K?

Not in that way.

More in the way of an unusual friendship/ family ties thing.

Hell, of George Zimmerman's dad can publish an e-book about how black people are the real racists, it can't be that difficult

But how does the copyright work I wonder?

But I'm not sure what they've come up with

I imagine doing a Kindle deal would involve a contract with Amazon, for example.

You don't have to do anything except have evidence that you did it at such-and-such a time.

The success stories make news precisely because they are so unusual.

I have no idea what it costs to e-publish -- probably not very much compared to conventional books -- but most authors are not all that good at self-editing. Then there's the bit about getting out word about your book so that people will buy it.

I did go and look at some of the reviews for their books, and the negative reviews were quite interesting.

But heck, we all have different tastes, so if you like it, then read it.

In any case, while I certainly can admire people who can somehow put out twenty titles in six months, you really need to understand that both their output and the sales are not quite the norm.

There is a reason for the gatekeepers, that is the agents and the editors. It has been my experience over and over that the self-published books are simply not very good. They don't have the benefit of professional editing and agenting, and for me they are always a disappointment. So much so, that I simply am no longer willing to read anything self-published.

Since I don't have any kind of an e-reader, I'm not quite as likely to buy a self-published book these days, since most of them are now published electronically.

If you can't get your book published conventionally, the odds are very high that is simply isn't that good. However, if you're convinced otherwise and you want to publish electronically, go for it. You actually have very little to lose, since it seems there's not very much up-front cash investment.

The mainstream publishing houses are getting on board because they see a market, but they're pretty good because they have a reputation to uphold. I actually paid for a review with Kirkus, which has an indie review section now, but they say absolutely up front that you get what you get and they don't sell good reviews.

I not only got a star review, I was asked to do an interview. I also took First Place in Mainstream/Literary Fiction in Writer's Digest's Self Published Books Competition. It's continuing to pay off.

So I wouldn't discourage anyone who has talent and wants to go that route, just let them know that there are specific ways to separate yourself from the folks who are less adept.

I've been concerned about the possibility that if I e-published something myself, then no print publisher would ever want to touch it. Is that a realistic fear? Does anyone know?

you can pay someone like me to do it: http://www.dvorkin.com/ebookpubhelp.html

But if you have any computer skills at all, it's really not that hard. My clients tend to be people who don't want to bother with those details or simply don't have the skills. I also have a corporate client; don't ask me why they haven't hired someone to handle it in-house, but I'm glad they didn't.

As someone else said, though, don't expect to make money at it. Very, very few self-publishers do.

Mine's mainstream/literary fiction, though, not steamy romance.

Look at CreateSpace, Amazon's publishing arm. There are others but I used theirs. It costs nothing, you just have to format it right, and they're there to help.

How successful you are depends on you. You have to market and market and market (which I haven't done much of lately as I'm working on another book).

There's a lot of erotica on ebooks now, and "steamy romance", but there's an enormous market too. They're like popcorn, I imagine. I've read one or two erotic self-published ebooks and the ones I read are okay for what they are, a novel setting for getting off, and at .99 people will often experiment.

I couldn't predict your chances. It's a wild world. Being a good writer AND a smart promoter are key.

Let me know if you give it a go.

I don't know a huge amount but if an agent decides he wants to represent you the money comes from percentages and whatever they have contracted with the publisher. You don't pay up front.

Hello there, agents work on commission. Usually, they take 15% of your royalties once a book is published. (This varies.) When you epublish your own book, you pay for the copyright ($40), the cover ($20-$500, depending on who you hire), and proofreading (proofreaders charge by the page). You should also have your manuscript edited. All in all, you can count on spending between $400 and $1000. You can also count on spending four hours a day promoting your work. You will make between 70% - 100% of sales (depending on which outlets you use).

If you hire an agent, you will spend nothing. You will also not get very much out of royalties. Publishers will give you 10% of the retail value of a print book. (I've gotten less.) But, you don't have to worry about editing, proofreading, designing a cover, printing or distribution. You still have to promote your book. Getting an agent (and/or publisher) takes a long time as a rule.

If you don't want to wait, and are confident that you can market your book, then shell out the money and epublish.

For years I went without an agent, selling directly to publishers because I had a track record. Then wanted to shift genres, so got an agent. She ended up getting me a contract for 100X what I'd been negotiating for myself.

So yeah, that 15 percent commission was well-earned by her.

Even if a person is a good writer, how easy/hard is it to get an agent? How does one find any agent, esp. a good one?

You can decide to go entirely on your own and e-publish. But you need to understand that it's risky. Yeah, there's not the kind of up-front costs involved in "real" books, but if you're not professionally edited, if you don't find someone to design a good cover, and so on, you're risking being lost in the wilderness.

I was at a writer's conference in April (Pike's Peak Writers Conference) and more than one agent and editor said that if you chose to e-publish, good for you, but if you now hoped to get a regular agent or editor, you needed to understand the stakes. You'd need to demonstrate very strong sales (they gave specific numbers at specific price points -- the lower the price the vastly greater the sales needed to be) to hope to get a mainstream editor or publisher in the future.

Personally, I'm enough of a newbie, and idealistic enough that I'm going to hold out for print. I do plan to attend that conference next year, and I plan to have at least one project completed so that I can pitch it to an editor or agent.

Yep, I completely agree with the fact that E-book publication is truly cheaper and better that an agent. If you talk about me about the e-book publishing then surely there will be the point when you will have enough of the material to mention while writing in the book.

to self publish, you can do it through something like Lulu which is a print on demand system, as opposed to vanity publishing which is a different thing, you pay up front for a certain number of books to be published, most of which end up in a cardboard box in your garage
The publishing industry is changing, more and more authors are choosing to self publish now as it gives them more freedom. As publishing budgets get smaller writers are expected to more of their own marketing anyway. The biggest issue with self publishing is the quality of the editing but then I've read some fantastic self published books and some traditionally published books with some inexcusable typos, so who knows. It's quite an exciting time in the publishing world. But there are quite a few author out there who make a fair amount of money from it, but they have to be really on the ball with publicity etc.