Dog Bites Man; Pope Condemns Violence; Publishing Still Doesn’t Get It

I attended a video games conference here in Australia last week. There was an interesting session about the pro's and con's of using a publisher in the mobile space.

I learnt that they don't pay large advances, you have to develop your game first, nor will they put a marketing spend in writing, they want to see how the game will do first.

As far as I can tell, the only reason you would work with them is that they have the phone number of the guy in charge of the app store and can call him and beg for your app to be featured.

This piece reminded me of it because I think these print guys need to have a look at what a traditional publisher is actually going to do for them. How much marketing money are they going to spend? How are they going to get your book in front of people? How much risk are they willing to take for their share of the success.

You have to look at what you actual want a publisher to do for you, and make sure they deliver. You can't just go to them because "that's how its always been".

I have another observation. Some more notes about what an author might learn from and indie game developer.

Seems pretty clear to me is that free games won the war in the App Store. Most of top grossing games in the app store right now are free with in some kind of in app purchases.

I think it's safe to say that free is where the eBook store will be going as well. You might as well be the first and take advantage of it.

Mr Evans tells us that people want subscriptions. I would argue people want free.

So how to you give a book a way for free and still make a living. Some ideas..

1. Make it really easy to buy small short stories in the same world or extra little bits and pieces. $1 or $2 bucks for a few extra chapters?

2. Give your true fans, your whales, something to spend a lot of money on. Don't be shy about asking for $500 for a signed hardcover you bound and print yourself 3 months for the eBook version is available.

3. Sell add space in you books. If you have eye balls, somebody will pay for them.