The E-Book as Print-Edition Ad
Opening Day, Les Standiford's novella about Satchel Paige, former Negro Leagues baseball star (LiveReads), includes a lot more than good reading. There is an interactive baseball game, rare photos, hundreds of hypertext and website links, and extensive background info on Negro League Baseball. Oh, and there are also advertisements.
Interestingly, the ads are for print books. "Still like paper and ink?" the ad on the second page asks. "Click to buy the paperback."
"We wanted the e-book to act as a brochure for the print version because we know most people still prefer the traditional experience," told Scott Waxman, president of LiveReads.
A print-edition version of Opening Day will go on sale Wednesday.
Neal Bascomb, LiveReads CEO, told that the company's release last fall of Jack Kerouac’s Orpheus Emerged helped generate serious print book sales. "So rather than wait around for e-books to become a market, we are going to use them to help publishers market print books," Bascomb said.
Bascomb sees such complementary editions as the real future of publishing. LiveReads studios said it will soon provide production and marketing services for other publishers, helping them to use e-books to stimulate and encourage print sales.
Queen gets royalty treatment: Months of self promoting recently paid off for self-published author India Edghill, when St. Martin's Press purchased her book, Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen.
Edghill tried the traditional route three years ago, but her previous agent couldn’t interest a New York house. At that time, neither mainstream nor small presses thought the market for a woman’s biblical novel was very strong, said Edghill.
So Edghill went to Xlibris.com and self-published her novel about King David’s first wife. Then she did everything she could to get it noticed.
Of course it had to read well. Her sister, published author Rosemary Edghill, helped with the editing, and noted cover artist Judy York gave Queenmaker a professional look.
She distributed flyers and postcards. She promoted herself at the Romantic Times Book Fair. She browsed the listings for similar books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and e-mailed a self-promotional piece to people who'd done reader reviews. Edghill also searched the Net for book clubs and book groups and sent them free copies.
The turning point came when -- with the urging of Xlibris -- The New York Times wrote about the book in an article about new frontiers in e-publishing.
The most important aspect, however, was the quality of the work.
"All that mattered to me was India’s strong narrative power," said Diana Higgins, senior editor at St. Martin's. The book is scheduled to be published in hardcover this winter.
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