Ask HN: What is the most profitable way to self-publish e-books? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the most profitable way to self-publish e-books?

68 pointskmfrk45 comments

With services like Lulu taking a cut of almost 50% for what is basically a hosted shop with decent SEO that sends e-books upon purchase, there must be services where I can upload a .pdf, .epub and similar documents for a (much) better price.

Additionally, it would be preferable with a means of applying an ID and/or purchaser's name to one of the book's first or last pages to discourage people from throwing up the e-book on a sharing service - while maintaining the incentive to share with people whom you trust.

I recall 37signals hosting one of their e-books themselves and selling it on Lulu, so maybe there is something to be learnt for setting up the service yourself.

With such a burgeoning self-publishing revolution, there must be someone who offers this service.

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eBooks are my area.

1) Piracy is going to happen no matter what, so stop losing sleep over it. Count on the fact people will pay for books and concentrate on selling them.

2) Every eBook DRM has been cracked. But most who do that do so in order to be able to format shift. Get an eBook at $9.99 from Kindle Store vs $$ more from Sony or Kobo, then strip DRM and use Calibre to reformat to ePub for a Sony Reader or Nook.

3) As others have already pointed out, there's B&N's nascent PubIt! service. What that has going against it is that B&N uses a mutant form of the DRM that was common for ePub until B&N stuck its nose in. B&N books are stuck on Nooks for the average person (similar to Kindle) who doesn't want to learn how to DRM strip. You limit your market.

4) Kindle is THE monster. It's where the majority of eBook sales take place. If you know HTML, you can create your own eBook. If you need help, get Tallent's book: http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/self-publishing-read/

5) I'd stay away from Smashwords & Scribd. The first has a format meatgrinder that will drive you insane for trying to make things look good. The second has had that whole Archiving "error" marring its rep.

6) Make sure you have an ISBN so you control your metadata.

Any other questions?

6) Make sure you have an ISBN so you control your metadata.

Could you go into more detail? I understand what an ISBN is, but why is it important for self publishing ebooks?

Answering several questions in one reply:

There are no shelves people can browse to stumble on your eBook, so owning your metadata for discovery and SEO is vital. Don't let someone assign one. They then own the metadata and can bork you, intentionally or accidentally.

I think outside the US, ISBNs are free or low cost. Here, RR Bowker has a monopoly and prices them unreasonably high (to be fair to them, they are used to dealing with businesses, not writers). http://www.bowker.com/index.php/supportfaq-isbn

No one will want to read your book, so don't push it on them with emails asking them to review it. Everyone already has a huge backlog.

I don't know what your subject matter is, so what Tucker Max just wrote about might not apply, but some might: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/28/tucker-max/

Don't join social reading sites and befriend people only to pimp your book. People hate that.

There are really only two formats for eBooks: Kindle format and ePub. Both are based on HTML, more or less. PDFs are another matter and are suited best for desktop, notebook, and possibly tablet (iPad) reading, but aren't considered eBooks per se. For PDFs, it's also good to customize them for eInk devices so people don't have to do reflow. See Sony's guide here, but there are now eInk devices with 5" screens, so keep that in mind too.

Direct PDF link: http://www.sonystyle.com/wcsstore/SonyStyleStorefrontAssetSt...

Check out also Self Pub Review and Publetariat.

http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/ http://www.publetariat.com/

Stay away from all the "services" that charge. I think HN readers have the skills to do all that themselves -- and better.

This all I can think of at the moment. I'm battling a cold and am groggy. Hope it helps.

"PDFs are another matter and are suited best for desktop, notebook, and possibly tablet (iPad) reading, but aren't considered eBooks per se."

If you publish poetry, you wouldn't want the text to reflow. You want it to stay exactly where it is. Just give it a 3:4 format (1:1,35) at eg. A4 paper size or larger, have it on screen in eg. an iPad size, and you will have a book that looks spectacular - and in 5 years too. And you can even have a cover on your book...

Oh, poetry is a whole other issue with controversies of its own due to reflow. I'm not going there. Not my area.

I'm a total novice but I've been meaning to publish an ebook. How do we get a ISBN? Moreover, what are good websites to market your ebook? Any other good advice on selling ebooks? Apprecaite your help in advance.

