Over at the eBooks Just Published Blog, Mark Gladding posted some advice to authors, which he gave in response to an author’s query. Here is part of it:
If you’re a published author you have nothing to lose in giving away at least one of your novels in ebook format. The positive PR and word of mouth is likely to far outweigh any lost print sales. This especially holds true if you’ve written a series. Give the first away as a free ebook, hook the reader and they’ll buy the rest of the series in print.
Cory Doctorow takes this to the extreme by simultaneously giving away the ebook version of all new books he writes. If the reader enjoys his novel he encourages them to buy a print copy and give it to a local school, library or friend.
If you want to charge for your ebook (i.e. this is the only format you’re going to publish in) then you have to set a realistic price. Readers expect to pay significantly less for an ebook as they rightly reason that there are no printing or distribution costs. In my mind, under $5 seems right for a novel and under $25 for non-fiction.
As ebook sales account for an ever increasing proportion of the market, more and more authors will need to charge for their ebooks.
Whether you publish in print, ebook or both formats, you have a great opportunity to give away a free sample online. Forget the two page except. There is no reason why you shouldn’t give away a 1/3 or even 1/2 your novel.
Downloadable software publishers have been doing the equivalent of this for years by offering a free 30-day trial. Users can try before they buy.
Don’t use DRM to try and stop your ebook being copied. No matter what people tell you, DRM doesn’t work. Pirates will crack it immediately and all you’ll end up doing is pissing off your honest readers.
Don’t pay a big percentage to an online publisher to publish your ebook online. Making your ebook available online and collecting payments is not hard at all. If you don’t feel comfortable setting up your own website or paying someone to do this for you, use a publisher like Smashwords. They will publish your ebook in a multitude of DRM-free formats and only take a 15% cut.
