E-Book or Paperback Writing and Publishing? The Key Question Facing the Author and Small Publisher

E-book or Paperback?

Whether to write an e-book or to write a paperback is now the perennial question facing authors and small publishing companies both new and old alike. It certainly appears that the e-book is winning, if you take the latest Amazon statistics as representing the norm. If you also consider the number of corner bookstores closing in our neighbourhoods, you would certainly lean towards the e-book.

However, I would like to suggest that we authors and small publishing companies prepare for both of these options. Small commissions in whole dollar terms for the e-books verse greater dollar incomes via the paperbacks and possibly even more profits per copy via the hardcovers, encourages us to prepare for both – e-books and hardcopies!

The Internet has the Answer

The internet is now the greatest asset we have to help make us a reasonable, good or even a very good income if our product is suitable to the market. Both e-books and hardcopies of these books can be sold across this medium. Initially you will probably need assistance from a company which can do both for you. There is an enormous cost and risk-factor trying to write, publish, market and distribute any book on your own. Major corner bookstores have their own suppliers and this is a difficult field to break into.

However, if you set up a very good website and create a very good SEO (search engine optimization) rating through the major search engines, then you should be able to sell your e-books and hardcopies through this medium. This is difficult to achieve and very time-consuming – but possible over time can be a reality.

The corner bookstore will also be of assistance to our goals, if we are able to convince them to stock and market our paperbacks and hardcovers. Not an easy task in such a competitive marketplace.

Amazon.com and CreateSpace an Answer

From my experience the best method is selling both e-books and paperbacks through some company like Amazon.com who have their own company which creates your publication in paperback and e-book formats. These obviously come at a cost, but in my opinion, at a reasonable cost for what you gain both as an author and / or publisher.

E-books will probably sell more copies with smaller dollar commissions per copy but with the strong possibility that the quantity of copies sold will be much higher than for paperbacks or hardcovers due to their lower cost per item. Hence, the overall income will be considerably greater.

I would suggest from personal experience to have both this e-book option melded with the paperback option. There are many people who prefer to have the real paper-book experience. Someone like Amazon.com and their company CreateSpace.com can open up this option for you. Selling both e-books and paperbacks from your own website will add another marketing and sales option.

Create Both Media for Success

Combining both the contemporary e-book version with the traditional paperback version of your books will open up many marketing and distribution options for greater sales and promotion of these books. Using a company, which does all the key aspects for your books i.e. creates both the hardcopy and e-book versions, markets and sells your books over the internet, always with your complete control, is something for which all authors and small publishers should aspire.

The author has found from his experience that both Amazon.com and his own website are two very good avenues to use to market and sell his e-books and paperbacks. The latest editions written by Bryan Foster were put into their present format by Createspace and are sold on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ABryan+Foster&keywords=Bryan+Foster&ie=UTF8&qid=1322387322&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B005DOPRMO The previous editions are sold on his own website at http://schoolchurchmarketing.com/online_shop

Author: Bryan W Foster
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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