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

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

We'd have to see more data from authors who are in both systems (traditional and self-publishing), I think. While I'm not precisely skeptical of his numbers, he has a tremendous boost from his print sales, and the viability of his entire enterprise is predicated on the publicity he's already gotten by being in thousands of bookstores.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Not the same branch, but the same conventional/innovative type of comparison: Last year, 1/4 of my poetry sales went to traditionally edited markets, and 3/4 went directly to my audience online.

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.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

What I thought was most interesting is how many comments referenced the value of paying for a good cover for your ebook. :P