Jun 10 2009
How Many Readers Have Bought an ePublished Book
[poll id="174"]In RWA’s most recent President’s Letter, Diane Pershing makes the case that epublishing as a business model does not serve the membership of RWA well primarily because digital publishing does not offer advances:
In other words, that publisher’s business model is of benefit to all its authors (RWA members). The fact that a publisher might not offer an advance but pays a 37.5 percent royalty rate is inconsequential; that business model is only favorable to the few-’or even the several-’who manage to sell enough books to make decent money, or at least the $1,000 required for Published Authors Network (PAN) membership. It is not favorable to the rest of its authors (RWA members) who earn very little money, if any at all.
I am a big proponent of e publishing. I think it can serve an under represented portion readers whose needs are not met by mainstream publishing. I think digital publishing has the ability to be quicker in responding to changes in taste and that it can be more innovative. Certainly Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight is a shining example of a beautifully written romance novel that couldn’t find a place in mainstream publishing but still found its way to the readers via Samhain publishing.
Over the course of the next week, I’m going to be posting a series of ditigal publishing related questions to see what the temperature of the Dear Author reading crowd is. If you are an author, I would appreciate if you would answer the poll with your reading hat on.
In this thread, I’d love to see comments as to why you have or have not bought an epublished book.
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