Authors - Publish Right Now!

Would you believe? Your royalties may even increase as innovative publishers save the expense (some might say waste) of paper and ink. One advantage to ePublishing as an author is that many small but very successful ePublishers are accepting new authors and works. Their quality standards are high (a good book is a good book, a bad one still stinks), but many new authors are finding their way in. The payment standard is no advance, but pretty good (25%, for example) royalties. The biggest advantage over independent publishing is that the publisher relieves you, the author, of the technical burden of processing the manuscript into the many eBook formats, creating cover art work and distributing the work. Many of them share in the marketing/promotion costs, but the author must still beat the streets for sales to get anywhere! If you are a published eBook author and haven't already, join EPIC. If you aren't published, check out this years EPPIE finalists, find your category, and check out the individual publisher's web site. Many are not open for submission, but if you contact them (especially in person at EPICon2005 to be held in March 2005 on the Queen Mary berthed in Long Beach harbor - grand times promised), some will consider looking at especially good manuscripts.

EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection

Publish new or old material to which you own the copyright. Electronic publishing ties in very closely with POD/FOD printing. If you are interested in publishing independently, the preparation of your manuscript for POD consists essentially of following the same steps as preparation for electronic publishing. If you aren't versed in the technology/tedium of conversion or just plain don't want to get into the technology of independent publishing, try one of the many ePublishers that pop up on a search. While most are not as hard to approach as traditional publishers, they still are only interested in GOOD books - all different kinds - but if your book isn't good, they won't make money either. Beware the scam - where an unscrupulous printer formats and prints your book for an inordinate amount of money - a thin line between "vanity press" and independent publishing, but the market can tell the difference.

Electronic or paper, remember, Promotion is the key to sales, as any bookseller or published author - electronic, traditional, bestseller, or hack - (that's me) will attest. Whether the product is pulses of electricity or dots on a piece of paper, this remains true. If you want your book read - and sold for a profit - the buying market must know about your book. Successful sales will need your continuing support and interest.  Be aware - you, as the author, must be prepared to promote your book, self published or publishing behemoth!

Where is your eBook sold? If you rely on your personal web site, sales will be miniscule, a function of your personal promotion. If you go the independently published route and have more than one book, I recommend you establish a publishing company and build a bookstore website to market your titles - sales will still be a function of how good you promote your books. And, of course, if you are published by an established publisher, they will make sure your book is well distributed, otherwise they won't make any money either. Marketing - by and large, still up to you.

If you want to independently publish, here are some tips:

For conversion to Adobe PDF files, there are many products available, primarily Adobe's own Acrobat. Go to the Adobe Expert Center to read about the many ways to produce a PDF file. A new and interesting alternative to PDA file creation is Mobipocket. They advertise that publishers can produce one eBook file and deliver to 100% of the PDA market.

Conversion programs like the Adobe products, Mobipocket and the Overdrive LIT software to convert files to be read on the Microsoft Reader aren't free, but for someone serious about publishing PDA-readable books, something to seriously consider. Palm offers a free conversion program, but charge if you want to license it for commercial use. There are several low cost conversion shareware programs on the market for conversion for palm readers. Try a web search and you'll find several shareware programs that work well.