The Rocky Road to Publishing

[StephVE]

Since many of the posts were made a while ago, is there a consensus of which e-book publisher is best for authors? Which one provides the best sales and royalty stream?

[Ruby]

Since many of the posts were made a while ago, is there a consensus of which e-book publisher is best for authors? Which one provides the best sales and royalty stream?

Hi StephVE,

I don't believe there is one e-book publisher that is best for all authors. E-book publishers, as well as sites that take e-books directly from the author, are often seeking specific genres, formats, etc.

And the personality of the publisher, or the person you'll be working with is also important. If you don't like dealing with that person, it's not going to be a good relationship for either of you.

Most publishers are competitive with sales and the royalty stream. They have to be in order to secure new authors and keep others returning to publish with them again.

Other things to think about:

Are they asking you to pay them for being your publisher?
(A huge warning sign.)

What rights are they asking to your work?
* Exclusive or non-exclusive?
* For how long?
* Do you retain rights to any derivative works?
* Do you retain rights to screen plays, movie/TV/video productions based on your work?

* If you are unhappy with the contract, how quickly can you end it and under what conditions?

How much marketing/promotion does the publisher do and how much is the author expected to do?

Does the e-book publisher have an easy to use web site(s) for sales?

What's there distribution channel?

Will you as an author, have an opportunity to have an affiliate site - for your own works - or for a book store - where you can make money off the sale of other author's works?

The more you research, compare the contracts and author submission guidelines of the various publishers, the more you'll gravitate to a chosen few that meet your needs.

If you want to clarify your questions to a particular genre, like BDSM books, I recommend these sites, which work with publishers and authors directly.

www.a1adultebooks.com

www.bdsmbooks.com

www.bondagebookshelf.com

Here's an example of an affiliate website through A1adultebooks that my publisher uses to promote her authors. After you get through the "I'm old enough to enter" page, you are dropped into a page that leads to the books published by her company.

http://www.a1adultebooks.com/17.htm

Note: Authors or individuals can sign up and promote their own affiliate sites. Each affiliate has a choice of "landing pages" and can promote what they want. It's also easy to track royalty payments online, so an affiliate always knows what's been sold and when.

To your success,

Ruby

Who's next?

[Eponine]

WOW. This thread is a monstrously super-duper source of information!!!!!!! on publishing.... awesome...
okay... the reason i got into these forums is because of my main concern (paranoia?) about plagiarism... i've been wanting to submit some writing since i joined the site, but first wanted to make sure i wouldn't go to the adult bookstore and find my story there with someone else's name on it (& making money of it too!)
Does no one else have this concern too? Does a simple copyright symbol w/ my name take care of that?
Thanks from a newbie.

[Ruby]

Hi ThisGirl,

Your concern is very valid.

Protecting your works with a copyright statement does not keep others from copying it and claiming it as their own.

It does help you win your case if you go to court.

Think twice and then again before submitting your work to any website.

What is the purpose of submitting work that you eventually want people to pay for? If it's to get them excited about your writing, then have a plan and determine how much of any story you want to submit. Many publishers don't like to see more than one chapter available online for free.

If you want to share your stories and don't plan to sell them, then that's a different story. Though I'd be pretty ticked to find out someone had copied my work and sold it as their own, you would have a fair amount of legal protection by posting the copyright notice with the story.

The same goes for stories that you just want to share and plan on making other stories available for sale. Look at the success of Powerone.

He has posted over 30 stories on this website in the library and is a top selling author on adult e-book sites.

The policies on this website are different from others. This sites can be found here: http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/stories/story_submit.php

If you want reviewers to read your work, and have more control over it, you might try a site like www.writing.com, where you can password protect your writing, or decide how much of any story is posted at a given time.

To your success,

Ruby

[annie]

This thread is being closed. Some of the links posted in it are commercial links. Due to the fact they were posted before the rules changed the links will not be removed but the thread will be closed for further comment.

Thanks!

[annie]

Based on the updated guidelines this thread can be open again! YEAH!

And thanks to ML providing memory support... thanks!

[Razor7826]

This is a great thread, and I'm happy that it is opened again.

Considering that I want to stay anonymous in my writings, is there any way for me to write a copyright statement?

Also, is there a rough amount that e-publishers pay per download, and is it difficult to convince them to put your story up for sale?

[Mad Lews]

This is a great thread, and I'm happy that it is opened again.

Considering that I want to stay anonymous in my writings, is there any way for me to write a copyright statement?

