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 Re: From David Sherman
 
Teufel Panzer MK4
1037 posts
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Re: From David Sherman
Posted: 03 Nov 06 11:53 PM
Any luck with that?
Trang
97 posts
Joined
1/24/2008
Re: From David Sherman
Posted: 27 Feb 08 2:10 PM

 I finished DemonTech yesterday, and knew going in it was dead. I have to say I really enjoyed it, it took me a little bit to get going, but about half way into the first book it really begins to sail. I have read most every post in this section of the forum as well as your own website about DemonTech and its future. I will post some other thoughts in the other section of the forum on the series, but just had some questions.

I know you said other fans have made suggestions about how to continue the series, but I didnt see anything about straight electronic publishing, versus paper publishing. I am, by far, not an expert on the topic of publishing, and will do some research myself to answer a lot of my own questions. I am looking at this very simply I know, but here goes, If you have the outline and banged out book 4, could you take it and make a PDF file, then try to sell it via electronic book stores like amazon?  Creating PDF file is not expensive at all, but I know dedicating your time to writing does take time. Im not sure of the price point on a PDf file but would think somewhere in the 5-6 bucks range would be realistic, again I have to do some research on electronic publishing. Your overhead for electronic publishing would seem to be way lower than the paper version. I know we still live in an age when we dont have an inexpensive comfortable electronic reader device in a universal format, with resonable power and portrability, but that is changing slowly. A paper back size device with the features and storage and other features I mention is coming.

I have been yelling for years at friends and family about the dam cell phone industry and its proprietary crap (software and hardware). 5 years ago they should have built the phones to connect to any network serice you wanted and keep the same number, intstead of the transfer to one and the other and the other with all the headaches. Finnally this past fall Verizon (with a big push from google and its open source mentality) has pushed the first major telecom vendor into letting you use any phone you want to connect to its network. The kinks are still there and its gonna be a bit before it all gets smoothed out, but its coming fast. The same needs to happen with Electronic publishing.

I know about amazons kindle, mobious, microsoft reader, sony's gadget etc, they are all a large PITA. Cost to much, slow, small storage etc.

There is alot to understand, after you talk about statements and royalties, I dont know the trickle down effect from the paper books being bought new, and then when they move to the discounted shelves, and then end up at half price books stores or sold on other outlets.

I do know technology and gadgets, and the device to do this isnt even conecpted yet, but I can give you an idea of the all media device I want:

Paperback book height and length. 1inch thick.

The outside top would have a six inch by 4 inchscreen for all media viewing and controlling (OLED Screens)

Device would be hinnged to allow for reading material in a standard way across two internal six by 4 screens (OLED Screens).

The Operating system would be open source.

The device would have internal solid state 1 terabyte of storage.

The outside edges would have Uni ports(usb, firewire, SD cardsetc) for transfer and removable media.

Bose would create the sound for the device, boith speaker and headset would be wireless and removable.

Wireless 10 gigabyte speed connectivity.

Software would allow for any file format that is currently in use for Video, Audio, Game, or Electronic Document, with Conversion software to Universal format.

Low power comsumption, Passive cooled, four core processor, intial 4 ghz speed cores, removable ported chips for easy upgrade

Ten gigabytes of RAM for main memory, removable fore easy upgrade.

GPU and Memory on a Removable For easy upgradeing, Initial card, 4 gigabytes of video Ram with 4 core GPU 2 gigahurtz speed. 

24 hour battery life, with battery slot to allow for changeing on the go.

My guess is we have a little while before anything like this evolves, more of an idea where my my mind goes when thinking about things.

Im definatly left wanting after gulf run and hope something evolves for you at publisher, after I do some more research maybe can come up with some other ideas to get demontech back on its legs.

Thanks for the books and story, great stuff.

