I have been crazy excited about the fact that we get to give away as many copies of Cry Sanctuary as people can download over the next two weeks.  My husband is tired of listening to me cheer about it, that’s for sure.  I have talked before about how I believe so, so hard in the power of free, and that it can come back to you.  That giving a book away can be the best advertising there is in the long run.

And yet, there are so many people who disagree with this, or don’t get it.  One thing I hear over and over again as I talk about this with people is the same question: Why are you giving your book away for free???

Maybe it’s counter-intuitive to some.  To me it’s the most intuitive thing in the world.  Cry Sanctuary is the first book in a series.  Maybe there are a lot of people out there who might not have otherwise taken a chance on it, and some fraction of them will download it, read it, and enjoy it enough to buy the next one. (Or two.  Or three.)  Maybe some of those people will want to try our other books.

I don’t have numbers.  I won’t have numbers until September, most likely.  What I do have is NovelRank.  (If you’re an author unfamiliar with this site, I apologize in advance. Or you’re welcome.  You know, depending on which side of OCD you fall on.*)

For me, I was fascinated with the potential of NovelRank, because it saves the ranking of your kindle book every hour and makes a pretty graph.  “Aha!” I exclaimed back in April.  “Now I will have pretty pictures when the time comes for Cry Sanctuary to be free!  I will be able to show the world that I am not crazy!”

Obviously 3 books is not exactly a stunning statistical blow, but I think it would be hard to claim this as coincidence.  So for your entertainment, I present a graph of Amazon sales ranks on books #2-#4 of the Red Rock Pass series.  (NovelRank freaks out and dies when a book switches over to the freebie bestseller list, so there is no graph for book #1.)

When looking at these, remember that low ranks = good ranks.

Original Release Date: June, 2009

Original Release Date: October 2009

Original Release Date: June 2010

Magical proof? Maybe not. Pretty visually impressive?  Well, I certainly think so.  Plus, Cry Sanctuary came out in October of 2008.  Even Sanctuary Lost is over a year old.  In ebook terms, by the old standards, that would be over the hill.  (Sanctuary Lost actually sold as many copies on kindle in March as it did during its release month, but that’s a different blog post.)  Obviously the freebie revitalized the rankings on two older titles, and kept Sanctuary Unbound‘s release month stretch chugging on a little while longer.

Free is not the enemy.  Some people who get your free book will hate it.  Some will never buy anything else you write, ever.  Some will never read it.  Some will read it and think, “meh.”  You may have lost a few potential sales with some of them.  But really, in the long run, I truly believe you’re likely to have gained so much more.

I’ve still got another week of Cry Sanctuary being free.  Maybe we’ve bottomed out in the rankings.  Maybe more people will buy the other books next week.  At the end of June I’ll post the graphs for the month and see what it looks like on the whole.  Either way it’s interesting.  And cool.

I love this brave new world of ebooks.  And I love giving stuff away for free.

Yay free!

So, tell me.  Has free ever worked for you?  Have you ever gotten a free book and gone on to purchase more from that author?  (Or, alternately, you can tell me if you got a free book and never tried that author again, but I’d prefer you leave out the specifics of who.  This is not the forum for a negativity fiesta.)

*NovelRank provides kindle sales estimates with their tracking, but I can tell you right now, both from personal experience and from my real time amazon numbers I get from self-publishing some titles, that these sales estimates are only accurate when you sell fewer than a few copies a day, and are often VERY wrong on books ranked consistently under 1,000.  I am not responsible for any sales estimate induced panic! (The site disclaims this quite clearly as well, but sometimes people don’t read disclaimers.  Of course, you’re not one of those, are you? I didn’t think so.)

I’ve dabbled a bit in self-publishing, and I’m dabbling more right now as we finish up our first Red story and start considering how we want to handle it.  People familiar with JA Konrath’s blog know that there is money to be had.  What makes me sad, though, are the people who seem to miss the most important thing he did in the years leading up to his phenomenal ebook success: work. Really. damn. hard.

