I've been wondering something. Why do authors need to go through a
publication company like Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, etc. to market
their works? If the author is expected to do all, or almost all, the
publicity and marketing of his/her work, why can't we cut out the
publication companies and sell the work(s) from our own web sites?
I'm sure a digital book can be translated into any format such
as Kindle or Nook, or as a pdf file, from a home computer. All that
would be needed then is to set up a pay-pal account for interested
readers to pay for the book(s) they want. That way the author sets the
price and all proceeds are royalties.
As an option, I can see
several writers/authors coming together and setting up their own
publication company or distribution company using a similar pay-pal type
account.
I have a son and daughter-in-law who are setting up
an on-line referral agency for teachers and students to find each other
and get together either on-line or in person. It's called My Dream
Teacher (check it out at http:\\MyDreamTeacher.com), right now it's a
free service). I'm thinking of having him set up something similar to
market my novels and give him a percentage of the proceeds (assuming my
novels ever sell, LOL).
That's a good point, Paul. I do know some people do this, but it seems (at least to me) more common with non-fiction for some reason. For instance, a tax company selling an ebook about taxes on their site (bad example...)
ReplyDeleteOne benefit of Amazon, however, is that the ebook sees to reach more people. I stopped actively marketing my ebook a while back, but it still sells copies now and then.
I guess the same might be true if it were only sold on my website...
Thanks Tony.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really thinking of doing this, just brainstorming. I seriously don't want to self-pub.
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteRecently I deleted one of my web browers (which held many of my favorites including the writing site Gary set up after latterday authors went belly up). If you read this could you reply with the link or url or simply send it to my email candt.moore at gmail dot com thanks, Charlie
Paul, there are a lot of self-published authors who do sell their books from their website, but also sell at Amazon and others.
ReplyDeleteI realize that, but I guess I'm of the old school that says: "If a book isn't good enough for a publisher, then it's probably not good enough."
ReplyDelete