Saturday, November 5, 2011

E.M. Tippetts is going indie

So, my knitting is not the only reason I've been absent from my blog most days. I've been working like crazy to prepare a manuscript to upload to Kindle. In the past I've made it quite clear on this blog that I didn't think self publishing was a good idea, and at the time I believe that was true. What's changed? The surge in e-publishing. When print publishing was the only way to go, self publishing was expensive, and for anyone without the contacts and distribution of a publishing company, it usually was a money losing endeavor. You, as a self-published author, had to charge as much or more per book as a publisher, so odds were, you'd lose money and a lot of it.

Epublishing allows a self published author to do something that print publishing did not: price yourself accordingly. While publishing houses price their Kindle books at $8 or more, indie authors can charge as little as $.99, which means people can try out your writing without making the same investment they'd make for a traditionally published book.

I've watched the rise of the indie scene with interest. I've had a couple friends go this route with varying levels of success. Because I have two pen names (which are both real names of mine, actually. I've got a lot of names :-) I decided to jump on board with my E.M. Tippetts moniker.

E.M. Tippetts, in the traditional publishing world, was not likely to make much money. The LDS book market is small and the top romance author in it had "sales approaching half a million" three years ago. That's half a million total, not of her latest book. In twenty years of writing she was yet to make half a million dollars, total (authors make 8-12% of cover, or a dollar a book, more or less). That is a piddling income ($25,000 per annum) for a career that requires as much work as writing. So it's break out or suffer the same fate - if I was lucky enough to get that kind of market share.

There's a very good chance that my attempt to break out here will be a bust, but so it goes in life :-) I aim to get my next chick lit book out on Kindle on Tuesday (Happy Birthday to me!). I'll do a pitch for it here and on my www.emtippetts.com website.

Wish me luck, or, even better, set aside $.99 to spend next Tuesday! For those of you who don't do Kindle, I'll get it out on Nook and iBookstore in the next few months, and if sales are strong, I'll also put it out in print.

2 comments:

  1. I must make a note that your birthday is the 8th of November. :-) And for 99 cents (although it will probably be a bit more for us Europeans) I will definitely try out your book. I don't usually read chick lit, though I do have my moments when I read Jill Mansell or Katie Fforde. Anyway, I wish you all the best with this new endeavour!

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  2. THanks, Melanie! I'll get it up on all the country specific Amazon sites I can and then it'll be available internationally through Smashwords and its affiliates (Nook and iBookstore, to name a couple.)

    I'm with you though. I don't normally read chick lit either. Don't ask me why it is I write it, but I've had the condition diagnosed by several avid readers. These are pretty clearly chick lits that I've produced.

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