Paid Members Halitosis Romantic Posted November 1, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted November 1, 2011 I agree with Townsend really. But that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Dear Mr Townshend, Â Where's the book? Â Cheers Mr Houchen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Red Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Dear Mr Townshend, Where's the book?  Cheers Mr Houchen  He's waiting for Jim Brown to finish writing the foreword then it'll be available in all grubby corners of the internet for only Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richie Freebird Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Yep, you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patiirc Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 My take is that the file sharing and copyright thing is a very western problem as to how to combat piracy. Let's attack them because they are the most complicit as a rule, though that is or has changed recently as people tend to circumvent rules. Â Afaik historically Asian markets like China and India, didnt give two hoots about it and it was perfectly feasible in India to walk into a music store and get a cd/ tape of tunes, albums and individual tracks of whatever you liked, pirated, for a pittance ( that was one of the tidbits from my old housemate who had a music collection to die for, none of it legit, all from what he had got when back at home) Â Here though, Piracy is seen as bad as it takes away profit from labels and they use the countenance that it means that no one will come through to sell records. What they actually mean is that no one will come through their system, hence rendering them irrelevant and obsolete and aid their slow demise in the form they are today, EMI are already struggling in that respect. Â If artists wish to release their stuff, I foresee a lot more self publishing, purely because the cost is cheaper without labels taking a cut and the profit goes directly to the artist. Sure that music will be copied and shared by some after the initial purchase, that wont stop as, 'piracy' has been around forever anyway. Perhaps though that way more cash will go to the artists from sales rather than some one else taking a cut. Â FWIW the last album I got illegally was Death Magnetic iirc its as cheap as to scour Amazon for music these days. And as I'm a CD over Mp3 man at present you can pick up albums for a couple of quid, some times as new to boot, So I will pay for music, whether it gets to the artist is another thing entirely, as they are official CD's and what not, some one will have purchased them at some point from the label so some cash will go them at some point in the chain, even if the cash from my transaction isnt getting there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Halitosis Romantic Posted November 1, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted November 1, 2011 FWIW Â IWN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted November 1, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 1, 2011 If artists wish to release their stuff, I foresee a lot more self publishing, purely because the cost is cheaper without labels taking a cut and the profit goes directly to the artist. Sure that music will be copied and shared by some after the initial purchase, that wont stop as, 'piracy' has been around forever anyway. Perhaps though that way more cash will go to the artists from sales rather than some one else taking a cut. Â This is a big part of it. The labels and studios have spent the last decade screaming and running around, trying to stamp out a lot of little fires, when the old system is burning to the ground around them. They're terrified of what happens when the middle man (them) gets taken out of the equation. Â Case in point, with the publishing industry, which is an example I can speak on from experience. I put my books on the Kindle store, and they're selling for $2.99 and $4.99 on Amazon.com, and on .co.uk, whatever the British exchange rate is, plus fucking tax. From that, 70% goes directly to me. I'm getting more money per copy than I ever did on the print versions, which sold for 3x that. 70% cut instead of the usual 12%, and with a super competitive low price. Publishers often put their clients books up there for the same price as the paper versions, and presumably, with the same 12% royalty you usually get, so they're getting way less sales, and a fraction of the cut. No publisher is ever going to be able to offer me a good enough deal to give up the e-rights. Other than the ability to publicise it, what could they possibly throw at me to make me give up on that? Even if they went with the $2.99 pricing, they'd want their cut, so I'm not getting close to 70%. I've got complete artistic control, and an obscene cut, and that's terrifying to publishers, as more and more 'proper' writers decide to stick their latest on the Kindle store themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted November 1, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 1, 2011 How easy is it to put something on the Kindle site? Is it just a case of writing a story in wordpad and chucking it on there, or is there channels to go through and quality control and stuff, or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted November 1, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 1, 2011 How easy is it to put something on the Kindle site? Is it just a case of writing a story in wordpad and chucking it on there, or is there channels to go through and quality control and stuff, or what? Â The biggest pain in the arse is formatting, but that's as simple as