Trang

 

 

"Long Live the Fighters!" "Dragon, the other white meat"
DavidS
988 posts
www.novelier.com
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Joined
1/23/2006
Re: From David Sherman
Posted: 28 Feb 08 1:23 PM
Amazon hasn't only introduced its own entry into the ebook field, the Kindle ebook reader, it has recently become involved with the Print-On-Demand branch of the industry. With POD, you order the book through Amazon, BN.com, or your local bookstore, the order goes to the publisher, a copy of the book is printed, and then you get it. Normal format for the books is trade paperback, what some people call "quality paperback," pbs the size of hardbacks. Some books are published in that format as originals, but mostly they are the first paperback editions of bestsellers. Their price is about midway between the mass market paperback that Starfist and DemonTech are available in and hardback (which Starfist has also been available in for the past four books and counting). I imagine the trade pb is good for those authors whose commerically published books come out that way.

Now, on to specifics with DemonTech. According to the most recent statement, Onslaught, the first book in the series, has sold a grand total of 485 copies in ebook format. Over six years. After the agent's 15% gets deducted, I've been paid an average of less than $110.00 per year on the Onslaught ebook. That ain't no kind of way to make a living. I'm not kidding when I say that in many years I have a poverty-level income.

Now, for original ebooks that don't come from a major publisher. I have two books available through my website, novels I wrote well before Starfist that weren't able to find homes with commercial publishers. In more than a year and a half, those two books have sold maybe five copies each. Not very promising.

A few years ago I wrote a short story for a POD anthology of original stories, _Weird Trails; the Magazine of Supernatural Cowboy Stories_, which was a parody of 1930s pulp magazines. I don't know how well the book has sold. I do know that there haven't been any royalties paid out, and the authors were paid at half or less of the rates they would have gotten from a science fiction magazine or commercially published anthology.

Now, as to Amazon's Kindle and their involvement in POD, I have no way of judging what kind of sales an original book might have in those formats. Doesn't really matter anyway, because I simply can't afford to take the time away from paying work to write a novel for orginal ebook and POD publication. Even if I had reasonable assurance that the books would eventually pay enough to subsist on.
Trang
97 posts
Joined
1/24/2008
Re: From David Sherman
Posted: 28 Feb 08 3:10 PM

Thanks for the feedback, and I hope my tone doesnt sound bad? Im in your corner and understand the business side of things. I read some yesterday, limited, on self/electronic publishing and the print on demand books was in the stuff I was reading. I will continue to read on publishing and marketing, to become more learnered so maybe can understand better. 

"Long Live the Fighters!" "Dragon, the other white meat"
DavidS
988 posts
www.novelier.com
4th
Joined
1/23/2006
Re: From David Sherman
Posted: 29 Feb 08 6:21 PM Modified By DavidS on 2/29/2008 6:23:38 PM)
Trang, your tone was fine. I just get frustrated by the whole business of publishing. Shortly after I broke in, large corporations with no understanding of the book business started buying up publishing houses. The corporations quickly discovered that the publishers made 90% of their money from 10% of the books they put out. Well then, the corporate types thought, we should only put out the 10% and let the other 90% go. So they started pumping massive amounts of money into a few authors and cutting out most other authors. And began going bust. The corporate types hadn't realized that while 10% of the authors made 90% of the money, the actual profit came from the 90% who only made 10% of the money. Publishing houses lost a great deal of money before they got matters straightened out and started publishing the 90% again.

Then there's the matter of distribution. Most books go from the publishers to distributers, who get them into bookstores, drug stores, etc. There used to be a large number of regional distributers, who knew their local book markets, and stocked small bookstores (show of hands, who remembers when Borders, BN, and BAM weren't almost all the bookstores?), drugstores, supermarkets, etc. About the time big corporations were buying up publishing houses, a few distributers began buying up smaller distributers. For the sake of simplicity, the now-huge distributers (there are basically one giant and fewer than half a dozen smaller but still large distributers remaining) began stocking everybody the same way. That's why the RiteAid in a college town has the same selection of books the RiteAid next to a retirement village does.

Publishing hasn't recovered from the distribution mess yet, either, and neither have the 90% whose books don't show up in supermarkets or drugstores. It's frustrating, and keeps both publishers and authors scrambling to survive.
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