RE: "The Elusive E-book"

Yes, we are caught between the old school and the new school. 
 
Old school sees publishing success as sitting on Oprah holding up their book. 
 
New school success would have to be defined differently.
 
Would things change is we had a run away "best seller" e-book somewhere? Yes, it would. 
 
A book that captured so many people's attention that it sold 5,000 + copies the first two weeks. Not given away, but 5,000 people paid for it.
 
That would be a huge paradigm shift.
 
What happens when e-authors are treated the same as p-authors because that many people have read the book? What happens when a best selling e-author is on Oprah or whoever?
 
Another paradigm shift.
 
What happens when people start discovering the hundreds of other e-book exclusive titles available because they read the mega-seller?
 
Another paradigm shift.
 
*Can* something like this happen? Yes. But will it happen? Only when we, as e-authors and e-publishers figure out how to make that happen.
 
Aaron J. WalkerPublisher
http://www.walkbroadpublishing.com


To: ebook-community-hHKSG33Tihig7M29m/[email protected]: [email protected]: Thu, 8 May 2008 12:08:48 -0400Subject: RE: [ebook-community] "The Elusive E-book"




As things currently stand, I would bet most of your e-only authors wouldjump at a paper-publisher contract and, if required, abandon the ebookmarket. The cachet of public recognition is the driving factor for a newauthor. Any recognition. And currently the attitude is that if they have tothey will _settle_ for ebook publication until they can get a papercontract.Ebook sales will grow when the attitude of the big boys is that an ebookversion of their book is a natural adjunct to their paper books. Now theyfear it as competition to the paper version. Trying to negotiate for ebookrights with a large publisher is incredibly complicated. Simple things like in what countries a ebook can be distributed. With paperbooks you just don't ship them to that country. Then the black market takesover and 
 delivers them anyway, but the publisher is not to blame. Preventingebooks from being downloaded by the wrong country can be an exercise infutility, but it's being required by the big publishers. And there is nogood way to prove the negative of "it didn't come from my site".Trying to force some of the requirements of paper book distribution ontoebooks is causing a lot of the friction. However if you give it away free,it's a promotional copy and a lot of the problems disappear. Meanwhile wetry to educate the big publishers.
   






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