My experience with epublishing so far - ups and downs
The ups of self epublishing:
Almost as close as you're going to get to immediate gratification in the publishing world. You format your book. Design a cover. Upload it, and in a day people can buy it. The royalty structure is very nice. Through Amazon, for example, you can price your book at 2.99, and you receive a royalty of 2.05. Smashwords is fairly similar. It's been a great way to squeeze more money out of my short stories. Most of them have already earned money through being published in mags - some as podcasts - and so have been sorta vetted. Now they're bringing in a little more cash.
The downs:
You need to market your butt off. While it is said that even with a traditional publisher, you still need to do much of your own publicity, they still have way more distribution channels than we do. They can get your books in stores, they have catalogs, well-maintained websites, not to mention publicists, a marketing department, editors, connections, etc, etc. If self-pubbing your ebook, you have to do all of that yourself (or pay someone else to help out with it.) Also, for all the time you spend on this, you're not writing.
Nearly immediate self-gratification. While this can have its ups, it also has its downs. You grow accustomed to it. And you know mathematically speaking that more product out there equals more money. This can make you rush things - put out stuff that perhaps should've had a few more passes through the editorial process. Even if you have enough discipline to make sure your novel has aged enough and been thoroughly edited, it makes it hard to fathom the reality of then trying to get something traditionally published. This has become a bit of a conundrum for me. My first two novels that I epubbed had made their rounds to many publishers with no luck. They had gained some enthusiasm from some pros, so I feel confident they don't suck, and I feel fine having released them myself - although there still remains that stigma of being self-pubbed. Perhaps not as much as before, but it's still there.
My YA novel, Snow Burn had almost been accepted by a big publisher - it had made it through the first few rounds - the editors loved it - but their marketing department put the kybosh on it. While heartbreaking, I should've dusted it off and kept on sending it out. Instead, I feel like I rushed it into ebook format. But see, now I'm used to the instant gratification, and to go through the subbing again - the possible years and years and years...
I have another novel - a middle grade novel, which has also made more rounds to traditional pubs, and has been getting good things said about it, but no luck. I'm torn between putting it up as an ebook or continuing to send it out. Traditional publishing still accounts for the majority of the market. But if I put it out now, it could potentially be making money for me, whereas if I continue to sub it, the process could take years. However, if a traditional publisher picks it up, there's an advance, distribution, etc...
These are some of the things to think about before epubbing your own work. There have certainly been some wonderful success stories, and I think this market is growing. But the competition is also growing. It's easy to get lost in the morass of epubs, and there's that constant struggle to claw your way out.
