PDF fantasy fiction.

[RangerWickett]

There is already an established niche for pdf publishers of game products, but are there publishers who sell pure fiction in pdf format, or any similar digital-only format? Have any of you bought fiction online?

I remember getting a free demo at a digital-book site four or five years ago, because I wanted to read some scripts by J. Michael Straczynski that were never produced. But I never bought anything. Of course, I was just out of high school, and broke, but I don't know if I would have bought a book if I could have.

Unlike game books, which can go for $20 for 128 pages, novels typically sell at $8 for 300 pages. I have some friends who are interested in doing online comics in pdf format, but if you're going to buy a 30-page comic for $3, how much comic would you want in digital format to be willing to pay the $5 an average vendor might use as the minimum purchase?

Are any of you familiar with people who have already done this? Anyone know any good sites I could take a look at? Do the books just have text, or do they add extras in the pdfs to differentiate themselves from normal old html documents?

If you haven't guessed, I'm considering going the self-publishing route if I have a hard time selling my fiction the traditional way, and I'd like people's comments. Thanks.

 

[Buttercup]

E-books have not been embraced by the public at large. Simply put, nobody wants to read a novel on a screen.

I assume you know that there are different style standards for writing a web page than for writing a regular text? The main thing is that sentences and paragraphs should be shorter for the web because people don't read in the same way when they're looking at a screen. This is seriously bad news for the future of e book publishing.

Game books aren't generally read from cover to cover the way novels are, and if you have an e book, you are probably using it at the gaming table. In that case, you are most likely interested in the format for its searchable quality. Then too, consider why it is that many pdfs are released in a full color version and a printer-friendly version. Even we gamers want a hard copy.

 

[Turanil]

I am in the process of myself writing (in English!) a sci-fi novel (around 500 pages), and thus I am interested in any way to publish it. So, I am eager to hear more on this subject.

Concerning people not liking reading novels on screen, I much agree with this statement. However, we are not far from the first... mmmh... how to describe that... electronic devices that will look and feel like a tablet on which you make appear text, so basically it's like reading a book.

 

[philreed]

www.lulu.com

 

[Umbran]

E-books have not been embraced by the public at large. Simply put, nobody wants to read a novel on a screen.

*nod*. The technology to do decent e-book readers isn't quite here yet.

Usually, when considering a digital analog of a conventional product, it pays to not reinvent the wheel - rather than try to duplicate the conventional product exactly, you stress the things that the digital product can do that the conventional one doesn't. I think, though, that print books already do their job so well that the digital products will need to try to copy them as closely as possible.

That means that e-books won't live on desktop PCs. They'll need a reader that is light and portable and durable. Folks are going to want to take it to their comfy chairs, beds, and bubble baths. They're going to want to shove them in their purses and backpacks. The screen will have to be easy on the eye. It will have to be small enough to be portable, but also sized and weighted so that hte reader can bring it close enough to their face that it takes up a large part of their field of vision, shutting out distractions. And they'll want them to run for many hours without maintenance.

Desktop PCs aren't at all portable. Currently pda screens are too small and the objects too fragile. Tablet PCs are perhaps a bit too big and heavy, and certainly ahve too short a battery life.

When they produce an e-book reader that duplicates a print book experience closely enough, then e-books will take off. Not before.

 

[Desdichado]

pdfs and pdas are a good mix, though. Although my pda is currently defunct, and it was too old and had too little memory to really handle a pdf book anyway, I know I could get some use out of a pdf on a pda. It would have to be pure text, no fancy graphics or layout, but it'd still work.

But it'd still be a distant second to a real book, I'm afraid.

 

[DMScott]

There is already an established niche for pdf publishers of game products, but are there publishers who sell pure fiction in pdf format, or any similar digital-only format? Have any of you bought fiction online?

There are, but I don't think they sell at all well. The main market is people with text-to-audio software who are unable to read for whatever reason. More common is publishers and authors making some books available for free download. Usually these are for established authors with a lot of related work, the theory is that if somebody enjoys the free stuff they'll buy other books by the same author and/or in the same series. For example, Baen Books' Free Library:

http://www.baen.com/library/

Lots of people make their stuff available free on the web in hopes of eventually being "discovered" and getting to sell some of their writing. The success rate is about the same as for people who move to LA and hope to get discovered by a director and catapulted into movie stardom, but hope springs eternal.

 

[tensen]

E-books have not been embraced by the public at large. Simply put, nobody wants to read a novel on a screen.

Nobody?
http://www.baen.com/library/

I personally don't want to read a novel online, but I know a good many people do. Baen Books has their free online library... and a subscrition library. They have at points in the past posted sales data. Documenting the amount of people that read online. And it has also boosted the sales of their print products... which countered other publisher's statements that they'd lose money.

 

[Davelozzi]

In my opinion, there is so much bad fantasy fiction even in print that I would be extremely unlikely to ever put any time into anything that was only being published electronically. Sometimes, a barrier to entry is agood thing.

On top of that, I much prefer a book in the hand. That's true of game products as well, but I'll occasionally buy a .PDF for a specialized need.

 

[Umbran]

Nobody?
http://www.baen.com/library/

I personally don't want to read a novel online, but I know a good many people do. Baen Books has their free online library... and a subscrition library.

Baen is quite up-front about this. The electronic products they offer are there to drive print sales. They expect people to read some of the stuff in electronic format, like it, and go out and buy the printed version of the books.

By what some Baen representatives have said at conventions, what they mostly see is people reading a couple of chapters in electronic format, and then either stopping or buying the book.