My theory (and it is only a theory) is that the people who find the most success in self-publishing will be the ones who don’t have to do it. The ones who have options but chose to go the self-publishing route for their own reasons.  Self-publishing isn’t a band-aid that fixes a book no one wants to buy.  It’s a viable option for a business savvy author who has a strong product and wants the control to package and market it in ways regular publishers can’t or won’t.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that New York is struggling to catch up and adapt to the digital market.  Considering the chaos running rampant across digital retailers right now, that seems like a given. This post is not about the benefits and pitfalls of self-publishing vs New York print publishing, though.  This is about digital publishing, and whether you should do it yourself or team up with an epublisher, and I think the choice is a whole lot stickier when you take out the question of whether or not your publisher can effectively navigate the digital market. (Which presumably your epublisher can.  This goes back to research, though!)

Some Numbers

Epublishing is not all roses and rainbows.  There are good publishers and bad publishers, and even at the good ones you might sell a book that just doesn’t hit.  Or one that sells fast for a few months and then drops into obscurity for no reason you can tell.

A few days ago I posted this chart talking about how wildly our kindle sales had taken off.  As a reminder, these are month-by-month sales on one kindle title–I have quite a few other ones that showed the same Dec/Jan jump.

Of course, that’s the rainbows and roses chart.  To be fair, epublishing is not a sure thing.  Even someone who has pretty decent numbers on one book can have another book that looks more like this:

So what about self-publishing?  Well, we have 3 $.99 titles available at Amazon, and I made a graph showing just how well all three of them have done since the beginning.  (Also, an interesting side note: all of these stories are available for free in our website, but we’ve repackaged and bundled some of them for the kindle.)

(I have no idea why they’re converging on 200. Weird.)

Those certainly seem to be doing better than the worst of our epublished books, but not as well as the best.  Of course, these are also selling at a fraction of the price and, to be perfectly honest, since publishers get a better deal with Amazon than I do, I’m only making 5-10% more per sale on my self-published titles than I am on my epublished titles. It all comes down to a numbers game.

What numbers?  Well, I can tell you that every self-published book we’ve sold added together made us just a little more than we made on that one epublished title in January.  If you’re working with an epublisher who knows how to competitively price books, who knows how to attractively package them, and who has consumer trust (and this is a big one if you aren’t a name brand yourself) you’re probably going to end up ahead of the game getting a boost from a good epublisher.

How do you find a good epublisher?  First go read every word written here. Then follow all the links and read every word written there.  Don’t tell me it’s too many words, this is your career we’re talking about!

(I’m not kidding. Every. Word.  Research, y’all!  It is so important.  If you don’t know the difference between 3rd party and direct sales, or which pubs are known for which genres, you need to go find out!  I’ll wait here.)

Blah blah, so this is all rah rah epublishing yay?

No.  There may be times when self-publishing is the best option.  We’re doing it because we want to experiment with formats and giving them away for free, and most publishers aren’t 100% happy with you when you post your entire book online for free.  But the brutal truth is that unless you have a massive backlist and a lot of fans, chances are you won’t be paying the bills on self-publishing any time soon.

Which isn’t to say don’t do it.  And now we’ve circled back around to priorities.  Do what makes you happy, but know what you’re in for.  And with self-publishing, it’s a lot of work for maybe not a lot of reward.  But if it’s worth it to you?  That’s all that matters.

(As for us? We use the money we get from our kindle self-pubbed titles to pay for more contests. )

The last time I talked about 3rd Party Royalty Rates I concentrated on why they’re important.  The post ended up spawning a lot of interesting discussion, and a lot of different points of view.  My personal opinion is that 3rd party sites are vital as ebooks become more mainstream. A niche market can expect readers to be willing to go from publisher to publisher, memorizing a dozen different logins on websites that, let’s face it, aren’t always very user friendly.

The huge spike in ereader sales means more and more people are viewing ebooks as no different than their paperback counterparts–that’s good for volume of sales, but it can change consumer expectations.  A paperback reader probably expects the ability to buy books from various publishers in one location.  They may be uninterested in purchasing ebooks a different way, which makes visibility on popular ebook distributors vital.

I want to be on as many 3rd party sites as possible, but I also want to get a good royalty rate.  That’s one of the reasons I spend a lot of time running numbers.  I may not always be able to make the best choice, but I’d like to make an educated one, regardless.

First, the Disclaimers!

There is no insider knowledge here.  I am not a publisher, or employed by one.  I can’t give anyone any awesome secrets here, but I can provide information I’ve spent a lot of time gathering up from various places on the internet and wrestling to put into a meaningful format.

