Outdated Advice, Still Worthwhile?
As I mentioned last week, the world of publishing has changed greatly in the last decade. One of the best examples of this comes by way of an article I'd printed out in 2002 and tucked into a folder labeled "Writing Opportunities." Lately, I've been culling those old papers in order to make more room in my filing cabinet.
The author, Anna Kathryn Bir, had written the piece for the newsletter of a now-defunct web site, www.ezinedepot.net. The piece was titled "A New Way to Self Publish." The article found new life on a personal blog in 2007, published in its entirety. In it, she suggests a completely DIY method of publishing an e-book.
Basically, she advises writers to "create a credit card account," which will then be used to accept payments from readers interested in the book. Of course, she doesn't provide complete details on how to set up the payment process, so perhaps it was an untested idea on her behalf.
She then suggests that you "Write an intro page for your novel and create a separate page for it. Here is where you’ll put any illustrations you may have. So people will have an example of your writing, copy and paste the first chapter of your novel and put it here, too." Basically, she's talking about putting up a preview page in order to sell the full book, which you would then e-mail to the reader as a "Word or Works" document. She's talking about Microsoft Works, a discontinued office suite that was once packaged with cheaper PCs about a decade or so ago (I had an eMachine, bought through Fingerhut, that came with it).
I can recall seeing many books sold this way back in the day, especially books advertising get-rich-quick schemes or offering lucrative advice for writers. Many were the pages I clicked on -- drawn by an ad or link -- only to be turned off by the garish fonts, excessive exclamation points and unrealistic promises. But in the early days of this millennium, such DIY book sites offered authors complete control over both the product and the delivery, without any of the additional formatting time or fees associated with, say, putting a book for sale at places like eBookMall.com, one of the few completely independent e-book retailers that still exists. And don't forget, there were few other options in those days: the first Kindle wouldn't debut until 2007.
The drawback, of course, is the lack of traffic. Unless you're a really good marketer with proven success in driving thousands of hits to your site, you're unlikely to sell many books this way. Nowadays, in most cases, it would seem to make more sense to go through the trouble of formatting a book for Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords or other retail sites that readers are far more likely to find.
But what if you're selling a book that doesn't convert easily into the standard formats required by online retailers? Well, the good news is, it's still possible to sell it yourself on your own site, using a similar method to that described in the article. In fact, I offer a PDF version of Dedicated Idiocy on my author's site, available through my Books page. I've used Paypal to create a button that people can click on to send me the payment. During the payment process, they are prompted to provide an e-mail address where the book can be sent, and then I can e-mail them the work.
While it may be almost ludicrously antiquated to sell a book this way, I'm offering the PDF version because I know many people who have not yet moved to Kindle. Even though you can use the Kindle app on a mobile phone or PC in order to read Kindle books, they'll state that "I don't have a Kindle," and consider it the end of the conversation. In part because the primary audience of my book would be my peers, looking to relive their college days in the 1980s and 1990s, I wanted to be sure it was accessible to them.
I don't expect to make a lot of sales from my web site, but who knows? Perhaps word of mouth will spread and my friends will tell their friends, driving them to make a purchase. I am trying to do some marketing for the book and intend to promote it when I appear as a panelist at Philcon 2013. Maybe those who are interested in fandom will check it out at that time.
What about you? Would you be willing to market an e-book completely independently? Why or why not?
The author, Anna Kathryn Bir, had written the piece for the newsletter of a now-defunct web site, www.ezinedepot.net. The piece was titled "A New Way to Self Publish." The article found new life on a personal blog in 2007, published in its entirety. In it, she suggests a completely DIY method of publishing an e-book.
Basically, she advises writers to "create a credit card account," which will then be used to accept payments from readers interested in the book. Of course, she doesn't provide complete details on how to set up the payment process, so perhaps it was an untested idea on her behalf.
She then suggests that you "Write an intro page for your novel and create a separate page for it. Here is where you’ll put any illustrations you may have. So people will have an example of your writing, copy and paste the first chapter of your novel and put it here, too." Basically, she's talking about putting up a preview page in order to sell the full book, which you would then e-mail to the reader as a "Word or Works" document. She's talking about Microsoft Works, a discontinued office suite that was once packaged with cheaper PCs about a decade or so ago (I had an eMachine, bought through Fingerhut, that came with it).
I can recall seeing many books sold this way back in the day, especially books advertising get-rich-quick schemes or offering lucrative advice for writers. Many were the pages I clicked on -- drawn by an ad or link -- only to be turned off by the garish fonts, excessive exclamation points and unrealistic promises. But in the early days of this millennium, such DIY book sites offered authors complete control over both the product and the delivery, without any of the additional formatting time or fees associated with, say, putting a book for sale at places like eBookMall.com, one of the few completely independent e-book retailers that still exists. And don't forget, there were few other options in those days: the first Kindle wouldn't debut until 2007.
The drawback, of course, is the lack of traffic. Unless you're a really good marketer with proven success in driving thousands of hits to your site, you're unlikely to sell many books this way. Nowadays, in most cases, it would seem to make more sense to go through the trouble of formatting a book for Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords or other retail sites that readers are far more likely to find.
But what if you're selling a book that doesn't convert easily into the standard formats required by online retailers? Well, the good news is, it's still possible to sell it yourself on your own site, using a similar method to that described in the article. In fact, I offer a PDF version of Dedicated Idiocy on my author's site, available through my Books page. I've used Paypal to create a button that people can click on to send me the payment. During the payment process, they are prompted to provide an e-mail address where the book can be sent, and then I can e-mail them the work.
While it may be almost ludicrously antiquated to sell a book this way, I'm offering the PDF version because I know many people who have not yet moved to Kindle. Even though you can use the Kindle app on a mobile phone or PC in order to read Kindle books, they'll state that "I don't have a Kindle," and consider it the end of the conversation. In part because the primary audience of my book would be my peers, looking to relive their college days in the 1980s and 1990s, I wanted to be sure it was accessible to them.
I don't expect to make a lot of sales from my web site, but who knows? Perhaps word of mouth will spread and my friends will tell their friends, driving them to make a purchase. I am trying to do some marketing for the book and intend to promote it when I appear as a panelist at Philcon 2013. Maybe those who are interested in fandom will check it out at that time.
What about you? Would you be willing to market an e-book completely independently? Why or why not?
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