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.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Yuki-onna (I think I have that spelled right) recently announced that her Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland will be print-published, but also noted how important being an award-winning author with lots of print sales, and the resulting amazing "signal boost" was to making that success happen.

We need to find ways to get more signal boost!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Valente was already a print-published author before she did crowdfunding, so I don't think her example helps illuminate the issues.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I did make the point that she was not only print-published first, but that she was a known and award-winning print-published author first.

The guy whose blog prompted me to start this thread was also a print-published author first.

Heck--if you count my one lonely, long-out-of-print story in MZBFM, I was a print-published author first. (Though I now have permission from the artist to post that story, with his artwork, online. Just have to get around to doing it!)

Right now, there's a dearth of information as to how to do this net-publishing thing profitably, and everyone's situation is at least a little different. So I figure we have to collect information from everybody, noting the differences.

I see signal strength (simply becoming visible to potential buyers) as being one important issue.

Another (assuming our work is good quality), is finding ways for the potential buyer to believe it's worth paying for.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I haven't run into the last issue before (most people are conditioned to think that books (physical) and books (electronic) should be paid for). The first problem is the problem, though. And will likely remain a large problem until we develop different and trusted sets of gatekeepers.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

People are conditioned to believe that books published by an editor/publisher are worth paying for.

Some people assume that anything that looks like a professionally-published book is worth buying, but not all. A lot of people think of "vanity press" when they see self-publishing, and either assume the quality is substandard (i.e. the author only paid to publish their own book because their writing is cr**). Others are very suspicious that the quality is likely to be substandard.

Hopefully, that is changing.