I say it a few times throughout the post, but I’ll say it again up front: all of my math is based purely on numbers available to the public on vendor websites.  Publishers negotiate their own contracts, and I’m never going to know for sure what’s in them.  However, since many of these are listed as standard contracts, I think it’s safe enough to use that as a helpful starting point.  We can hope that most publisher negotiations have only made the terms better, not worse!

I do not claim to be an expert.  Just obsessed.  If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have spent this many hours doing math and making charts!  (Also, I welcome being corrected and will update my post if mistakes are found.  I want this to be good information more than I, personally, want to be right.  So if something looks fishy, please let me know!)

Net vs Gross

There are two basic ways ebook authors tend to be paid.  Gross or net, which usually means a percentage of the cover price or a percentage of how much the publisher receives for the sale.  A lot of this depends on how your contract is worded–which is why it is so, so important to make sure you understand it.  For the purpose of my examples, I’m going to assume that “net” means the money the publisher receives from the vendor, without any other publisher-side fees or additional administrative fees taken out.

For obvious reasons, this is all much easier if your publisher pays you based on your cover price, regardless of where your book sells.  However, while a cover price is easier to understand, there’s no way to be sure that it’s really a better deal unless you know what you’re likely to earn on the net.

Figuring Out Your Cut of the “Net”

While it’s generally not possible to know the exact contract a publisher has with a vendor, there are some who list standard terms on their websites, if you’re willing to hunt a little.  For example, All Romance Ebooks says, Best of all, publishers will earn 60% of the retail price on each and every eBook sale. Fictionwise lists a standard contract on their website as well, with the following terms: Publisher royalty is fifty percent (50%) of the Sale Price or twenty-five percent (25%) of the List Price, whichever is greater. (This is a complicated one and will get its own section, because Fictionwise makes authors cry.)

It is my understanding that Amazon has a standard 50% cut as well, but just to give a nice round picture, I figured out some percentages below.  These are a lot of numbers in a short space, so to understand what’s going on, let me give you a little breakdown:

Your Rate: The first line is the 3rd party royalty rate.  If your contract says you get 30% of net receipts on 3rd party sales, then the column you want to look at is the 30% column.  If you split the net receipts 50/50 with your publisher, look at the 50% column.  I broke it down into 30-50% to hopefully cover a broad range.

The Publisher Rate: The first column is the rate your publisher gets.  If they get 60% (like at All Romance Ebooks) look at the bottom row.  50% (Amazon & Fictionwise, to my best knowledge) look at the middle row.

The Percentages In the Chart: These are the percentage of your cover price that you’re actually getting. If your book sells at All Romance Ebooks and your publisher gets 60% of the cover price and you get 50% of what your publisher gets, you get 30% of the cover price.

Displayed as an image for clarity, though a text-only version is available here.

In a perfect world, that would mean you could usually expect a royalty rate between 15-30% of the cover price of any of your books.  How nice it would be if we lived in this perfect world!  Unfortunately, there’s one thing that brings joy to readers everywhere and fear to the heart of epublished authors: Fictionwise Sales.

The Funny Math of Fictionwise

Fictionwise has a lot of sales.  When books first hit the site they’re usually 15-20% off for a week or two.  If it rains, or is sunny out, or the day ends in Y, or for pretty much any other reason that strikes their fancy, Fictionwise will have a sale to celebrate.  This is awesome for readers (and I’m not even going to pretend I don’t take advantage of the sales–I’m not rich, and a fictionwise sale is a great time to try out new authors!)  It can be awesome for authors, as well, because as I just stated–you may get a few purchases from people willing to take a risk on a 30% or 40% off book.

However, if you’re paid on the net on 3rd party sales, this is when life starts to get a little uncomfortable.  Remember the basic terms I listed before?  Publisher royalty is fifty percent (50%) of the Sale Price or twenty-five percent (25%) of the List Price, whichever is greater. If you’re very lucky, you might write for a publisher large enough to have wrangled a more friendly deal out of Fictionwise.  If not, this is when being paid on the cover price becomes vital.

Again, since this is a complicated chart, here is the breakdown:

Your Rate: The first line is the 3rd party royalty rate.  If your contract says you get 30% of net receipts on 3rd party sales, then the column you want to look at is the 30% column.  If you split the net receipts 50/50 with your publisher, look at the 50% column.  I broke it down into 30-50% to hopefully cover a broad range.

