Richard Curtis in a recent EReads post asks a provocative question: Do authors make good publishers? The question is in the context of ebooks, keep that in mind.

They point to high-profile authors who have tried this route this year: Cory Doctorow, Seth Godwin and J.A. Conrath. Curtis concludes that the services of a publisher are valuable.

As he quotes Doctorow, “With a Little Help has helped me realize something: whatever I do next, I don’t want to be in charge of all these moving parts. I can’t be both a Zen, let-it-all-happen-at-its-own-pace writer and an aggressive, deadline-pushing publisher. If I were realistically going to keep up this publishing stuff, I would need to outsource every task that requires the virtues inherent in agents, editors, sales, marketing, distribution and retail, especially that willingness to tithe a large portion of my working day to logistics, follow-ups, and calls.”

Here Conrath however, takes issue with Curtis’ conclusion, reporting, “In December, I made over $24,000 self-publishing, and I’m currently averaging $1300 per day. But I’m far from the only one doing well.”

He then lists many authors with sales figures of over 1000 ebooks in December and concludes that you should self-publish.

May you always Find your Way!

What do you think? Know anyone successfully selling ebooks? Ready to move toward self-publishing? Or, like Doctorow, do you still appreciate the professional team of a publisher?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

iPad’s Page Flips Excite Captain Underpants Fans

So, you’re hearing all about the new iPad this week, Apple’s new eBook reader. But for those who write children’s books, there’s one unique thing about this ereader.

Page flips. Oh, yes–watch this 54 second video; about halfway through, you’ll see the page flips.

I’m excited! The Flip-o-rama in Captain Underpants will still work fine. The controls aren’t quite good enough to do a full flip book, but that ax-chopping in Captain will still delight your child. (Too bad they didn’t choose to use the Captain when they presented the iPad for the first time – that would have been fun.)

Standard format. I’m also pleased to see that the iPad uses the ePub standard for books, not some proprietary format like the Kindle. That’s a big plus and we’ll all benefit. Someone will soon create an iPad app to read pdf files and that will be a big plus for many books, too.

Good job, Apple!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win