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Hello all and especially Sue, who I know id looking at e-publishing, here are a few of my thoughts on the subject,
No wonder so many writers are confused about the current state of e-publishing. When I looked up e-publishing on Google almost the all the items on the first page were dated 2007, 2008, 2009. This is akin to someone in the early 1980s when the video tape format war was virtually over, reading articles written in 1976 and 1977 to find out which format video player to buy.
The e-publishing format war is by no means over. Many formats can only be read on particular e-readers, but as with the video war, it is becoming increasingly likely one of the poorer products will emerge victorious. Amazon has won a significant battle by allowing people to download free apps from Kindle store so its format can be read not only on a kindle but by iphones, ipads, android devices, pc desktops and laptops.
That Electronic self-publishing, has taken off during the past few months, with some writers achieving amazing sales success, is probably not only due to Amazon’s marketing skills or to its winning the franchise to digitalise the British National Libraries 19th century collection of books, so readers can download hundreds of books for free, but also to its policy of making it comparatively easy for authors to upload their works for free to Kindle Store.
When authors come to choose a format for their work it’s often horses for courses. The Kindle format currently uses only black and white, which is fine for most novels, but would not suit work relying on coloured photos or the use of coloured text. They will be best viewed in iPad or the new coloured Nook format For text only works its probably best to upload them up in all formats, so they can be read on all devices. For this purpose many authors go to sites such as Smashwords which publish in multiple ebook formats in exchange for a percentage of sales.
If an author is thinking of turning a backlist into e-books and had an agent when the books in the backlist were published then that agent will also takes a cut from the back list e-sales. It may be possible to persuade the agent to do the donkey work. Agents can sign up as e-publishers with Smashwords
http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwordsHowever there are advantages to authors in uploading directly to e-booksellers if they have never had agents. They can set their own prices and revise their work if they wish, (Incidentally authors can’t use their print ISBNs for ebooks even if they don’t revise the text. However, there is little point obtaining ISBNs for ebooks; potential readers will search on content tags, author or title.
Other e-book sellers besides that allow authors to self publish directly into their store.
In 2010 Barnes & Noble, allowed authors to upload ebooks in its format for the Nook. Pub-it . http://bluecrystalwebdesign.com/blog/2010/10/publish-your-own-e-books-with-pub-it-by-barnes-and-noble/
This March it challenged the Kindle by releasing a colour version of the Nook http://www.technobuffalo.com/reviews/barnes-noble-nook-color-review-a-tablet-for-the-everyperson/
The iPad also allows self publishing to apple store although the author has to own a Mac and there are other restrictions, Also authors are grumbling that they are not making sales from apple store. However, visually sensitive authors would be far happier seeing their work in iPad format than Kindle,
Some self-publishing authors without agents or current publishers may not wish to do the conversion work themselves so they will be pleased that some POD services offer electronic publishing across a variety of platforms. Many charge a huge fee, however, and don’t allow authors to set prices. Also there are often some nasty surprises hidden their terms, e.g no means of unpublishing .
Of course the author may not want the stigma of being self-published. Unfortunately although there are a few good e-publishers they don’t carry the prestige of ink print publishers mainly because they get the backlash caused by the many very bad e-publishers about, There are lists of e-publishers on the web. Before using one it might be sensible to Google for comments on them.
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