At present, I only publish my work in digital format—ebooks
and audiobooks. Since many of you are also authors or seriously thinking of
writing a book, I thought I would explain my reasoning on this, as it might be
helpful to you in making your own decisions. The main reason
that I'm a digital-only author is that if I publish my books on paper, I can't
get them onto the shelves of physical bookstores. It's virtually impossible.
Why?
Because I'm an "indie author," meaning that I self-publish my
work outside of the realm of the traditional publishing industry. Like
it or not, traditional publishing largely controls what's on the shelves
of brick-and-mortar bookstores. (Self-publishing my own work is a personal choice—for more about
traditional versus self-publishing, see this post).
Also, I am an
internationally-oriented author, and I have a large number of readers all over
the world—in Australia, the UK, Europe, South Africa, Malaysia, Russia, India,
the Middle East, etc. This compounds the
distribution problem tenfold. Even the
biggest U.S. publishers have trouble getting their titles onto the bookstore
shelves in every corner of the globe.
Thanks to digital
retailer/distributors like Smashwords, ebooks provide an instant and elegant
solution to the problem. It's a great
feeling to know that any reader, virtually anywhere in the world, has equal
access to all my books at the touch of a button. That said, I
admit that it sometimes bothers me that I can't pick up a paper copy of my book
and hold it in my hands, and that I can't send readers who want my books in
paper format to a physical bookstore.
Some people enjoy collecting paper books and building a home library,
and I can certainly appreciate that as well. While it's true
that I could arrange to publish all of my 20+ titles on paper through a company
like Lulu or Createspace, this does not fully solve the problem, neither in the
USA or abroad. Readers will still have
to order the books online or through their local bookstores—copies will still
not actually be sitting on bookstore shelves.
My experience is that people who want paper books generally expect to
walk into a physical bookstore, find the books they want on the shelves, and
then take the books the cash register and pay for them. Having to order and wait for a paper book is
a "speed bump" that greatly lowers interest. Today, most readers, when given the choice of
ordering a physical book and waiting a week or two for it to arrive, or
downloading the book instantly, in ebook or audiobook format, choose the
latter. Not all, but most.
Despite how easy
companies like Lulu and Createspace make it sound, publishing on paper is still
a lot of work and takes significant time.
I only have so many hours in the day.
When I ask readers, "Which would you rather I do—produce more new
ebooks and audiobooks or slow down and offer everything I write in both digital
and paper format?" the answer is always a resounding "More new books
please!" The vast majority of my
readers are willing to read or listen to my books in digital format, even the
ones who prefer paper. Of course, there
are some people who refuse to read anything but paper books. I admire their tenacity, but I have to draw
the line somewhere. I believe that there
will always be paper books, but I also believe that the number of people who
refuse to read anything except paper books will steadily diminish, so that
eventually I will reach 99% of the folks who are interested in my work.
But there is
another larger, overarching factor in my decision to stay digital. I struggled for fifteen years in the paper
book industry—burned through four literary agents—and made very little
progress. It was the advent of ebooks
and digital publishing that allowed me to take full control of my career and
caused my book sales to take off. While
I'm sure it would be a wonderful feeling to hold all my novels in my hands and
see them lined up in a neat row along my desk, I'm confident that the feeling I
have from making a living as a novelist and being able to write full time is
far more satisfying.
Perhaps things
will change in the future and I will decide to publish on paper. For example, maybe someday there will be a
printing and binding machine sitting in every physical bookstore that can
produce a high-quality paper copy of any ebook in a matter of minutes. There have been attempts at this, but nothing
has caught on big yet. Or, maybe a
traditional publisher will come along and offer to print my books as they are,
without insisting on fiddling around with the titles and content, and they
won't have a problem with me continuing to publish my ebooks and audiobooks
independently. Who knows? Never say never. In summary,
that's the logic behind my decision to keep my books in digital format only for
the present, and it may or may not apply to your own situation.
Your comments are
welcome!
By Mike Wells
This article was republished on The Carnage Report courtesy of Mike Wells. View the original article here
Connect with Mike on Twitter @MikeWellsAuthor. Also you can pre-order his latest release, Picasso Chase:Book 1, at iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.
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