Awhile back, I'd mentioned in a post about the concept of publishing your book for free. The editor-in-chief of Wired, Chris Anderson, posited free books made the most business sense.
Hmm. I respectfully disagreed then, and now, even moreso. Apparently, Anderson's book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, appeared on the Scribd site. Sure, it logged more than 17,000 views in one day.
But apparently, "free" comes with a catch. Readers can *only* view it online. No downloading. Not surprisingly, readers have not been amused. As a business model, the strategy failed.
As a writer, I depend on the income from selling my stories. It's not so much about profit as survival.
Making your work available for free can be a great marketing tool, even if it's an unknown quantity. My free read with The Wild Rose Press, Cinderella Dreams (are tough to shake) has garnered some nice praise, though I have no idea how many people actually read it.
I've also linked all the flash and short stories published with web zines to my web site; though these tend to receive zero feedback, unfortunately. Still, they're out there, please read them and if you enjoy them, I'd love to hear from you.
They're free. Enjoy.
Showing posts with label Scribd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scribd. Show all posts
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
The latest do-it-yourself
The New York Times yesterday had an interesting article about self-publishing with yet another twist: authors upload their works in PDF format to the Scribd Web site.
Scribd is a document-sharing site on the order of YouTube. Authors would keep 80 percent of the profits, based on a sale price set by the author.
The PDFs would be compatible with mobile readers, soon to include iPhones.
Amazon’s already doing this with CreateSpace.
As a reader, I’d be leery of any published story that bypassed the vetting process. No editor reads the work before it’s published – the author simply posts it. Worse, no editor works with the author to improve the work. A critical step, and one that could mean the difference between a blah story and a really good one.
Then, there’s the whole piracy issue. Few epresses have little recourse against piracy other than warning a site to stop distributing work. Authors lose a great deal of money by illegal sharing. If Scribd doesn't have a means to protect the PDFs, then you might as well post it on your blog for free, and make money through advertising.
Yes, many famous authors started out self-publishing. If I wanted to self-publish, I’d go with Publish America and see it in print. But frankly, I’d rather not brand my work with their name. While the author needs to make a profit to sustain their efforts, these publishers are in it simply for the money – not to publish great stories.
I’d be interested to hear what others think.
Scribd is a document-sharing site on the order of YouTube. Authors would keep 80 percent of the profits, based on a sale price set by the author.
The PDFs would be compatible with mobile readers, soon to include iPhones.
Amazon’s already doing this with CreateSpace.
As a reader, I’d be leery of any published story that bypassed the vetting process. No editor reads the work before it’s published – the author simply posts it. Worse, no editor works with the author to improve the work. A critical step, and one that could mean the difference between a blah story and a really good one.
Then, there’s the whole piracy issue. Few epresses have little recourse against piracy other than warning a site to stop distributing work. Authors lose a great deal of money by illegal sharing. If Scribd doesn't have a means to protect the PDFs, then you might as well post it on your blog for free, and make money through advertising.
Yes, many famous authors started out self-publishing. If I wanted to self-publish, I’d go with Publish America and see it in print. But frankly, I’d rather not brand my work with their name. While the author needs to make a profit to sustain their efforts, these publishers are in it simply for the money – not to publish great stories.
I’d be interested to hear what others think.
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