Publishing

Ebooks VS. Hardcover Books

Writer Unboxed has a pretty important article up that I haven’t really seen elsewhere. Basically, it details the price and royalty comparison between hardcover books and ebooks, and how it effects the profit margin of publishers and authors. Basically, it comes down to a publisher explaining in an earnings meeting that they make more off ebooks because of lower royalties and lower costs. That would be fine if they brought absolutely anything to the table, had to take more risk, anything, but they are facilitating what most people can accomplish for free on their own. It’s definitely worth a read.

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A Couple Articles by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Read this and this. I talk about Dean Wesley Smith a lot (or I did a lot on the old Story Arcs) but less about his wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I don’t really know how that happened, but I am going to correct it. Personally, I think if you take her Business Rusch posts and the Shatzkin Files, you pretty much have everything you need to know about publishing as an industry. They’re well informed, experience, very analytical and sit on different sides of the publishing spectrum. Note on that, reading Mike Shatzkin is a bit like reading H. P. Lovecraft. Not so much the supernatural aspect, more like, “What the hell did that paragraph just say?” Anyway, Ms. Rusch has an incredible way of being brutally honest, and being uplifting at the same time. If you have anything to do with publishing, no matter its form, read her stuff….

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U.S. VS Apple

Fortune has a good article summing up the whole deal between the Department of Justice and Apple (and the publishing industry). Thanks for Passive Voice for the article. There’s not a lot I can add here because I’m not a legal professional. I can’t speak to the legality or moral authority of any of the parties involved. However, I would like to say this. A lot of people say Amazon sicked the DOJ on Apple and big publishing because, well, they’re Amazon and that’s what they do. That’s how they compete, they drive down the little guys like Microsoft was doing against Netscape. Here’s the thing, when Netscape “sicked” the DOJ on Microsoft, it was a desperate act to try and compete with Internet Explorer. Whether or not it was warranted or if they did it at all aside, everyone said they did it because they knew Netscape was in…

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Deciding On a Publishing Path

I’ve been thinking I would actually publish this book for about three years. Not the wistful fantasies of what if, but the blood curdling idea that it might actually happen. As with anything I involve myself in, the first thing I do is research. It was a pleasant surprise to find multiple options. It was less pleasant to find the “right” path was hotly contested. Well, I’ve made a decision. I will be self publishing. At least for now. I am not writing this as a condemnation for traditional publishing or to uphold the standards of indie publishing. This is the first post in documenting the choices and challenges going down this path. I hope it is educational, and not in a “I won’t do that!” kind of way. There are a bunch of blogs that cover this, I recommend you read them first. My perspective is someone entering, and…

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