The last method I can think of for publishing is rather radical. Some people have disagreed with it, but I’ll discuss that later. If my ultimate goal is to get the book into as many hands as possible, whilst still maintaining the possibility of making some revenue from it, why not give the first book away free? It sounds like a crazy idea, but bear with me on this. If I can generate a lot of interest and readership from the free version and with it publicise the following idea, it might just work. By receiving a following online, hopefully someone that reads the book will either work in or near the publishing industry. Armed with this and the knowledge that I’m looking for a publisher for the sequel, it may be an incentive for a publisher to contact me.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s a bit of a long shot, but in all seriousness it could work. The disadvantage is two fold; for one, I wouldn’t have the backing of a large publisher who could push the book forward in terms of publicity, and secondly, it would be available only in electronic format. I could put it on Lulu.com for people to buy as well I suppose, but I’m thinking that people will generally buy the printed copy once they have read the electronic copy, if they enjoyed it that much. Which leads on to an interesting twist, I could just release the first half of the book free, and make the whole document available for a small fee.
I guess, being an open source enthusiast, I have clung on to the notion of giving things away for free, however in the literary world it’s just not the same as in the software world. The reasons for making a piece of code open are not just so that it’s free, people have been doing that with proprietary freeware and other types of license for many many years. With a book, there is nothing to hold back. The book doesn’t have source code to make it useful. It does have intellectual property however, and often an entire fictional universe behind it. It’s this intangible universe which authors are often trying to protect and with good reason too.
Overall, I’m largely reserving my decision until I hear back from the review panel. It’s exceedingly difficult to know whether what you have accomplished is worth publishing. I thank Lisa greatly for all the feedback she has provided me, it led to a few changes, and some minor embarrassment at my “lack of” vocabulary in 2003. I want the book to be a success, I want it to be an adventure for all who read it. The review panel will hopefully be able to guide me into a decision, be it good or bad.
Mudfly Jones said,
October 1, 2009 at 12:55 am
Hey man, so I am following your blog now like I said I would =)
This is an interesting topic, and something I think about often myself with music that I write and record. One interesting thing with the internet, is there is infinite possibilities of what works and what doesn’t. Most of which have not yet been explored. Why not think of a new idea to test the waters with, like give away the first chapter, and sell each subsequent chapter over a period of time for a small fee. $0.99 a chapter or something. Or perhaps you can push it through many channels at once, ebook, kindle, print on demand, trial pay, etc. Perhaps you could do an audio book version as a teaser, over a podcast, or something. Maybe setup a scavenger hunt for each chapter.
Whatever you do, I wish you success!
mudfly said,
October 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Oh yeah man, we have used this at the company I work for, to sell books on demand for some of our products.
https://www.createspace.com/