The Sale Rate: The first column is the discount being offered. No Sale means a Fictionwise sale at full price.  50% off means the book is discounted 50% when it’s sold.

The Percentages In the Chart: These are the percentage of your cover price that you’re actually getting.  If your book sells for 50% off at Fictionwise and you get 50% of what your publisher gets, which is 50% of 50% of the cover price, you get 12.5%.  (Wow, that was a lot of 50%s.  This is why charts are good.)

Displayed as an image for clarity, though a text-only version is available here.

As you can see, even a generous 50/50 split of the money received from Fictionwise can look pretty lean when they’re having a sale.  50% of 50% of 50% of your cover price is 12.5%, which is not an incredibly robust rate for an epublished book.  A less friendly royalty rate of 35% of the net yields you only 8.75% when a book is half off at Fictionwise.  Compared to a publisher that offers you 30% on the cover price (I have one epublisher that does) it becomes clear how quickly money dwindles.  That’s less than 1/3 as much!

(I’m not doing any money breakdown examples here because I did plenty of them in my original post on 3rd party royalties.  If you’d like to see how big the difference is between 30% cover and 35% net, I did some example math there.)

What Does It All Mean?

Nothing, without context.  Sadly, context is the hardest part of all.  I could give you anecdotal data for where the bulk of my sales occur, but it’s nothing but my personal experience, and to be honest it varies wildly from publisher to publisher.  Our shorter, hotter books sell pretty well on All Romance Ebooks, but very few people buy our Samhain titles there.  Our Samhain books, on the other hand, are starting to move pretty well on Amazon, but our Loose Id ebooks are still flagging.  What does that mean?  Nothing, because I have enough friends who share numbers to know they have the opposite experiences.

I do know that I’m no longer incredibly comfortable with signing epublishing contracts where I’m paid on the net.  It’s harder to keep track of, harder to understand and harder to enjoy any sort of transparency.  However, under some circumstances I’ll consider it, if the rate is 50% of the net receipts.  I’m comfortable with that because I did the math and know roughly where the bottom line is.

With the digital marketplace exploding, it’s safe to assume that all epublished authors need to consider their 3rd party royalty rates very closely in the future, because they could be making a lot of sales through those venues.  Everyone has to decide where their own bottom line is, obviously.  Hopefully my cheerful charts can at least help a few people see those lines a little more clearly.

Got an anecdote?

Anecdotes may not be statistically valid, but they can be interesting.  If you’ve got experiences that differ from mine, I’d love to hear them, whether in the comments or by e-mail.  I do not get tired of talking about this stuff.  Ever.  Just ask Donna, she really wishes I’d stop!  Questions are welcome too, or discussion, or pretty much anything else.  Especially cookies.  Math makes me hungry.

Welcome to a special Bree Loves Numbers Post!

I state up front that I offer this post for authors only.  I’m writing about money, and royalties, and how the oddities of some epublishing contracts can make massive differences in how much an author gets paid for a sale. What is best for a consumer is often at odds for what is best for an author’s bottom line, so I want it disclaimed up front that I am a huge advocate of all readers finding the most affordable way to purchase books without having to fear recrimination from authors.  This is not, in any way, meant to encourage readers to alter their purchasing habits.

It is, however, the cautionary tale of how deceptive numbers can be for authors in this business.  And even though I fancy myself not so stupid about numbers in general and tricky numbers in particular, I learned some of this the hard way.  So learn from my mistakes!

A Real Life Example

In a simple world, math is easy.  Here’s an example: which of the following numbers would you rather see under “copies sold” on a royalty statement?

• 371
• 488
• 723

You already know it’s a trick question or I wouldn’t be asking.  It wouldn’t warrant a blog post if 723 was the winning number, followed by 488 and then 371.  But would it surprise you to know that the difference in royalties due between 371 copies and 723 copies was exactly $44?  And that 488 is actually the best number of all?

