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Wanna publish an e-book? Here’s a list of outlets–good and bad
December 31, 2005 | 6:29 am
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By David Rothman
Piers Anthony, one of the grand old men of sci-fi and fantasy, maintains a long list of publishers of e- and p-books–and identifies the winners and sinners from a writer’s perspective. He focuses on small presses, a useful approach, given the waning interest of big mainstream publishers in the works of nonVIPs.
Among the winners: Double Dragon (“small company composed of three people dedicated to bringing quality books to the Internet”) and Lulu (which has pleased many a self-publisher with its publishing services). Among the sinners: Yes, eBookAd (not a publisher in the usual sense, but a distributor, infrastructure provider and bookseller with an impressive Web site and attractive business model for writers and publishers). Oh, how I hope that Dustin Revin can finally get his act together and be more reponsive to the many complaints of slow payment. Right now PA’s advice is to steer clear of eBookAd (“sems to be a fraudulent outfit that uses income from sales to pay off a few squeaky wheels while ignoring the majority”). Agree or disagree with that assessment? Please go to the section of the TeleBlog reserved for the eBookAd payments issue.
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Comments:
I think you’re mistaking lack of marketing of and lack of initiative in e-books and combining it with the longstanding blockbuster attitude publishers have towards authors/books. And while the latter is unmistakable, I don’t think it affects big mainstream publishers’ treatment of midlist authors getting their titles prepared as e-books.
Random House, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins have all been preparing electronic editions of their frontlist titles for years now, not just a handful of bestsellers. While they want to focus on the titles most likely to sell, they also fear the bestselling titles’ release into the electronic wilds. So I’d say they feel lots more comfortable with e-book versions of a Piers Anthony-level author than they do with John Grisham books.
Hi, Roger. PA’s list is of publishers of both paper and electronic books (they can do one or the other or both, and I’m counting POD in the “paper” category). He seems to be talking about ways to get published, period. By that criterion, e-publishers and other small houses are easier to break into than the big guys. But as for “e-prints” of existing books done by large houses? I agree with you. Since the costs are lower and since there’s less fear of piracy of midlist titles, the big publishers have a more democratic approach. I hope this clarifies things. HpyNYr. David
Hi David, I think companies like Amazon and BookSearch now also enable just about anyone to have a ebook published. They can even do the proofreading for you.
Thanks for the update, Mark. That was a 2005 post, and much has changed. David