I am also an author who was first
published by Crown Publishing, and now is self-publishing e-books. I had an excellent editor at Crown, and was
very well taken care of. But the
economics of mainstream publishing make it difficult for anyone but a famous
author to make a living at it.
E-books can be very profitable for
authors. You can price your book low,
and then get a big enough percentage (often seventy percent) of the price so that
you’re making more than you made with a ten dollar paperback published by a
mainstream publisher. Plus now your book
won’t go out of print.
I’m having so much fun with
this! I’m a fanatic about getting kids
reading, and now I can publish books that are as radical as I want. Or not!
It’s fascinating to think what the effect on current thought and reading
habits will be with the new ease of self-publishing.
Self publishing has amazing potential. My wife is a
ReplyDeleteuniversity professor and has written 14 books on nursing for major publishers. They charge over $100 per book and she gets less than $10/book for over 2 years of grinding research and writing. The knowledge is with the author's not the publishers! I hope you are successful with your blog!
Al R
Thanks, Al. Since she now has an established reputation, I bet she could self-publish very successfully. I imagine professors assign her books, so she should still get a steady stream of buyers. Plus she could price her books much lower--which would help students and increase her sales even more. If she published them as e-books she could easily and cheaply update them whenever necessary.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that expensive to hire someone to put in all her graphics, even in an e-book. In fact, someone good could do it so students could click around on complicated subjects.
Best to the two of you.
Mary