Let’s give the numbers some context:

• All Romance eBooks: 371 copies sold: $387.14
• Direct Sales: 488 copies sold: $596.09
• Fictionwise: 723 copies sold: $430.14

I did not make these numbers up, though I plan to make up plenty of numbers shortly.  These numbers are the real totals of one of our stories over a set period.  I will state up front that the royalty rate for the fictionwise sales is not a particularly bad one.  In fact, it’s one of the better ones I’ve seen.  That should tell you up front just how much it hurts when your 3rd party rate isn’t so friendly, and the majority of your sales take place at 3rd party distributors like fictionwise, who hold constant sales and let the authors foot the bill.

The Basic Breakdown

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past 2 years, it’s that 3rd party rates vary.  I’ve seen everything from 30% net to 30% cover and, let me tell you, the difference between those two can be massive. This issue is complicated intensely by the fact that it’s almost impossible to generalize anything across  epublishers.  Variables that affect your bottom line include:

1. Royalty rate (the most obvious)
2. What percentage of sales are direct vs what percentage are 3rd party
3. Which sites your books will be sold on
4. What sort of deal your epublisher has with each site

#1 is the easiest to find–it will be right there in your contract.  Contracts can be tricky, and there is always much online discussion about the difference between gross and net, and what the words are popularly understood to mean.

No amount of online talk can replace the advice of a lawyer or experienced professional (and having one look at your contract is good sense) but my experience thus far in epublishing is that most epublishers offer a percentage of the cover price for books sold directly from the publisher website, and a percentage of the money received from 3rd party distributors.  However, I do have one epublisher who pays on the cover price for 3rd party sales, and that can be very nice indeed.

However, that brings me to #2: how many of those sales are going to be direct?  Having an 80% royalty rate on direct sales won’t do much good if you get 5% of the net on 3rd party sales and 95% of your sales go through 3rd party venues.

This is the detail that even makes knowing the total number of copies someone sold of questionable value.  Sure, you sold 500 copies of Book X, but did you get paid 35% of the cover price, or 35% of the ~40-60% fictionwise gave your publisher, which was already based on the 60-80% left after they discounted it for a sale?  (Did that make your head hurt?  Don’t worry, it made mine hurt too.  I’ll explain more later.)

#3 comes in to play here as well.  Yes, those discounts sure hurt, but if you’re only going to sell 25 copies of your book directly from the publisher’s site, you have to ask yourself at what point a discounted sale is better than no sale at all.  Is your book going to be available at the popular and highly visible spots?  Amazon?  Fictionwise?  ARe & Omnilit?  How about Books on Board or the Sony Store?

You may never know #4, though you can assume that, unless you are publishing with one of the biggest epubs, the chance that the deal in any way favors the author & publisher is minuscule.  Distributors take huge chunks of the money (30-60% is a popular range) and that’s not including any discounts they apply at the site.

I like numbers. I keep track of all of our sales in a database, with the source, payment & copies sold recorded for every pay period and every book.  I know how much money we make at each publisher, and what percentage comes from 3rd party sales vs direct.  Epublishing is generally not a business where you’ve got someone in your corner looking out for you, so knowing these things can mean the difference between frustration and profit.

Let Me Do That Math For You

I find this is all easier when I see the breakdown of numbers in terms of dollars, so below I’m going to create a few basic scenarios based on various 3rd party royalty percentages.  For each scenario I’ll also break it down further into five sub-scenarios: if the sales were 100%, 75%, 50%, 25% or 0% direct.

Because this is meaningless without context, I will provide this with the disclaimer that it is my personal anecdotal data alone, and that most of our books have only been on fictionwise long enough for us to get 1 or 2 statements reporting data.  The more we sell there, the lower our percentage of direct sales will trend.  At the moment though, the four publishers where we’ve published more than one book have the following percentages of direct sales: 68%, 57%, 42% & 36%.

Further basic assumptions for these scenarios:

1. The book costs $5.00
2. The book has sold 500 copies
3. 3rd party distributors are taking 45% of the cover price (and lest you think this too severe, trust me, many take more.)

Scenario #1: 35% on Direct Sales, 35% of money received on 3rd Party Sales

First we’ll assume that the author receives the same royalty on all sales, but the 35% they receive on 3rd party sales are after all distributor discounts.