I don't believe in DRM; I would just have liked a way to attach personal information to the person's e-book to discourage them. I neither will nor can't prevent them from spreading them, but I can try to ask them nicely and make them think twice.

I think most of my general concerns have been answered, so in the spirit of proper interview etiquette: Is there something important I haven't asked you?

Is there anything to consider with e-books that no one thinks of?

First off, why limit yourself to only publishing electronically? You'll have a much larger audience if you offer paperback.

A few other options:

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/books.aspx

http://publishing.booklocker.com/

http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=pi_reg_home

Or for amazon, email digitalrights@amazon.com or one of the several how-tos. This might be outdated: http://patdoyle.com/internetbusiness/publish-an-ebook-in-ama...

Then drum up more sales in facebook, posting info and links in forums and mailing lists, etc.

I'm only asking about e-books, because I think that Lulu offers a decent printing service - and there seem to be some decent alternatives. :)

But I'll be sure to check out your links.

In my experience, most people don't care about paperback if they can get it in PDF (granted my books have been technical in nature).

If they discover it online, they probably don't mind reading it on their computers. If he's planning on doing some marketing in traditional channels, then you're right. It just depends on who he's targeting.

We cannot neglect the masses who like the feel of a paperback, who will read it on the airplane, on the bus, or on the pot.

On the technical book side, I have continued to see a market for people who want their own hardcopy of SICP, TAOCP, Feynman's physics books, and other greats.

I read my ebooks in all those places.

Me too. How representative are we of the population?

Maybe not very. I can say that I see plenty of people with ebook readers on the bus, subway, and commuter rail. 'Course, I work in Cambridge (MA), which I'm sure skews things.

I read paperbacks a lot, too, but I'm going off of data from selling 3 fairly successful technical books. eBook sales are huge.

Having a paperback is a huge win, but it's often not worth the effort to futz with editing it (inserting page breaks properly etc.), typesetting it, finding a proper publisher, and messing with the whole process of getting the whole thing setup. Lulu makes it easier than nearly any other solution I've looked at, even if their margins are high (their margins aren't but their production costs are; authors balk at them but they're usually absorbed by publishers so while it seems that you're getting screwed, it's just that you're taking on the risk now instead of the publisher).

Learn it from the masters: http://www.johntreed.com/HTWP.html

He maks his money by self publishing Real Estate newsletters, which are information dense and there is a niche market for that kind of stuff.

He has a lot of sensible tips on self publishing.

are you sure you can even sell the book? If I were you I wouldn't care about the commission just yet...publish it on the most popular service....see if anyone actually bothers to buy it...then if you see a ton of sales start looking for better alternatives

I did an ebook earlier this year and the whole post-creative process was just horrible. I did self-publishing and trying to work around the various formats was just so not worth it. I had planned on doing several books along the same lines but, after dealing with how to make it look good on the Kindle, in PDF, on the Nook, etc, it just wasn't worth my time to write the other books.

Did you try Calibre?

I can't remember - this was March/April and, TBH, my memory is fuzzy now :(

I can help.

Fifobooks (http://fifobooks.com/) is my startup, and part of the value we add is producing ebooks that look good on various e-reading devices.

- I could just remove the first/last page.

- I could overwrite the ID/info

- I could run the PDF through OCR software to produce a new untagged PDF.

Unfortunately, ebooks and piracy go together like bread and butter. PDF is a portable document format and epub is just text. Your best bet is just to make it as pain-free to purchase as possible.

As long as it's only a hassle for the pirates, I don't consider it a problem. :)

If it works, it works. If it doesn't, no one suffered for it.

Besides, why shouldn't I be able to give away my book or re-sell it?! This bullshit about paying for a book is really just the borrowing price... just new techno babble to go with the copyright disputes.

I want to re-sell any ebook I don't want to own anymore. And I am not going to just dump it without trying to find another home for it.

How do we go about doing that - technically, I mean - never mind that "they" don't want you doing that?

I seem to remember reading something about an English service, which somehow made book swopping possible... ? Anyone?

There are almost certainly other services out there, but the advantage of Lulu is that you have a much wider audience. Sure, 50% is high, but it's better to have 50% of something than 20% of nothing.

As an alternative, you might want to consider finding a niche online retailer, i.e. one that only sells certain kinds of books. These can have a loyal customer base. But I wouldn't know if they're any cheaper.

