By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
When I first self-published a couple of
years ago, it really never occurred to me to put out print copies of the
books. I felt print was on its way out,
and that it might be expensive to publish a printed copy. Plus, I wasn’t sure
exactly how to go into print.
But soon after e-publishing the first of
my books, I started receiving emails from readers asking about getting the
Myrtle books in print. Some of the
readers sounded rather put-out with me.
“I know digital is The Thing right now,” said one, “but I will never buy
an e-reader. Never. Even though I would like to read your books.” That’s when I decided to reassess my
decision.
Benefits to print:
Some readers mentioned preferring print
to digital when gift-giving. They like
having something to wrap and present to their friend.
Popular reader site Goodreads only allows printed books to be part
of their giveaways. And giveaways
frequently mean reviews.
Another benefit is that the ebook price
for your book looks like a real deal when the print price is a good seven or
more dollars higher.
And, as mentioned earlier, some readers
don’t want to read ebooks.
After doing a little research, I
discovered that it was actually free to upload to CreateSpace and publish to
Amazon, aside from formatting and cover design, of course (and some of you
might be adept enough to tackle those things yourself). Uploading the files was an extremely simple
process. Most writers choose to go through Lightning Source or CreateSpace. Jen Talty with Cool
Gus wrote a
nice post last year about their decision to choose CreateSpace.
I didn’t have much time, so I paid folks
to help me with the formatting to print and paid someone to create a full cover
with spine and back, based on my ebook cover.
After the print copies released, I’d recouped that money within two
months. This, obviously, will
vary. Are your ebook sales strong? Have you gotten any requests from readers for
your book to be in print? Those points can indicate if it’s worthwhile to
invest money in pursuing print.
Author copies of my books (which retail
to readers on Amazon for $10.99) are only $3.41 apiece (my books are fairly
short), plus the price of shipping. Not
a bad price for promo copies. The nice
thing is that we can pay for and print books as we need them—we don’t have to
store a couple of hundred copies, that may never sell, in our closet.
The one-time investment in formatting and
cover design has paid off. Now I feel as
if I’m connecting to readers who wouldn’t otherwise be reading my books. The CreateSpace sales have provided steady
income since early summer.
If you’re self-published, are your books
available in print? Did you format the
text and cover yourself, or hire someone?
Has the investment in time and money paid off?