Are there any publishers who will do deals with authors who put their manuscripts online? What if you come to them with a list of several thousand pre-orders?

I've seen the same type of research from several different places, and I really think this is the way to go.

What about self-publishing in the event that no publisher will bite? What exactly does that entail and how would one go about doing it?

Anybody?

My personal inkling is that trying to publish full work online before a contract is signed will be frowned upon - perhaps better to let the publisher make that decision after a deal has been made.

You also have the problem of plagarism - a fact of life on the internet. What's to stop someone else copying your work, applying some judicious editing, and then getting a publishing deal? You won't know until after - and then its years of litatigation and growing court costs to challenge the perceived ownership [even if you proetcted your work through recorded delivery or even registration with the congressional library thang]. And all that time someone else will be spending the royalties due to you [and will be difficult to recover].

Never publish any complete MSS online that you wish to use for commercial purposes - otherwise someone else just may.

What if you come to them with a list of several thousand pre-orders?

That is an incredibly hopeful - and probably unrealistic - situation for an unpublished author to think they can attain. Unless you have thousands of incredibly loyal relatives, or else an astonishing marketing idea, then it just will not be. People are by nature apathetic, and unlikely to pre-order a book from an unknown without an extremely good reason for doing so.

Don't expect online marketing to work brilliantly either - I can give you my experience on that if you'd like.

And if you're offering the manuscript for free? mp3.com is a great lesson of what happens when you give for free what you're selling. Even the most successful artists there are lucky to sell 10-20 CDs per month, and they are very much a tiny minority - and usually have a recording company pushing their work anyway.

I've seen the same type of research from several different places, and I really think this is the way to go.

It would be interesting to see the research you're referring to.

What about self-publishing in the event that no publisher will bite?

That would suggest that your work isn't of the right standard for publishing. Judicious editing [especially after input from others] could work wonders here. My personal take is that self-publishing is often an admission of failure, and the triumph of pride over professionalism.

What exactly does that entail and how would one go about doing it?

It means you spend thousands of dollars paying someone to set up the printing. However, the marketing is still up to you.

A possible light in the tunnel on this issue is the POD route [publishing on demand], which I believe to be cheaper [simply hundreds of dollars] and you can at least have your book linked at Amazon. But unless you have a million dollar advertising revenue then your sales are always going to be very very poor.

Just my opinion

What sort of on-line posting are you talking about? Publication? Well, that is what putting you text on-line is. If you put more than 13 lines or so up on-line, you have used up first rights and electronic rights to the work. It is already published. The chance of getting a traditional publisher interested is about nill, no matter the views you can show. And why would I buy a book I can read for free on-line? Something fishy with the thinking on that one.

Or are you talking about a showcase site? I just went six rounds with a guy through e-mail that swore at me, called me all sorts of names because I dared say showcase sites do not work. These are the places where you “post” you work for x number of dollars, or for free, in the hopes that some web surfing agent or publisher will “discover” you. Let me say this—IT ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!! What will happen is you have used up your rights, posted something that could most likely use an editor’s eyes and red pen, risked having your work “barrowed”, and shown that you don’t know how to do things according to the accepted way, and you have shown yourself to be a person of little patients. (Believe me the publishing game is a hurry up and wait game).

Good, legit agents, don’t go surfing around looking for talent, no matter what someone tells you. The hard reality is that good agents are swamped with piles of subs. Why the heck would they go looking for more? When do you think they have the time?

Don’t believe me? We all know who the SFWA is, yes? Here is a page at their web site on electronic publishing, you will also find at their site the info they have about showcase sites. They also offer a wealth of info about self-publishing.
http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/epublishers.html

On POD books, there are two types, the self-publishing type, where you pay to have your book done up—AKA vanity press. And the more traditional ones, these have a submission process, and editor (for free), and you get paid for the books sold, marketing ect are up to the POD publisher. Note here---this is like traditional publishing YOU DO NOT GET CHARGED FEES. A couple of good ones, Novel Books Inc., and Jacobyte e-books. But do not expect to get rich or to attract a traditional publisher unless you can show sales of 5,000 books or better. That’s sales, not page views. And they do not pay royalties.

Putting soap box away now----

The fact is that people want to own things that they consider valuable.

If you're a fan of a particular band, you're going to want to own the CDs for yourself, right?

If a really good movie comes out that you particularly like, you're going to want to own the DVD, right?

If you play a pirated computer game that's REALLY good, have you ever gone out and bought a legitimate version?

