Olivia Charles

Yesterday, we had a presentation about e-publishers during our RWA chapter meeting. Out of respect for our member wo gave the presentation, I didn’t speak my mind. But I don’t want anyone to come away from the meeting thinking you can make a career from e-publishing. You can’t. The money is just not there. Even the presentors admitted they were submitting to New York publishers. They haven’t quit their days jobs, and won’t… not if their sole source of income is e-pubbing.

They talked about distribution. E-pubs call it worldwide distribution. True. And they discussed perpetual availability. True.

However, they didn’t discuss raw numbers in print runs, readership, or sales. Being available on a website is fine, but being on the shelves at Borders produces many more sales.

I have heard an average print run for a Harlequin line book is 85,000. Of those, 75,000 are sold in a month. The rest are either destroyed or in an Amazon warehouse available for purchase. The average download for an e-pub book is 150. (Yes there are exceptions and some do have larger downloads, and Rowling sells 7 million books, too)

Let’s do the math. Harlequin pays 6% royalties and the cover price is $5. (I’m simplifying things because book club percentages are less and cover prices are more.) Five dollars times six percent times 75,000 books sold equals…. $22,500. Cerridwen Press pays 35% royalties and the cover price is $5. Five dollars times thirty-five percent times 150 books is…… $262.50. And that’s probably a good check. I’ve heard of some authors getting a check for $25.

Let’s discuss distribution and availability for a minute. How many of you have heard of Border’s Books or Barnes and Nobles? All of you, right. Now how many of your friends, neighbors and co-workers have heard of these bookstores? Most of them. Could you find a person in your realm of existence that has never heard the name of a bookstore in town? Maybe… maybe not.

How many of you have heard of Wings Press, Liquid Silver Books, Medallion Press, Cerridwen Press, Wild Rose Press, Loose Id, Sourcebooks, or Samhain? Maybe you’ve heard of them all, maybe just some. Now go ask your friends, neighbors and co-workers if they have heard of these e-publishers. How many would have heard of just one? Any?

Do you see where I’m going with this? When most people want a book, they go to a brick and mortar bookstore, Walmart, Meijer’s or the corner drugstore. If my book is on the shelf, it may get picked up. If a person wanted to buy an e-book, would they know where to look? A quick google search of “books on line” gave me over 700 million hits, with the first few pages being for free downloads. A search of “romance ebooks” did better. It came up with some of the publishers listed above in about two million hits.

I am not saying never to publish through an e-publisher. If you do, know what you are getting into. Know that you will not make a lot of money with them.

E-pubbing, though, can show you how to work with an editor and deadlines. You can get your feet wet in the publishing world through e-pubs. But, you will be doing the same amount of work for an e-publisher as for a NY print publisher. Do you want to bother if your not getting paid the same?

// posted by ~~Olivia @ 5:34 PM