What are the benefits of publishing an eBook? The possibility of selling an eBook at a meager price (no printing and shipping costs) favors impulse purchases and can amplify word-of-mouth tools. Furthermore, thanks to a book publishing company, it is possible to sell one’s book in other countries, reaching additional audience niches with relative simplicity.
EBooks are an exciting innovation trend, but most people have never read an eBook (and often don’t know what it is). A book publishing company strengthens the philosophy based on the author’s active role and understanding of the digital world. The possibility of ordering books from bookstores is still a valuable service for the 50% who need a credit card and don’t shop online. Beyond the pleasure – and the practical implications – of having a paper edition of your book, self-publishers have practical advantages in following a multi-channel approach.
Facts and figures of self-publishing with a book publishing company
Today self-publishing is much better known, discussed, and practiced, and a book publishing company is the most used service. After an initial shyness, publishers are looking at self-publishing with curiosity to understand some dynamics relating to readers in the digital world.
The model: how to publish
Publishing a book on the site is easy. The author directly takes care of the creation and editing of the book and can follow the advice of the guide on the site. Today, you can appoint a book publishing company where the author fixes the book’s price, and that’s it: everyone can buy it on the site, comment or review it. The advantages compared to other areas are represented by the excellent visibility of the site, frequented by hundreds of thousands of readers, and by the presence of a production plant that guarantees high-speed average production and shipping times.
Another advantage of hiring a book publishing company is given by the reporting mechanism, which is very detailed, and by the speed of payments to authors that take place the month after sales. Copyright and creative rheostat remain entirely in the hands of the author. The fees are credited monthly to the author’s current account, which receives 80% of the earnings after deducting the book’s printing price. The author can buy a few book copies for himself and his friends. You can purchase a single copy for a few dollars or a larger quantity.
What does a book publishing company need to decide to publish a book?
1. To decide to publish a book, a publishing company needs the impression of having something complete, finished, and endowed with meaning. In the case of so-called “fictional” publishing, the novel or collection of short stories or poetic work must give a sensation of “cohesion” and “fullness”: the sense of being a “work”. In plot-driven fiction, the plot must work without gaps or friction. In the manuals, the completeness of the information must be added to the ease of finding the same, the clarity of the exposition, the precise definition of the skills presumed to already be present in the reader, etc. A “thesis” or a “thesis constellation” must accompany an adequate and well-focused argumentation in non-fiction. And so on.
2. A book publishing company needs to imagine who will read it. It is a double imagination, qualitative and quantitative. Who is the ideal reader of this book? What are the categories of readers (the “targets”) who might be interested in this book? How many readers overall are curious about this book? Who is the reader that the book assumes? And, symmetrically: which readers may this book not be interested in or even defy?
3. A book publishing company needs to imagine its “dynamics”. It depends on the ability to distribute precisely the number of copies that can be sold (by the unanimous judgment of booksellers, distributors, and publishers).
4. A book publishing company must figure out how to “communicate” it. A romantic novel where one wants to get married; there is a bad guy who gets in the way; deviations follow, separation of the lovers, street riots, intrigues; then a great calamity upsets all the games; and in the end, he and she get married and have many children: all written beautifully, with a language within everyone’s reach. It is, above all, a book that is easy to communicate to others.
5. A book publishing company needs to imagine why that book could be “interesting”. The bizarre thing is that the reason for interest – what is spent in communication, the real one – rarely lies in the book’s beauty. The sense of interest requires that the work be at least discreet, with long lists of characters, enigmatic excerpts, and so on.
6. To decide to publish a book, a book publishing company needs to imagine how potential buyers understand that if that publisher published that book, just that one, there must be a reason. It is true that in recent years value – value in terms of meaning, expectations on the part of readers, etc. – of publishing brands have dramatically decreased. However, especially among strong readers, a specific value remains.
The author’s catalog:
If we analyze the books and eBooks currently on sale on Amazon, we can say that social, technical, and scientific non-fiction reaches 30% of the entire catalog. Over thousands of specialist manuscripts, manuals, and insights of all kinds are on sale on the site: from current events to history, from mathematics to politics, from sports to cooking, from economics to law to architecture.
The poetry catalog corresponds to about 15% of the total, with over a thousand titles: the development of the record also depends on the initiatives to valorize the most exciting works.
Fiction takes the lion’s share with 55% of the titles: novels and short stories of all literary genres and subgenres (science fiction, detective stories, publishing for children and teenagers, humor, travel fiction, romance novels): almost thirty thousand titles.
With a book publishing company, there is a mechanism based on crowdsourcing that allows you to identify some of the most exciting books to be sold. The tool is based on sales results, reader comments, and in-depth user reviews in the guise of fictional talent scouts. The result is an ever-evolving list of the best discoveries.
Self-publishing, publishing, and paid publishing
Self-publishing is not a stopgap solution compared to other publishing mechanisms. Compared to a paid publisher, it prevents the author from paying enormous sums “unseen” without knowing if and how the publisher will invest these resources in distributing and promoting a book. Self-publishing is also a concrete alternative to a traditional publisher, especially for those looking for faster publication times and a more direct relationship with readers. Finally, self-publishing can be a way for fledgling societies to approach the book publishing company:
· Taking care of the editing of their book.
· Receiving comments.
· Dealing with the market and with readers helps an author who wants to make him known and more easily arouse a publisher’s interest. In fiction and poetry, publishing a book culminates a creative journey. You write to communicate, first of all. From this point of view, self-publishing is a means of receiving comments and evaluations and submitting one’s work to readers’ judgment. On the other hand, professional writers find a new and more direct tool for communicating to readers and have the – not irrelevant – advantage of maintaining complete creative and financial control over their work. This is how a book publishing company discovers talents as part of the project.