Is Anyone at RFF Publishing Ebooks?

[CameraQuest]

Amazon's 70% commission on books less than $9.99 looks inviting to me.

Is anyone here publishing Ebooks? Advice? Tips? Pitfalls?

Thanks
Stephen

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Never done it. I imagine I'd sell one and it would be about 30 seconds before it was on every pirate site on the net, then i'd never sell another. Like Music 😛

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I self-published a freebie, and my regular book publisher has finally gone digital and is selling Kindle editions of my last two books. I'm not sure what kind of numbers they're seeing, though.

 

[deirdre]

I have a story in a Baen anthology which is available only through their own site. They had that before the Kindle, though, so it's a long-standing tradition.

Been considering putting out my own e-version for just my own story.

 

[CameraQuest]

bump

anyone try this? experience?

Thanks
Stephen

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Stephen,

After reading your post I looked at it closely and there's a LOT more I need to know -- such as cross-compatibility of non-Amazon books with Kindle, and which e-book formats support illustrations.

From what I can see, Amazon is being very proprietary (read: arrogant), rather in the fashion of Kodak from 1900-1935. I've had maybe 50 'real' books published and I think I'm ready for e-books, once there's a common platform. But where can one learn more?

Cheers,

R.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

It's pretty easy to render a Kindle ebook...it's proprietary but not any kind of trade secret. They do use DRM though.

I am mulling over trying to bring my old books back into print with Google Books, as well. But I think I'm going to wait until my literary agency weighs in. This stuff is all so new, nobody's entirely sure what to make of it all, even industry professionals.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

BTW, say what you will about Amazon, but Kindle books are the only that you can read on ALL platforms. The Kindle hardware reader, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows. My ebook library is synced to my Kindle, iPad, and phone...it even remembers what page you're on, across platforms.

I still prefer to read paper books, but Amazon has provided a very successful technology.

 

[CameraQuest]

Dear Stephen,

After reading your post I looked at it closely and there's a LOT more I need to know -- such as cross-compatibility of non-Amazon books with Kindle, and which e-book formats support illustrations.

From what I can see, Amazon is being very proprietary (read: arrogant), rather in the fashion of Kodak from 1900-1935. I've had maybe 50 'real' books published and I think I'm ready for e-books, once there's a common platform. But where can one learn more?

Cheers,

R.

A good place to start is the Los Angeles Times series on "the future of reading" -- so far an excellent series of 8 articles

see http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-future-of-reading-sg,0,6802210.storygallery

this URL gives an overall view of Amazon's Kindle with 70% of the emarket ! https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin?ie=UTF8&ld=AZEbooksMakeM

Stephen

 

[Roger Hicks]

A good place to start is the Los Angeles Times series on "the future of reading" -- so far an excellent series of 8 articles

see http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-future-of-reading-sg,0,6802210.storygallery

this URL gives an overall view of Amazon's Kindle with 70% of the emarket ! https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin?ie=UTF8&ld=AZEbooksMakeM

Stephen

Dear Stephen,

Thanks very much. I'll check it as soon as I have time (away for 48 hours shortly).

Cheers,

R.

 

[_larky]

I plan to release a free ebook on the final day of my year long one camera journey through London. If I can find somewhere that will accept me, I'll link it to a gallery opening. It wont be Kindle though, only anything with a screen that matches the iPad.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

One other update, I'm about to release an ebook of short stories inspired by photocollages by my friend Lou Beach...it is being published by this place:

http://www.redwillowdigitalpress.com/

If anyone's interested I'll let you know how it goes. It's coming out in the next couple of weeks.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Holy crap, it's already out. I had no idea.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Zom...WVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1301852743&sr=1-1

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Amazon's 70% commission on books less than $9.99 looks inviting to me.

Amazon takes a 70% commission? Yikes.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Amazon takes a 70% commission? Yikes.

Have you ever seen a conventional publishing contract? 30% ain't bad at all.

 

[rxmd]

Never done it. I imagine I'd sell one and it would be about 30 seconds before it was on every pirate site on the net, then i'd never sell another. Like Music 😛

The trick with music has been to make it cheap enough. Sell the ebook for 99 cents and people won't bother pirating it, likely netting you more money than if you sold it for ten times as much.

 

[ampguy]

one technique used by large and small publishers is to make the book free for a limited time. Then it moves up in Amazon's best selling lists, and movers/shakers, and gets free visibility when the price goes back on.

With just a couple of exceptions, most of my books on the kindle were free or promo priced.