I imagine that you might have been in a particularly bad mood while writing this. Regardless, I do hear both of your points loud and clear.

On the death of eBooks, I’d say that the ePublishing revolution is a bit of a double-edged sword. A few short years ago, none of the people who are self-publishing now would have made it to market unless they had gone through a vanity press. In the “olden days,” agents and publishing houses would have served the purpose of culling the horde, and shaping up the survivors’ books into market worthy products (bad and good).

Today, the floodgates are open, and anyone who knows how to create an ePub file —and probably some that don’t—can be a (self) published author. I think this is good because there are a lot more good books out there that might have never been published. I think this is bad because there is more schlock than ever that is going on to the shelves from which readers must choose their next book. I think what is important here is for readers to find a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

It’s my current belief that the reader has become the agent of the ePublishing revolution and that free samples are the litmus tests that would have been agent submissions prior. With the advent of eBooks and the Internet, readers can freely download these samples and decide whether to read further or not. After that, word of mouth should serve its purpose as the true marketing tool for the self-published works that abound today. And here is where we get to the icky marketing bit.

I, myself, have fallen into the trap of thinking that social networking is the marketing tool for the self-published author, and I was wrong—I have done more than my share of “read my book” tweets and me culpa for that. I do now, more than ever, connect with people and engage in real conversations rather that simply broadcasting my marketing agenda. I do believe it takes a while for people to realize this, and I do believe it will get better in spite of the daily deluge of “robot marketing” we see that seems to grow consistently day-by-day.

What one eventually learns is that social networks are for making friends online, and when your friends start treating you as customers it can be pretty irritating. It’s even more irritating when these are “friends” you’ve just met. There’s not much worse than saying, “Hello,” and getting a “check out my book” in an automated response. At the very least, there should be a little foreplay here, but unfortunately robots are not very good at that. Many today are using Tweet Adder and the like to do their “marketing” for them, and I wholly disbelieve that this does them any good. Hopefully, after a while, everyone will come around and realize that these social networks are not their exclusive marketing platforms and that “real” book marketing comes from their readers—not just spamming anyone that they can.

Frankly, and this has been said before, the best marketing there is to be had is the word of mouth advertising that occurs when someone reads a good book and tells their friends about it. To elaborate on your point, it bothers me when people try to shove things down my throat—this goes for music as well. I prefer to hear music and decide I like it, just as I like to decide what books to read on my own accord. In fact, when I feel like I’m being sold on something, my natural inclination is to run away. I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in that regards.

So, with all that said, I don’t believe that there will be a death in the ePublishing revolution. What will occur is an evolution where those with shitty books (that are shittily edited) and shitty marketing schemes—yes, I just used shitty three times and as an adverb to boot—will cast off a warning glow that is obvious to the reader. It will say, “Don’t read me, I’m a shitty book by a shitty author” (I just did it again). It will say this via poor reviews and an inglorious lack of sales. And that, Sir, I believe will be the saving grace that allows readers to finds self-published authors with excellent ePublished books amidst the flotsam and—better yet—among the traditionally published works that they should be worthy of contending with.

All the Best,

Kim

Have a question for you. I’ve seen ebook prices all over the place, really high and very low. I’ve priced my 4 books low — I’d rather sell a lot of them at a low price than just a trickle of them at a high price. What are your thoughts as to pricing?

Thank you.
CJ

Thanks for dropping by CJ. Very interested to read your comment about self publishing. No matter how much I (we) moan and groan, it really is a great new opportunity for authors.