Paper Books Or Ebooks?

Hi everyone,

Yes, I have a selfish reason for asking. Basically, I have written a philatelic mystery novel that I am in the process of pitching for publication. But in this day and age when mysteries have flooded the market, I am fully prepared to self-publish. Even if I do self-publish, I can always turn around and sell to a traditional publisher.

Anyway, stamp collectors would be a prime audience for this novel. So my question is, are folks of our ilk yet moving into eBooks much or does everyone still prefer the old-fashioned paper book?

If price makes a difference, I would guess an eBook might cost somewhere between $2.99 and $4.99; a paper-style book would probably be somewhere between $12 and $15.

Thanks so much for your input .. I really appreciate it!

(I hope it was OK to ask this ... not exactly a philatelic question .. which is why I put it into this forum)

Respectfully,
Jeff S.

p.s. - Sorry, I began this in another area, but it was not showing up in the 100 Latest posts, etc., so I moved it here.

Stamp mystery sounds good! Years ago I remember reading Cancelled in Red by Hugh Pentecost. Also some of the Lawrence Block books have stamps in them.

Anyway,

This might be too overkill, but this guys blog might be helpful.

http://jeffposey.net/2013/05/02/wha...d-cash-flow/

I prefer ebooks any day.
I would only consider buying a regular book if I needed its content very badly.

Good luck with the project. Please post a link in this thread if/when your book is available.

Another vote for ebook!

Centerstage, I suppose I am still an old fashioned guy as I prefer to feel a book with pages in my hand.
Having said that, I can see the advantages of an E-book. My daughter is a librarian ( media specialist ) in a middle school, and I am a volunteer. One of the things that bug me is the shape of the books some of the kids return. Next year the library will have E-books; if the kids break or damage the reader at least it is not on the taxpayer.
One of the main disadvantages of the E-book is the ridiculous price charged for a title. Look at Amazon; an E-book is often almost as expensive as a regular book!

Peter

Other than reference catalogs for stamp collecting, I can't remember the last time I bought a book that wasn't an e-book.

My vote is for EBook...when you get to be an old fart..it's great to adjust the font size..can't do that with a paper book unless yo use a magnifying glass.

Paper books. Suits me anyway.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Ebook. Just don't have room for real books that aren't reference books or classics.

My answer would depend a bit on format and how long the book is (paper edition, estimated number of pages? Paperback or hardbound?).

I'd also be curious what proportion of "book readers" in general have the proper equipment for an e-book.

Either way, you could sell advertising space to dealers to appear in the last 3 or 4 pages of the book, regardless of format, to offset your up-front costs. With the e-book (I've seen this done), about 2/3 of the way through, you can also let the reader select an ending out of several choices, based on plot twists. That means more writing, but you may have already wrestled with a variety of endings, trying to decide.

One other point, whichever format you choose, have one or two more things to sell. The buyer of the book is a captive audience, you already have a general feel for what he/she's interested in, and the incremental cost of offering additional "merchandise" is virtually nil. Follow the money, and never sell just one thing at a time.

E-book.

I do not read ebooks. I do not have an ebook reader. Suffice to say, your best bet for financial success (or financial break/even) is to go with ebooks.

These are great comments and I appreciate them greatly!

For the record it is about 300 pages - 121,000 words.

It's kind of a combination of history and mystery - imagines who stole the McCoy block of Jenny inverts and where the two missing stamps are ...
It touches on first flight and Jenny history - plus WWII ship convoy, 1950s (when stamps were stolen) ... plus has the contemporary touch with dead bodies and stuff blowing up!

I am making final tweaks and edits on it right now; still seeking an agent; but hope to at least have an eBook version by Sept. when the new $2 inverted Jennys are issued. Then, later will have some kind of run of paper books - likely a softcover to keep everyones' costs down.

I had never considered accepting advertising ... that is an interesting idea .. thanks for that!

And if more people have opinions, I welcome them.

While I have an Ebook reader and lots of Ebooks, I still prefer flipping the pages on a hard copy. I find reading Ebooks a bit of a chore.

Sounds interesting!

A Normal Book

I personally despise ebooks- but an important thing to consider would be your market- what is the percentage of the philatelic community who would use ereaders or kindles?

If you do that and decide on paper book, then you cannot ship the book by media mail.