Also, is there a rough amount that e-publishers pay per download, and is it difficult to convince them to put your story up for sale?

Dear Razor 7826,

You need to use a name to make a copyright statement. Pen names are quite common and perfectly acceptable.
Believe it or not my R/l name isn't Mad Lews but something much less mundane. still I get away with copyright Mad Lews 2007, and that will stake my name to the story.

E-publishers payments vary and are usually listed in their notes to authors page. The two I'm familiar with are

http://www.bdsmbooks.com/ which pays 40% of each purchase for first run stories. (not published elsewhere) royalty's are payable monthly and can be payed via p** P*l (which doesn't know its dealing with adult material)

http://www.a1adultebooks.com/ on the other hand pays 60% royalty's but you can only collect payment when they owe you $50.00 or more. If you're a best seller no problem but for more than a few it leaves you high and dry.

Both are looking for adult stories of about 30,000 to 50,000 words. They will take some collections of short stories that are exceptional if the entire collection meets their minimum size requirement. I also suspect it depends on how desperate they are for stories at the time. Try to remember they need to put out 4-8 books a month. You are producing a product for them and they are not doing you a favor. It's a business.

hope that helps

Mad Lews

[Torq]

Hello Mad Lews,

Your welcome. We need more openness and free flowing adult convo's.

Be Well
T

[Razor7826]

How genre specific does a story need to be? I am working on an M/f rape/slavery story, but there is some F/f domination and slight generic lesbianism. Should I stick to only M/f bdsm?

[Mad Lews]

How genre specific does a story need to be? I am working on an M/f rape/slavery story, but there is some F/f domination and slight generic lesbianism. Should I stick to only M/f bdsm?

Tell a good story and the tight genre specifics won't matter. You are in fact writing for the customers so what they find enjoyable they will purchase. side trips into variations are fine if they serve the story. The general theme of BDSM
are important to
http://www.bdsmbooks.com/ but even there imaginative variations are quite acceptable.

[Ruby]

How genre specific does a story need to be? I am working on an M/f rape/slavery story, but there is some F/f domination and slight generic lesbianism. Should I stick to only M/f bdsm?

Visit the sites and you can see the types of categories they support and promote.

You might even want to purchase a book or three to determine the quality of what they are seeking.

[Mad Lews]

Ok, Ok, it's only a short story in an anthology but still it's a first for me.
Here be the scoop. Back in January Carol Queen sent out a call for 1000 word erotic stories for a sequel to the "5 Minute Erotica" anthology.
A friend of mine got one of those e-mails and passed it on to me.

Ms. Queen was looking for what would sell; mostly straight, lightly kinky, hetro erotica of about 1000 words or a five minute read. It sounded a bit like the "Short Take" thread. I stitched together an appropriate story, ran it by Dragon's Muse for obvious blunders, and sent it off with an introduction by mid February.

I heard it was accepted in May and a contract was signed with Running Press (who's publishing the anthology) in Sept. Today I got the Check. a onetime payment of $70.00 not that much but a resume builder when you're trying to sell another manuscript.


The book titled "More 5 Minute Erotica will be published in December if all goes well but at this point I need only cash my check and wish them well.

I put little black squiggles on paper.... Mum would be so proud.

Mad Lews

[Razor7826]

Do any of the sites consistently release sales numbers so it can be determined which has more 'traffic', and what sort of fees do they take out of your royalties check? I am really warming up to the idea of producing a longer work for commercial sale.

I'm pretty sure Bondage Book Shelf is not the site it once was...

[Ruby]

Good point, Razor

Since this thread began, two of the sites are no longer available for our authors:

www.maidenheadbooks.com
www.bondagebookshelf.com

Now about releasing sales numbers:

Most sites have posted their payment policies in great detail. If you submit a book and are accepted, each seller/publisher will provide you current sales for biz tracking purposes. Will they provide you with information about sales of other authors? You have to ask them directly. I'd expect a no.

You might want to contact other authors privately and ask them if they are pleased with sales an specific site or with a particular publisher.

[Ruby]

Three cheers for the Mad Lews:

Hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray!

Congratulations!

[tessa]

My most sincere congratulations.

tessa

[Mad Lews]

I’ve another short story accepted, this one is going into the “Mammoth Book of Erotic Confessions” by the British publisher hotspotbooks.co.uk . The book comes out in May of ’09 and the recompense is the princely sum of £10.00 per thousand words, my £22 could well be worth $50.00 by the time it’s paid.

God I feel like a corporate robber baron cutting down them trees.

