Publishing: ebooks vs Paper Books

Publishing an e-book involves fewer barriers than publishing a regular printed book, but as with vanity and on-demand presses, an obvious fear is that publishing in this manner, while providing easier access to the writer, could render your work culturally irrelevant. While e-books are more legitimate and access to them is easier thanks to the internet, the barriers are similar.

E-book technology is slowly but surely advancing. Amazon recently rolled out the Kindle, a user-friendly e-book reader with eye-friendly backlighting and long battery life. The only obstacle is availability of titles and the price, not just of the reader itself (well over $200) but of the downloading of available titles, at a rate still comparable to printed books despite the lack of overhead costs. This makes it harder to get your book into the hands of readers, as fewer of them can access your work.

But once these prices come down with proliferation of the technology, the e-book will have several advantages.

Ease of transmission. Each printed book must be physically printed using a variety of materials, and this costs considerable money and takes considerable time even with modern technology. Save for bestsellers, books sell slowly and many writers never see royalties beyond their advance. These books are often out of sight, out of mind: without aggressive promotion, most bookstores will never carry your title and most readers will never be aware it exists. This puts a low ceiling on book sales and makes it likely your book will be forgotten over time.

However, the only materials an e-book takes up are hard drive space and bandwidth. If a person has a computer or an e-book reader, picking up your book is as simple as downloading it. And marketing is far easier on the internet, where parties interested in your writing or your subject matter can find you with as little as an internet search. Over time, the lower overhead could mean lower prices, making it more attractive for consumers to buy your work, and a bigger percentage return for the writer for each sale. Any contract advance may be lower, but the likelihood that a writer makes royalties on such work could increase. With printed books, you rarely see any revenue from your books other than the advance, if you receive one, as printed sales often don't generate enough royalties to offset the costs and advance, and make your eligible to receive them.

On that note, marketing your book becomes easier. Anyone with internet access (and that population grows each day) can find your book once you make it available. Reaching out and marketing is simpler on the internet than with printed books where you have to travel and give presentations at events and bookstores. And compared to paying $20-30 for a printed book, customers would pay far less, receive it far more quickly and have easier access to the book via hard drive or e-reader.

Now, the disadvantages: e-books are still in their infancy and not an especially popular medium. Only people who are aware of e-books and have the technology to purchase and use them will be able to buy them, and on top of that, not all of those readers will be at all interested in your work. Your market ceiling is very low if you publish an e-book, and assuming the e-book market does take off, it could be years before you see significant sales of your work. If you have a dual arrangement to publish e-books and printed books, this may be okay, but an exclusive e-book deal offers very limited sales potential. With the increased likelihood that your work will get published comes the decreased audience and earning potential.

As it stands, either road is a difficult one to getting your written work into public view. Printed books are hard to get through the gauntlet of editors into publications, and beyond that are tougher to sell and market well. But while e-books have fewer barriers to publication, with e-book technology in its expensive and harder-to-find infancy, it's harder to get your work out simply because your potential audience is far smaller.

Either circumstance could change over time, but as it stands, these are the benefits and perils of the two choices.