eBooks

Over three weeks after first considering eBooks for my manuscripts, I am still torn on the issue. For several reasons eBooks seem more desirable than trying again with publishers with one big IF-- I can figure out a way to promote them.

I have been gathering potential ideas for that although it's obviously a hard road with a lot of work which may or may not pay off with sales which can also happen with books put out by big publishing houses. The books sit on the shelf unless they are noticed. Often that is the writer's job when it's a little known author.

What I do know for sure is I am not interested in self-publishing in paperback form. I helped to get a group-published, church recipe book into the stores once. It's a lot of work and you are always having to go there, replace books that sold, check back and I only did it locally. To have gone beyond my local area would have meant it would have been a full time job. I can't imagine self-publishing romances would be anything but a nightmare.

It appears one necessity is to join local, good-sized writer groups. Have I mentioned I am not a joiner? Now I have for many years been a member of Romance Writers of America, but it doesn't require attendance at meetings. By my not going to their conferences though, I have not had the advantage of meeting editors or attending the workshops. Networking is a factor in pretty much anything, and networking is one of those things I don't like doing even if I understand its value.

The advantage for a writer in eBooks is control over cover and content. There is no doubt publishers are going for what they believe will make money which means their motive, in what they accept or the covers they want, is because it's what they believe readers want. This can lead to missing a trend or staying with it too long (think Harry Potter or vampires).


Publishers must guess what the next thing might be but are probably best at getting more of something that already was a hit. Someone putting out their own eBook is more likely to mostly be concerned with writing what they believe and making it as good as possible as there is not much money yet invested in it, less risk but possibly less gain also.

There was a story I submitted to a publishing house some years back with a supernatural aspect to the story. Basically it had a kind of monster, created by one of the characters, and the question of how to get rid of the monster. I had sent it to a house what wanted supernatural topics but not romances. The editor felt my story had too much romance for that line but liked it well enough to send it to one of the houses that had romances, who then rejected it for unbelievable supernatural element. Harry Potter burst on the scene later. In that case, I think I was ahead of a trend which for an unknown writer meant rejection.

That is the problem for a writer. Write what IS already hot and you are potentially stale and too late. Write what IS not yet hot and they can't see the potential.

Then there is or was (I haven't looked into this yet for publishing houses today) the problem of length. Mostly where I was trying to get interest, your stories had to fit certain lengths. Mine often did not. If you wrote something over 100,000 words, you could not interest a publishing house in even looking at a query and synopsis without an agent. Agents generally wanted writers who had published already.

So an eBook format gets the books out there for readers to decide for themselves while they get a considerably better deal financially from writers who are not also in print. But how does the reader find them?

From what I can tell the easiest eBooks to find are by authors who are also published on paper. They are the ones being promoted at various websites like that of Barnes and Noble. What is needed, from the aspect of the unknown writer, would be a site that reviews the 'other' books; so that the reader doesn't waste their time-- except doesn't that come right back full circle with someone between reader and material?


When I went to the used bookstore to look at covers and get an idea if what I am doing for them will look professional enough (it won't if what they are doing is the requirement), I left feeling disillusioned. Most of the romance covers look like photographs with some softening of the edges. They aren't painterly but pretty realistic. So is that what the reader wants? Or did graphic artists convince the publishers it's what sells.

And then those beefcake bodies for the men. I cannot believe women want that in a book cover but they must or would those balloon muscles be there? When I see a man all beefed up with steroid looking muscles, I figure they either spend all their time working out or are using drugs. Either is very unappealing. Real muscles coming from real work do not look like those covers.

So the digital covers, which I absolutely have loved doing, are still an issue as to whether I would attract readers to them or would they feel they were amateur and therefore the writing must be also? What can I create that will pass the 2 second test for how long I have to intrigue a potential reader before they go on?

Especially the cover design would be a problem if women really want those balloon bodies. The idea of having one of those beefcakes on a book of mine is repulsive. If I wrote about such a hero, it would be where he sees the error of his ways for caring too much about outward appearances and not enough about what was inside. If, however, I submitted a manuscript to a publisher and got it accepted, they'd be the ones determining the cover.


Creating digital covers and trying to get the feeling, the faces to fit the stories, has been challenging and stimulating; but my covers are painterly. I have chosen to use backgrounds that have an iconic element for the story, not realistic. If I wanted to meet the needs out there, could I do it? Would I be willing to do it?

While I was glancing over the covers in the romance section, I saw several women looking for books. One was on her cell phone almost the whole time as she told someone else which authors and titles were there. Definitely romance readers appear to be almost always women (you never see men looking through that section which means if they read romances, it's likely their wife's) who are loyal to a writer they have discovered. The problem is being that writer...

I did some research some years back on who reads romances. I'll write something about that next. Incidentally, I am back in Oregon and these two blogs were written while in Arizona. I am tired of driving and everything else; but will write more about the drive home after my body recuperates from the long hours on the road.

All wildflowers from Catalina State Park and the last one is theoretically not regarded well at all by cattleman-- jimsonweed which kills cows if they eat it. Pretty though.