Mad Lews

[Isabella King]

I'm pretty damn sure that you put a lot more than £22 worth of effort into writing it.

[Mad Lews]

I'm pretty damn sure that you put a lot more than £22 worth of effort into writing it.

So true my dear, but it looks good on your resume when you try to pitch a manuscript idea.

[Euryleia]

I’ve another short story accepted, this one is going into the “Mammoth Book of Erotic Confessions” by the British publisher hotspotbooks.co.uk . The book comes out in May of ’09 and the recompense is the princely sum of £10.00 per thousand words, my £22 could well be worth $50.00 by the time it’s paid.

God I feel like a corporate robber baron cutting down them trees.

Mad Lews

Heck, Mad Lews. It is only the Lorax who speaks for the trees. Keep pimping the volume so you can get even more of 'em sold.

Congratulations on the acceptance.

[Mad Lews]

Heck, Mad Lews. It is only the Lorax who speaks for the trees. Keep pimping the volume so you can get even more of 'em sold.

Congratulations on the acceptance.

But, but, Nietzsche swore to me Seuss was dead.
The great thing about this arrangement is I'll get my 22 pounds no matter how many books they sell. Still I suppose you're right I should wish them financial success so they're tempted to do it again.

Mad

[underwhere]

I didn't really come here looking to publish my work through any other means than self-publishing here on the BDSM Library, but of the one story I have here in the Library so far, of which two chapters are currently posted, I've had over ten thousand readers. I have a third chapter in the works, and I anticipate chapters beyond that but I haven't yet fleshed those out more than a simple outline yet.

One thing I've noticed is that this site seems to count unique visitors to a story, but not unique visitors to parts of stories. My second chapter was published here roughly a month after my first chapter. Its been a bit difficult for me to determine whether I had an audience with the first chapter who came back for the second, or whether I had an audience discovering my second chapter as a story update and wanting to read the first chapter. As a result, its difficult for me to determine how much "staying power" this story has.

Based upon what I've read here, I've made some mistakes already and have some questions:

* I did not explicitly mark my story parts with a copyright, although my name is attached at the top of the text of each section as per suggested guidelines previously posted. (Possible suggestion to the BDSM Library: Would it be possible to have this as a part of the submission process, to add such a copyright notice or at least a date of copyright? i.e., "Attach copyright notice to story" as a field to fill in when submitting stories, probably marked by default) Need I do that with each story part, or just with the story as a whole, for example, on the story's web page here on the BDSM Library?

* If I choose to use a pen name (such as my username here), would/could that effect a publisher's desire to potentially publish my work in paper rather than as an e-book?

* It is my understanding from reading the TOS of this web site that once stories are published here, they will not be removed for any reason. (I can't now find a source for this, but I do remember reading it somewhere. Can somebody clarify if this is still true or if it ever was true?)

I can't think of any other questions or comments right now, but I'm sure I'll be back when I do. I hope I don't wind up pestering you all too much.

[Isabella King]

You automatically hold the copyright to anything you write, but if it's posted anywhere on the internet it will be considered as already published, and so, not worth so much to a publisher.

There's nothing wrong with using a pen name - I've seen some weird ones on e-books - I can't somehow see your user name on the cover of a paperback though

[Mad Lews]

My dearest underwhere,

Did I actually say that?

Each time a reader opens your story (or part of your story) you score a hit! Multi chapter stories posted over time tend to have a larger readership number for that reason.
You can always stick a copyright notice in at the end or even as a revision of previously posted works. Its helpful if you think someone might lift your story word for word and try to pass it off as their own.

Publishers frown on trying to charge people for something that you've given away for free. Even then, say you've posted the first three chapters of a ten chapter saga, they may well give that a thumbs up if they are getting the exclusive on the whole story. e-publishers who invest much less in publishing a story tend to be laxer in these matters.

Paper publishers (the monsters bent on destroying old growth checkered owl habitats) might ask that you withdraw any free e-published versions of the story. That led to a dust up a few years back when ownership changed. the former owner Jinn had no problem pulling an old story pretty much at the authors request. New ownership, not so much. A number of fairly respected writers stopped posting. A direct question to Tiger might help you here, but you're more likely to get a response from Torq.

The best rule of thumb might be, if you hope to sell it, don't give it away. This is especially true if (like me) you hope to desecrate paper when you grow up.

Ms. King is quite right about pen names, sometimes I feel a distinct need to shorten mine to M. Lews, though savvy perverts are not fooled.