• 100% Direct: $875.00
  
• 75% Direct: $776.56
• 50% Direct: $678.13
• 25% Direct: $579.69
• 0% Direct: $481.25

Anyone who has an epublished book on fictionwise, though, is likely to make a lot of sales during one of their many 25%-40% off sales, not to mention how many sales are made in the first weeks while books are discounted.  Just for fun, let’s redo those numbers and assume all 3rd party sales averaged 20% off.

• 100% Direct: $875.00
  
• 75% Direct: $752.50
• 50% Direct: $630.00
• 25% Direct: $507.50
• 0% Direct: $385.00

So in this scenario 500 books can mean anywhere from $385 to $875 , which is a $490 difference.  Now consider the overall impact if you have 5 books, or 10 books, or 1000 sales instead of a 500.

For reference, the royalty rates used in this were: 19.25% (35% of 55%)
& 15.4% (35% of 55% of 80%)

Scenario #2: 35% on Direct Sales, 50% of money received on 3rd Party Sales

Here’s a slightly more author-friendly scenario, where the publisher and the author split all proceeds from 3rd party sales down the middle.

• 100% Direct: $875.00
  
• 75% Direct: $828.13
• 50% Direct: $781.25
• 25% Direct: $734.38
• 0% Direct: $687.50

This scenario shows a much smaller range, though that does widen a bit when discounts are introduced.  This posits the same average of 20% off over the lifetime of the 3rd party sales.

• 100% Direct: $875.00
• 75% Direct: $793.75
• 50% Direct: $712.50
• 25% Direct: $631.25
• 0% Direct: $550.00

In this scenario 500 books can mean anywhere from $550 to $875.  A $325 range still, though the higher percentage of net helps cushion the impact of those pesky 3rd party discounts.

For reference, the royalty rates used in this were: 27.5% (50% of 55%)
& 22% (50% of 55% of 80%)

Scenario #3: 35% on Direct Sales, 30% cover price on 3rd Party Sales

The friendliest scenario yet.  I have one epublisher who offers this 3rd party rate, and I can say frankly that I enjoy it a great deal.  In this case there’s no need for a second set with discounts, because the author doesn’t need to worry about discounts, just about how many copies they sold.  (This is excellent for record keeping & transparency.)

• 100% Direct: $875.00
• 75% Direct: $843.75
• 50% Direct: $812.50
• 25% Direct: $781.25
• 0% Direct: $750.00

Not a huge difference in any case, though I think you can pretty much guarantee that any company that is giving you 30% cover on 3rd party sales is probably making enough direct sales to make up for it.

In fact, in my experience that’s something that has applied very consistently–the worse our 3rd party rate ends up, the larger our percentage of sales that are 3rd party seem to be.  In the context I originally gave, I mentioned four numbers: 68%, 57%, 42% & 36%.  We made 30% cover on the first, 50% money received on the second & third, and 35% money received on the final.  The overall totals of money earned show this very clearly.

Let Me Sum Up

This is a lot of data, and a lot of information.  The sad part is, I have pages more I could include, and maybe I will at a later date.  I could do an entire post alone on the various price points and at what point a percent of the money received is a better deal than a percent of the cover.

Is it exciting?  Well, okay, I find it exciting, but it’s well documented that I’m a bit nutty about the statistics.  But the fact of the matter is–this is stuff you need to know if you want to make informed decisions about epublishing. Of course, only you can decide what your ultimate goal in epublishing is.  Mine is to have a career doing something I love, and because I want it to be a career I pay attention to the money.

I believe pretty firmly that the only way to make educated choices about epublishing is to find and share information.   I’m always happy to discuss my experiences, so if you have further questions about this topic, leave a comment and ask!  If you’d prefer to ask in private, my email is bree@moirarogers.com  Just understand that my opinion is just mine and my experiences are my own.

EDITED ON DECEMBER 9th: As a timely caveat to my post, Fictionwise is holding a sale on all multiformat (which includes pretty much all epublished) books for the rest of the month.  40-60% off.  If you assume the above conditions of 35% of the net receipts on a $5.00 book that sells 500 copies but is discounted 60%, you’d get something that looks like this:

• 100% Direct: $875.00
• 75% Direct: $695.63
• 50% Direct: $516.25
• 25% Direct: $336.88
• 0% Direct: $157.50

Part of my problem is that, with the conference and vacation and scrambling to get somethings done, we’ve just been damn busy. The rest of my problem is that I sometimes feel like an idiot when blogging.

