house. Also, there are already at least a handful of Web sites like the one you're suggesting. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but because there is very little interest in reading books online, most people who try to publish online don't make any money.

ButteredKazoo · 04-17-2006, 02:43 AM

E-publishing should never have been invented. What happened to sitting down in a nice comfy chair and reading a good old-fashioned book? Y'know the kind that's made of paper and you don't have to squint to read? (unless you have bad eyesight...) And it's not like we have to kill trees anymore to make paper...

Bottom line: e-publishing will go nowhere. If the unlikely does happen and this trade booms and becomes a thick trend, then...I'm burning my computer. (Actually, I'd probably sell it, but you get the idea.)

Mike C · 04-17-2006, 03:40 PM

This is a terrible idea. It's not even good e-publishing. txt format? Are you kidding?

There are a thousand sites out there doing what you're proposing a thousand times better than you seem to be imagining, and I doubt that a single one of them is selling sufficient e-books to make it worthwhile.

Find another way of taking money from writers.

K-P · 04-17-2006, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Find another way of taking money from writers.

I agree. For starters, you could write a book on how to write a book. Or, you could buy a Starbucks franchise. Just a couple of ideas to get you started.

Dresdor · 05-03-2006, 06:39 PM

Personally, I wouldn't trust an e-publisher. I'd rather have someone I can talk to face to face, and should unfortunate things happen, sue face-to-face.

Also, it is insanely easy to share files online. Unlike a physical book, where you lend it to your friend, but can't read it until you get it back, an e-book can be copied again and again, so one sale can spawn multiple copies. THere are legitimately sold books that are even pirated this way to some extent, but at least there the pirater has to scan the book and make it into a .pdf format.

So, yeah. Thanks but no thanks.