To e-book or not to e-book?

[wetair]

you could submit it to those on demand publishing places as well. not sure how that works though . . . make sure you are on librarything.com, goodreads, shelfire, the places that are like social networking sites for books, try to be active. the amazon forum too. possably even the baen forum since baen is a sci-fi publisher. not like you are trying to sell your novel, but in your sig, you could have a link to your book. you could have a blog/website of your very own. offer some of the short stories for free on your site? like one short story per month. and other extras, like stuff about your characters. character profiles? both librarything and goodreads have a place where writers/publishers can sign up to offer their novel for free - you could do that. even if you offer just one copy for free, others will see it and might be interested enough to find and buy it if the description is good. just need to get your name and the title of your book out there for people to see.

[Holly]

A little more than a month ago I posted as to whether or not if it's a good idea to go e-book first...
I'm back and it doesn't seem like anyone cares:

a) because I keep reading articles about publishing companies not taking on as many new authors as they normally would because of their budgets
b) publishing companies aren't promoting the authors that they have because of their budgets

I haven't begun to approach lit agents or publishers with my series - It's a science fiction novella of short stories- The Visions of Koto-Ryin, even though I've had a few sales, it doesn't seem like anyone knows that the short stories are there (two of the five are out now). At first I thought it was a recession thing, but all of my short stories are .99 and then I read this article:
http://blog.smashwords.com/2009/12/smas ... hares.html.

How did she gain so much attention? Was it word of mouth? Or did she have good marketing, while she won't get rich off of those figures, lol, it's a whole lot better than what I'm doing now.

Any e-book promotion ideas?

Right now I'm on smashwords and amazon kindle. Smashwords is supposed to feed you into other e-book stores, but they're constalty fixing their system so most times your work doesn't go through.

Hello, Lauren. I looked at your website. You do a lot of great design work as well as write and help your father with the nitty-gritty details for his writing, so you have a lot of talent and abilities.

I have two nonfiction writer friends who won prizes in national contests. They both got cash and books (by mainstream publishers). You should research contests and see what happens.

Here is one contest for sci-fi and fantasy writers, but there must be lots of others. The author of bestselling THE NAME OF THE WIND found an agent and publication through this contest:
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/rules.htm

[Thomas Burchfield]

Hello:

Well, as with so many things, it depends. I will use myself as a not necessarily representative example.

Last year, I completed my novel Dragon's Ark (submitted to and rejected by Nathan) and have been going the traditional route of querying agents. After I run out on that list, I'll turn to small publishers.

In the meantime, I've been building a fairly nice presence on the Web with my page over at the Red Room Website for Writers http://www.redroom.com/member/thomas-burchfield
. Lots of interesting articles, essays, photos, etc.

At the end of last year, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to e-publish one of the screenplays I wrote in the 1990s. While most of them were liked to one degree or another, not a one of them was purchased or produced, or even optioned. Nor, I am sure, will they ever be.

Nevertheless, I thought, some of them are genuinely good pieces and enjoyable reads, so what do I have to gain by leaving them in the drawer? Who's going to be upset if I e-publish them? For free?

So, just last week, I published my personal favorite of the bunch on Smashwords.com. "Whackers" is a shamelessly ridiculous and racy farce in the tradition of Mel Brooks, Billy Wilder, and more contemporary movies like Tropical Thunder. Its pitch goes like this:

A law clerk's blind passion for a lawyer puts him on the Fast Track to Hell when a glib n' greedy hit man hires himself to whack the lawyer's fiance. A madcap, slapshtick nightmare about the awful things that can happen when dreams comes true.

As I just officially launched it last Wednesday, I have no opinion on how well this works yet, but if you'd like to read it and put your nickel in, you find it at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9295
.

You knew there was a catch, didn't you?

So: I encourage those of you with a taste for offbeat farce, to check it out. I bet you'll like it. And it's for free and available on your e-reader and i-Phone.

Now, as far as my novel goes, that I will not e-publish, until I'm sure I've explored all other traditional options. IMO, what I take from this debate is, until you've tried everything else, save e-publishing for last.

I'll add this: given that the publishing industry seems so gun-shy about new authors, those of us out here who are unknowns, but with good books to show, shouldn't be blamed if we eventually decide to take that route.

Cheers,

Thomas Burchfield

[lovelylj]

I haven't been visiting these forums too often because I've been trying to find new ways to promote and find a literary agent. I have a web site,http://www.laurenjohnson.me I published my book on smashwords first, http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9611 then createspace, http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Koto-Ryin ... 893&sr=8-2. I was getting a lot of people telling me that they'd rather read from a book than from a screen, I don't know if that's an excuse or not, but now I'll see since it's in print.

In the meantime I've written a novelette, so soon I'll be able to tell everyone how this route is working out for me. I've been sending queries out to literary agents as well, I'm not frustrated with all the rejections, because all I need is one yes, but at the same time I feel like I've been dumped in one of those children's play things with all the balls...and I've got to find my special ball.