Yours
Mad Lews

[underwhere]

My dearest underwhere,

Did I actually say that?

Each time a reader opens your story (or part of your story) you score a hit!

Okay, that answers one of my questions directly. I was a bit unsure as to how that worked. Thanks for the clarification. If they were to read each of my two chapters separately, that would be two hits. If they were to read the whole thing all at once as it is currently, that would be one hit. I'm not sure that is the most useful way to do it for statistical purposes of determining if my story actually has staying power, but I'm not honestly sure how I would make that better.

You can always stick a copyright notice in at the end or even as a revision of previously posted works. Its helpful if you think someone might lift your story word for word and try to pass it off as their own.

Probably nobody ever thinks that is going to happen, but each of us must be careful with such things and do whatever we can to protect ourselves. I guess I should start adding copyright notices to each of my story parts and my story information page just to be safe.

Publishers frown on trying to charge people for something that you've given away for free. Even then, say you've posted the first three chapters of a ten chapter saga, they may well give that a thumbs up if they are getting the exclusive on the whole story. e-publishers who invest much less in publishing a story tend to be laxer in these matters.

I can understand and definitely appreciate that. What prompted me to write that particular response was the fact that if my story received more than ten thousand hits for two story parts, there would seem to be quite a following for the story, and then I got to thinking, "What if there really is a following for this story?" I guess I've been dreaming a bit about planting a money tree with my writing since then.

Paper publishers (the monsters bent on destroying old growth checkered owl habitats) might ask that you withdraw any free e-published versions of the story. That led to a dust up a few years back when ownership changed. the former owner Jinn had no problem pulling an old story pretty much at the authors request. New ownership, not so much. A number of fairly respected writers stopped posting. A direct question to Tiger might help you here, but you're more likely to get a response from Torq.

At some point, I will be sure to inquire if they do not happen to read this thread first.

Ms. King is quite right about pen names, sometimes I feel a distinct need to shorten mine to M. Lews, though savvy perverts are not fooled.

I had pretty much assumed as much, but you know what they say about assuming.....so its good to get feedback on that too. Thank you for your response. It has been helpful to me.

[underwhere]

Apparently, the question of whether stories can be removed or not seems top be a "No" based upon my reading from this FAQ page http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/forums/fa...faq_main_story as follows: "Submitted Story Copyrights
After submitting your story ---you the author still maintain the copyright -all submitting a story to be published on this site does is give the site non-exclusive posting rights---which means you can post or publish your story anywhere else you like ---but the story will not be removed from the site unless it breaks a site policy"

In other words, unless somebody is willing to say something contrary to this and change the appropriate FAQ information, it would seem that removal of stories previously published in the BDSM Library is NOT an option, perhaps something to be considered by people if they should wish to go down this route in light of the previous discussion in this thread.

[Clevernick]

I can understand and definitely appreciate that. What prompted me to write that particular response was the fact that if my story received more than ten thousand hits for two story parts, there would seem to be quite a following for the story, and then I got to thinking, "What if there really is a following for this story?" I guess I've been dreaming a bit about planting a money tree with my writing since then.

A belated response to this from my own experience.

I published the first few chapters of my novel "From Zealot to Harlot" on this library (under the title "Obnoxious Housemate" though), and for some time was counting library "hits" and purchases at the same time.

During that time, the library version was right up on the front page, and pointed to the "for money" full version, so people were being directed there.

And now the bad news. People who read bdsm stories free tend to be less enthusiastic about paying for them. Although I had very high ratings (9/10), I sold roughly 1 book for every 1000 reader 'hits' shown on the free site. So 10,000 hits is a following, if you don't mind selling 10 copies of your book.

Sad, but there you go. Of course, your mileage may vary.

[StephVE]

I agree with Lewis about copyright. Also if you share a story you wrote with a friend make sure you starte that the sory and the ideas are to remain as confidential. It porvides greater rights. Also place the copyright c on the first page

[Clevernick]

Now that I'm actually running one of these publishers, I see it from the other side too. If I do publish a book that's available elsewhere for free, I'm sure to hear about it from at least one purchaser, who will generally be annoyed and demand a refund. One or two such experiences is enough to make it a priority to check for that problem.

In fact, it goes further than that. It's not unusual for an author to publish a collection of short stories with more than one publisher. If one comes to me after it's been published elsewhere, and I want to change the title story cuz I think the original title sucked, it's a mistake. I shouldn't.

Because if I do, people will complain that I did it to deceive them into buying a book they already owned.

Tricky, this business.