Sunday, June 15, 2008

Part Six

The Current State of Publishing and Bookselling, Part 6

WHAT ABOUT EPUBLISHING?

Right now, few authors can make a living at epublishing. Even erotica, the growth industry of epublishing, no longer pays the bills as it once did.

The market has become glutted with books from other small publishers, and the major publishers have moved into the market in ebook and paper formats.

Venues for ebooks like Fictionwise are currently being glutted with backlist from major publishers so that unknown authors can sink in a sea of books quite fast. Romance is particularly prone to this.

The authors who are successful in epublishing are prolific, produce quality books of one kind so they build their sales through backlist and loyal readers, and they market constantly to sell that first book to new readers.

Of course, this is the primary survival means in paper book publishing for most authors right now.

~*~

Tomorrow, I'll suggest ways that readers and writers can fight to save the books they love.

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