You may have read that Amazon reported that at the end of last year they were selling more ebooks than paperbacks. Even allowing for the fact that a lot of people received ereaders and bought a few ebooks immediately, thereby skewing the figures in the short term, it's remarkable how quickly this has happened. What does this mean for authors?
Here are some observations from an article by Karen Dionne writing in Daily Finance at the end of 2010:
"For an author under contract with a major publisher, not much has changed. Most publishers still insist on acquiring electronic rights along with print at the royalty rate that's been in place for years: 25% of net profits. Amazon (AMZN), on the other hand, offers authors a whopping 70% of net profits for e-books sold in the U.S. Admittedly, the online retailer carries a large number ofcaveats, most notably that the book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Barnes & Noble (BKS) and Apple (AAPL) offer similar royalty rates."
She points out that on a self-published ebook the profit percentage for the author is 70% or more, but also warns that the author will have to market the book to drive sales. After all, 70% of nothing is nothing.
She includes the story of an author who has not yet been published traditionally and put her quirky fairy tale novel out as an ebook, but the verdict isn't in. She just quotes the author, Eileen Cruz Coleman, as saying she hopes the book will catch on.
Despite all the uncertainty, it's an exciting time and I think the authors who get out there now with self-published books and who are willing to experiment will discover the road to success--but not without a lot of stumbles along the way as well.
(If you're interested in inexpensive, do it yourself marketing, check out two of my books: "Do Something Different," from Virgin Books with a foreword by Sir Richard Branson, and "Marketing for Entrepreneurs," published by Pearson.)
