Monday 8 August 2011

More epublishing

The more and more I read about authors self-publishing ebooks either on Kindle or Smashwords, the more and more I feel that I am doing the right thing. And esp after I read a couple of articles/interviews in the recent Writing Magazine/Writers' News. The first article was by crime writer Stephen Leather. He is printed in mainstream but decided to self-publish ebooks to increase his readership. It has worked because the report read that he has sold 7000 (yes, that is thousand) ebooks in one day (yes, one day). The way he did this is to price his ebooks at the minimum price of 99cents (about 85p in UK).

The other interview was by US author John Locke who is published in ebook only. He decided to do this because, I think by the look of his books, they don't fit into one specific genre, and I know that agents and publishers do like to take on books that fit one genre because it is easier for booksellers to place them in the shops. He said that he did this mainly because he was an first time author with no record of sales, and it has worked. He has just released a non-fiction ebook called 'How I made 1 million sales in 5 months'. Yes, you read that right. I want this book to come out in print as I don't have a Kindle. The way he did this, yes, you guessed he priced his books that same as Stephen did at 99cents and that is the result.

So when I have finished and got my short story out there published, I will do the same and price it at the minimum of 99c and see what happens. I know that others have read this same article and have done this to see what results they get in selling their ebook faster. Meantime, I have rewrites to do on my ebook. I sent it off for a copyedit and proofread and got back a proper critique of it. Thanks Hilary. The spelling, punctuation and grammar are all fine, it was just the way that I worded and structured things and multiple vops, which aren't the done thing normally in a short story. So I have changed it now to be just Lizzie's vop and tried to make it more upbeat. Shall do the typing up of changes tomorrow. Then be working on Hilary's other changes after that.

Will be writing about the process of it here but when it is up and running out there, I shall switch to Netlog blog to post about it there as I have decided to have that blog just for promoting my books, leaving this one to write about the writing process and events.

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