No, it’s true. I might seem like I like to talk a lot (okay, I really DO), but I have these moments where I think to myself, “Who the hell could possibly want to read my pointless ramblings?”

The answer, of course, is, “…someone who is right where I was six months ago. Wanting to learn about writing and submitting and networking, and not even knowing where to start.”

I still have my moments of painful embarrassment, but I’ll get over them. Now that we have five contracts signed, sealed, and delivered, I’m going to talk about some of the things Bree and I have done/learned that proved most useful when getting into e-publishing.

1) Do your research before submitting.

I know it’s tempting to Google “e-publishers” and send your newly-minted short story/novella to every single one that pops up. But electronic publishers are a unique breed of business, one familiar to internet vets everywhere: anyone can do it.

You don’t have to have publishing experience to start an e-pub. Hell, you don’t have to have ever even read a romance (which, for purposes of this blog, is mainly what I’m talking about). All you need is a website and some authors desperate enough to sign any contract you hand them.

I know you’re anxious to sell your first story. But being badly published is worse than being unpublished.

2) Join forums and email groups about the genre. Then PARTICIPATE.

A lot of publishers and genre “fansites” have message boards or host chats. These are a great place to meet people and network, while also learning about what other people are writing/selling…or even what publishers want to see and haven’t been!

Email and discussion lists are another great tool. For some reason, in the romance world (e-pub and print), these lists are called “loops.” I have no idea why, and I’d never heard it before, but there you go.

3) Market research is your friend.

Simply put, all this means is that you’re finding out what sells. What people want to buy.

A lot of this information can be gleaned from new releases–but remember that, even though e-publishing generally moves much faster than print, the e-books you are seeing in the New Release section of the publisher’s website were still probably contracted at least six months ago.

So, how do you find out what publishers want? Pay attention to their submission guidelines. A lot of them will post open calls for upcoming special events (like Halloween or Christmas stories) or just certain niches they’d like to fill.

You’ll have to buy some books, too, because that truly is the best way to know if your work is appropriate for a certain publisher or line. But, hopefully, you’re an avid reader as well as a writer, so this won’t be a hardship on anything but your wallet.

4) You’re going to have to compromise your artistic integrity, so start now…

By this, I mean that you are never going to write something that needs no changes. The changes may be small–amounting to mere grammatical edits–or they might include expanding or eliminating entire characters or other elements of the story. You could be asked to do the latter as part of a “revise and resubmit” request before acceptance, or during the course of a comprehensive edit.

With grammatical stuff, you just have to suck it up and adhere to the in-house style guidelines. No ifs, ands, or buts. But you don’t have to do major revisions, especially if an editor or publisher requests them without a contract. However, when you stop frothing at the mouth (and you will, trust me), seriously consider whether the revisions might strengthen the story.

(True story: Bree and I wrote a story and submitted it. Before we sent it off, the very experienced, very good critique partner of a friend looked at the synopsis and pointed out a problem in the middle of it. The hero and heroine almost have sex, but the hero wants to wait. The critiquer called bullshit. I railed against this, attributing it to character and refusing to change it. The story got rejected. I sucked it up, we found a way to change it that still felt true to the character, and we just signed a contract with another publisher.)

If the revisions do nothing for your story, walk away and look elsewhere. But make sure you’re not just butthurt that someone dared ask you to give your baby a facelift.

5) …but don’t write what sells if you hate it. It shows.

This is a corollary to number four. I know, I know. After all I’ve said about thorough research and knowing your market, this might seem counterintuitive, at best. But here goes.

Pandering to the market is only useful if it’s something you’re comfortable with…or comfortable exploring. Adding elements X, Y, and Z to your story just to satisfy a market requirement is easy to do. It’s hard to do well. I can think of only a few authors who can pull it off without it being painfully obvious those things (kinky sex, creatures, BDSM, or whatnot) were wedged in there with a shoehorn.

In other words, it’s not paint-by-numbers. If you try to turn it into that kind of formulaic, calculated thing… Well, chances are it’ll look like you painted by numbers. BUT! If you can get excited about the material and make it work for you, it’s gold. So that’s the key.

Hmm.

Okay. I rambled too much. But that’s all right. Maybe I said something that will help someone. If not…at least Bree won’t beat me for not blogging. LOL