Which is more profitable?

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2009/10/kindle-numbers-traditional-publishing.html

One author's experience with selling e-books through his publisher and through his self-published kindle sales. He shares numbers--both e-books sold by title, and his income from those sales.

I wonder if his experience is similar to others'  or different?  And how many authors can make that comparison at all.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that low-priced ebooks sell tremendously more than high-priced ones. People will pay more for something they really own and can hold in their hands than for something ephemeral that Amazon.com can take away whenever it pleases. So lowballing the price of ebooks makes sense.

In fact, I've read a lot of articles about the usefulness of creating a FREE ebook for promotional purposes. It's becoming a very popular piece of swag for websites and authors.

I remain bitterly disappointed by Amazon.com's treatment of authors, though. Their self-publishing contract is horrible. They take the lion's share of the money for doing nothing more than adding another product to a system that already exists.

I really want to see an alternative develop for cyberfunded creativity that will route the money where it belongs: to the creator of the work. But to compete with conventional models, we need a way to facilitate the connection between creators and audience so that it's easier for people to find each other.

Re: Thoughts

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Amazon's percentage was too high! I wonder if someplace like creatspace might be able to sell e-books and negotiate for rights with Amazon? If they were willing, they'd have more clout than individual writers, at least.

I wonder how big a consortium of writers would have to be to get any concession from Amazon in that regard?

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but it would sure be interesting to find out. I doubt there's much chance of getting it down to a reasonable 10-20% consignment rate, but below 50% might be doable.

Re: Thoughts

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

As their parent company, Amazon is not going to let Createspace duplicate their e-book business, which is already making them money without letting a subsidiary muscle in on it. :)

Re: Thoughts

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I didn't know Createspace was a subsidiary of Amazon!

Wow there's a lot to learn about all this stuff.