I believe Amazon offer up to 70% through Amazon Digital Text Publishing:

https://dtp.amazon.com/

http://forums.digitaltextplatform.com/dtpforums/entry.jspa?e...

Although that is also "basically a hosted shop with decent SEO that sends e-books upon purchase", I guess ;)

I beta tested Pulley - http://pulleyapp.com/ Quite good.. They just officially launched in Oct 2010... For $6, you get 100 MB storage, Unlimited orders, Unlimited bandwidth and 25 digital products to sell. I think it's quite alright.

The most profitable way would be to write, design, market, proofread, build the website and integrate payment etc etc yourself. I've been doing some research, and it seems that the average author is content with low (compared to the profit) royalties as long as they only have to deal with writing the damn thing. There are ebook markets out there but a lot of them are having trouble gaining momentum as a go-to location for books. This is a chicken and egg problem, and as more authors offer their books as ebooks, this will get better and hopefully a number of markets will emerge.

If you're worried about piracy and high fees, why not create an online course instead of pdf e-books.

If it's an how-to book and not a work of fiction, you don't want to create a pdf e-book anyway. Here's why:

* Low perceived value. People know how to create pdf e-books. Just choose ‘Save As’ in MS Word. So it has a low perceived value. Much lower than the $13 real book you can buy from Amazon. This means you cannot charge a high price for your pdf e-book.

* They’re static. Once they’re out there, they’re out there. You cannot add stuff, correct material or fix typos.

* As you mentioned, they’re (way) too easy targets for piracy.

* Lots of people don’t want to read anymore. They want to watch videos instead. So might as well add some video.

* No analytics. Which chapter is most popular? You will never know.

* No interaction. People read a chapter in your e-book and have clarifying questions. But alas – no interaction is possible.

So that's why I think online courses are the way to go.

How to create an online course and sell it? This is what my startup does: http://traindom.com

Against your low perceived value, pit 37signals "Getting Real", which generated more profits for them (6 figures) than almost any mainstream paper tech book published the same year.

I agree that piracy is an issue, though.

There are always exceptions. 37Signals is a known brand. If you're not known, it's hard to charge a lot for a pdf.

If you generalize this logic one step more, you'll be in a happy place where you can make money from PDF e-books:

"There are always exceptions. XXX. If you're not XXX, it's hard to charge a lot for an e-book."

"There are always exceptions. I'm the world expert on home tarantula care. If you're not the world expert on home tarantula care, it's hard to charge a lot for an e-book."

"There are always exceptions. I'm a talented marketer. If you're not a talented marketer, it's hard to charge a lot for an e-book."

"There are always exceptions. I'm a former HFT project team lead writing about trading strategies. If you're not selling a book that can potentially make people thousands of dollars, it's hard to charge money for an e-book."

Here's another account of self-publishing to add to your list:

http://tynan.net/selfpublish

You want e-junkie.com

If you can get your book published and marketed by a 'top publisher', there's still money to be made the old way:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/08/23/seth-godin-a...

Throw a PDF up on Amazon S3, generate unique links for people that pay for it. Or, you could not worry about unique links, and just trust people. Like others have said, piracy will happen, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Use Shopify with Fetchapp. Perfect ;)

It does indeed sound perfect. The monthly expenses might deter some people, but it looks like the best thing you can possibly get (assuming you are already have some customers to send to the link).

The author keeps 80% of his sale on Lulu unless you are selling a seriously discounted product, or selling via Lulu into other marketplaces such as Amazon or Ebay.

Also, in our and other industry suppliers experience many books sell better when they are offered in both ebook and paper formats.

80% of net sales. There is a per-copy e-book fee(!) of $1.49, which is a lot considering e-book pricing.

Depending on your market, the freeium Drumlin Reader may be an option.

http://drumlinsecurity.co.uk/

Sister company:

http://www.pdf-publishing.com/

They have provided great customer service despite my limited use.

My startup does: http://fifobooks.com/

You could host it yourself using a straightforward e-commerce management system and a payment gateway.

I think it's not a good solution unless you are yet pretty "famous". IMO you should look to Amazon or other service with a well estabilished community you can get advantage of. Relevant read: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

I am thinking of using LeanPub, which takes 25%. You keep your rights.

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