converting it to various Kindle-ready file types a few times and (repeatedly) testing it in a Kindle app to check it's all come out alright. My one crisis was that I had to get someone to put a line of HTML in there for me, to sort out the indenting. Â Other than that, it's a piece of piss, and it takes less than 24 hours from upload to being available. It's all automated, so there's nobody reading what's going up, or any quality control, unless you get flagged (I think rape, incest, and libel are the only things not allowed). Just write your thing, format it correctly, make a cover to the specified size, write your blurb, then upload it and wait for the Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikey Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Kindle Direct Publishing  I heard iBookstore is also good and has a slightly better royalty rate than Amazon. Problem is, Kindle's sold as a cheap e-reading device and more people are going over to it. I've been planning a book called "57 Old Farts" and it's probably be better to sell it online than in paper format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted November 1, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 1, 2011 Kindle Direct Publishing I heard iBookstore is also good and has a slightly better royalty rate than Amazon. Problem is, Kindle's sold as a cheap e-reading device and more people are going over to it. I've been planning a book called "57 Old Farts" and it's probably be better to sell it online than in paper format.  I get a surprisingly high royalty rate for the iBookstore, but it sells at a higher price, so I'm guessing (being that Lulu take their cut, so I can't be exact) nothing like Amazon's royalty. I just got an email one day to say Volume II was available on there though, so I don't know about getting things on the iBookstore yourself. I do know that the conversion to the ePub format, which is what it uses, is indescribably complicated when compared to Kindle Publishing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Case in point, with the publishing industry, which is an example I can speak on from experience. I put my books on the Kindle store, and they're selling for $2.99 and $4.99 on Amazon.com, and on .co.uk, whatever the British exchange rate is, plus fucking tax. From that, 70% goes directly to me. I'm getting more money per copy than I ever did on the print versions, which sold for 3x that. 70% cut instead of the usual 12%, and with a super competitive low price. Publishers often put their clients books up there for the same price as the paper versions, and presumably, with the same 12% royalty you usually get, so they're getting way less sales, and a fraction of the cut. No publisher is ever going to be able to offer me a good enough deal to give up the e-rights. Other than the ability to publicise it, what could they possibly throw at me to make me give up on that? Even if they went with the $2.99 pricing, they'd want their cut, so I'm not getting close to 70%. I've got complete artistic control, and an obscene cut, and that's terrifying to publishers, as more and more 'proper' writers decide to stick their latest on the Kindle store themselves. Â But if you've got a publisher promoting you and giving you the air of credibility, won't that result in a vast difference in sales, making the 12% cut amount to far more money than the 70% cut that you'd make without the machine behind you? You've looked into this, so you might have seen some figures or at least anecdotes... Are there people making more money self-publishing than they would if they were picked up by a publisher? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted November 1, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 1, 2011 But if you've got a publisher promoting you and giving you the air of credibility, won't that result in a vast difference in sales, making the 12% cut amount to far more money than the 70% cut that you'd make without the machine behind you? You've looked into this, so you might have seen some figures or at least anecdotes... Are there people making more money self-publishing than they would if they were picked up by a publisher? Â I'm talking about the e-rights. I'm working on the assumption that a publisher would primarily be interested in the hardback/paperback rights to a work. The machine will still be behind print versions, so it's not like there's nobody pushing that title by the time it makes it to the Kindle. E-rights are in this weird, undecided place right now, like with the Writers Guild strike over royalties to stuff like web series, or stuff that was appearing on mobile phones. Â And yeah, some people are making utterly insane money. Lots and lots of "indie authors" out there shifting 10,000+ copies a month of airport trash style books. Usually the bubble bursts, but in this case, it's hard to see how, as the system is in place, and it's feeling like the genie is out of the bottle. Â I'm not one of those people, mind. ALTHOUGH I SHOULD BE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted November 1, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 1, 2011 I'm going to pump out some John Grisham style thrillers and make a million pounds and retire. I should have 5 or 6 pumped out by about 8:30 tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Halitosis Romantic Posted November 1, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted November 1, 2011 I'm thinking a whole line of Kriss Akabusi sex novels, with the man himself on the front cover, under the imprint "Satin Awooga" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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