If good ol' OSC wrote a book you really liked, you'd probably want to own it, right?

So, what if you got a rip of the DVD? The whole CD on MP3s? A hacked version of Jedi Knight II (or whatever game you prefer)? The full text of OSC's book online? Would you be satisfied?

The research I've been seeing says no. People want to own PHYSICAL things that they deem valuable, regardless of the fact that they can get the same informatin for free, they want something concrete to put their hands on. Something that says "I OWN this."

But, people are reluctant to purchase something without knowing beforehand whether it's valuable or not. Half the CDs I personally own I went out and bought AFTER hearing them somewhere else. Most of the books I own were recommended to me, or were written by authors I KNEW wrote quality stories. And most of the movies I own I bought AFTER seeing them in the theater. (though, you could call that a purchase, and the analogy might break down.)

The point is . . . I've seen several experiments in several places where people published full-text of their story online while publishing traditionally as well. the technique I saw on one site was that the authors published their book normally. After sales had declined to their plateau, they released the full text online FOR FREE. (this is important that it be free) In two months, sales had spiked with no additional marketing. Further sales remained consistently high after that.

Honestly, this is not a greedy motivation here. I have no illusions about my first book making it onto the bestseller list or anything. And simply because I wish to release it online doesn't mean I don't want an editor to pick it apart. Seriously, this is not an ego trip, or a desperate attempt to get published or something like that. I don't want to put it on an e-publishing site or anything like that . . . there's not supposed to be money in e-publishing.

Quite simply, this is a philosophical thing for me. I think the more content that is online for free IN ANY MEDIUM, the better. And there will still be money to be made.

I will do my best to dig up some of that research and post links today if I can. It's actually quite interesting.

I know there are publishers out there that agree with this philosophy, but I also know they are VERY few in numbers.

What do you think? Think any of them might bite? (when I get my book written. )

-Nate

I think the operative words here are, of course,

quote:

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when I get my book written

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because very few editors are going to make any promises, or even guesses, to a new writer without text.

quote:

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Because very few editors are going to make any promises, or even guesses, to a new writer without text.

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Never fear. I'm not counting my chickens yet. It just came up in conversation a lot recently, and the idea got me excited about getting something written. My brother and father just read 'Permission Marketing' by Seth Godin and the've been feeding it to me by bits & pieces, and he talks a little bit about free content online. I also ran across a web site put together by several authors who decided to run this type of experiment for themselves, and they had a link (which I didn't follow at the time) to another publisher who was doing the same thing with similar results.

Can't find the site again, tho.

At least Stephen King is a direction to start looking.

http://www.baen.com/library/

There's also a reference on one of the pages linked from it to a self-published title by King called "The Plant".

But would anyone notice a significant peak in King's booksales after?

And how many hardcopies of "The Plant" sold?

I haven't read this, just heard rehashed from his book from my father and brother, so I could be a bit off. From what I understand, he wrote a book and decided to publish it online. People had the option of downloading the book for free, and e-mailing it to a friend for free. The idea is that if people liked it they could send it on to their friends, thus the book would easily market itself. six months later, he had started to get orders from people who wanted a hard copy. His reply was "well, you'll have to buy the $40.00 souvenir edition." which at the time didn't even exist. When the orders kept coming, unabated, he went to his normal publisher and asked if they could work a deal to get the book published in six weeks and he already had several hundred thousand copies ready to sell. The publisher said no, it would be a year, and he had to stop giving it away free online.

He self published and has sold 2 million copies.

Go figure. Trust me, I have no illusions that this would be a normal scenario, even if it's not exaggerated slightly already. But, the idea is still the same. People want to own valuable things, but they don't want to shell out cash for something they don't know will be of value to them. So, give them the information free, but sell them the object.

That is how you make the money.

At least . . . it is in theory.

-Nate

Like the huge advances that we hear about--they are an exception and without proof, other than what someone told you, I would be very careful with that.

And that's what I'm trying to research at the moment. Part of the whole pre-internet marketing reality has lived according to the idea that if you give it away for free, you've lost the profits. You have to make people want to buy something without giving anything away. I think (as do many others) that the with the advent of the internet, information is not quite so important. By giving something away for free, you can generate sales you wouldn't have otherwise, while losing very few of the sales you might have had under the old system.

The problem is I can't find the research right now. I know it's out there, I've seen it before, but I didn't look closely at it, so I don't know if I interpreted it a bit . . . optimistically, or if it really indicates what I think it does.

