My How This Business Has Changed! — Out of Print Books
Joe Kornrath has been conducting an e-book experiment, using the reverted rights on his hardcover series, mixed in with a few new works. He’s made some interesting discoveries, and generously shared them. I can’t explain it better than Joe, so go read his blog.
What most impresses me, especially after the conversations swirling around the conference I attended at the beginning of the month, is his willingness to furnish hard figures. While his data pool is too small to make generalized conclusions from, any writer who has obtained the rights back from already published books can see that there is money to be made.
I recently researched an article on this subject, and discovered that serious markets for out of print books have been growing for about a decade. They are about to explode.
I’m still not sure how I feel about my out of print books (I have rights back to five of my historical romance titles), as I am writing something completely different now, under the same name. But I can see I need to sit down and figure out whether I want to Kindle my books or not.
Joe’s numbers, and his forthright sharing with the community, are awesome, if not definitive…yet. He breaks the sales/distribution down very clearly, and he has added in a comparison to his most recent e-book sales through his publisher.
When I sold my first book ten years ago, I had never heard of out of print e- and POD publishers. Now the options are greater — including putting my own books on Kindle myself, without needed a publishing middle-man.
What’s next? Or should I ask, who’s next? Lee Goldberg has been conducting his own experiment, inspired by Joe. Read all about it in his blog (don’t forget the archives on either Joe or Lee’s blogs). And maybe soon you can read about a non-mystery writer’s experiment right here.
After I get my new proposal out the door (fabulous new idea, requiring lots of research, read all about it tomorrow).