In any case . . . e-books are doomed to failure. I wouldn't even think of trying to publish an electronic book for profit. It just doesn't work. It's too much of a pain, and as far as I can see, it always will be.

Anyway . . . still random thoughts and nothing much has changed. So I'll prolly let the thread die now 'till I find some research.

Anybody that finds it first, however, PLEASE share.

First of all, was the book he sold so many copies of the same book your father and brother read (and/or bought in hardcopy), or was it a different book.

The one your father and brother read was nonfiction, right? If it wasn't the same book, was the book he talked about that sold so well fiction or nonfiction?

As I understand it, publishers make a lot more money on nonfiction, and nonfiction books tend to have a lot longer shelf life.

And I think people would be more likely to want a hardcopy version of a nonfiction book than they would a fiction book. Nonfiction books are more likely to be books people go back to several times.

Seth Godin sells books that promise to potentially increase business revenue. That's a specific reason why he gained so much attention for his writing - but it's a lot more complicated than simply putting work online for free.

The basic gist is: instead of mass advertising, he recommends much more focussed advertising that seeks not to sell but to simply gain attention - and then through a process of extreme customer care ensure that those people who express mere interest are given incentives, such as free samples, to encourage enthusiasm for their eventually buying your product.

Note that he doesn't put "Permission Marketing" online for free - only the first four chapters.

Nearly worked on me after I read them - for ten minutes after I would have bought it. Now...maybe will one day, but I'd like to explore my own ideas on the concept first.

What makes me particularly happy is that I've already begun to lay similar groundwork on my site, and will now look to plan to build better upon what I've got for when I'm published.

By the theory you have presented, it should have sold like gang busters. In hard copy or even in e-form. So we decided to ask for donations and offer past issues for sale. We would also offer serial stories in full form. So as an experiment to see if people were willing to pay we have been asking for donations.

It has met with very little success.

After looking into it some myself I found the same thing that Chronicles found. It seems to me to be the same sort of thing as those books that tell you how to become a millionaire. One man’s success is made to seem like anybody can do it---all you have to do is buy the book.

As for you example with the e-magazine, I found what I belive to be a flaw.

What were people buying? What did they OWN by giving their donation. A magazine? Or is it a printout of the e-mag, or is it just an e-version of the mag that you e-mail to them.

The point is, is there any pride in ownership? I asked OSC a question along this line at Uncle Orson's Writing Class. While I don't remember his exact response, he pointed out that a manuscript online is nothing but a bunch of letters all shoved together. You can't really own that. It's a thought, it's information. What PUBLISHERS are selling is a book. It's two different products for sale, that in the end, really don't compete with each other.

How comfortable are you with purchasing pure information . . . of ANY kind? It's not something that many people do. Don't you feel much better purchasing something you can put your hands on?

And with your e-mag. If you're selling e-copies, the problem is STILL that it's only information. Even if you ARE selling hard copies, what was the attitude when marketing it? Was it "here's something cool we're going to do to make a few extra bucks so we can make our mag better" or was it "Now, you can own past issues of our magazine in a hard-copy, long-lasting form for the ridiculously low price of $1.50"

You see the difference? The latter instills into the potential buyer the idea that owning your magazine is a source of pride, something they can feel good about. The former is a 'cool feature' which never sold anything to anybody. Furthermore, the cool feature comes at a cost, and by making it donation-based, the company seems apologetic for even ASKING for money. By asserting that your product MAY NOT HAVE VALUE to somebody, you're sabotaging your own marketing.

This is why I think that putting full manuscripts on the internet is a GOOD thing. People read the story and suddenly they can judge for themselves whether or not they'll take pride in owning the book. Further, they'll get frustrated with having to read an e-copy of it which ties them to their computers and makes their eyes sore. Halfway through, most people will say "Damn, I like this story, but I HATE sitting here . . . maybe I just oughta go buy the book."

I'm not saying "I'm right, you're wrong." But I think it's important to look at the whole picture. Will putting your manuscript online ensure good sales? Hell no. If it's a piece of crap it might ensure FEWER sales because people won't take pride in owning it. That's true, even of regular books though. I challenge you to find a used bookstore that DOESN'T have a copy of 'The Lost World' in it. Why? The book was a piece of crap . . . nobody took pride in owning it. You can't GIVE copies away anymore.

Anyway, that's my point. And it may be wrong, I just need some convincing first.