We're outta here...

It's not quite as stressful as the upheaval of moving house, but ditching one blog and heading to new digs does bring with it a tinge of sadness. You grow accustomed to a place, you know?

Anyway, Nemesis is leaving Blogger behind and we've settled in nicely at our new blog, which is housed on our spanking new website - www.nemesispublishing.com (my writing and reading blogs will remain with Blogger, so I won't miss the place too much)

If you have a few minutes to look around the website, please do. Feel free to sign up for our newsletter, which will keep you up-to-date with the latest Nemesis news, including new books and competitions. And do take part in our polls - we'll be updating them regularly, and while some will be just a bit of fun, most will focus on books and publishing and will act as a form of market research for us, such as the current poll about the cost of ebooks.

If you've followed this blog for the last year or two, thanks for sticking with us. If you're new, then we hope you hang around and enjoy what we have to offer.

The new blog will be updated on a much more frequent basis, and if you 'follow' this blog, you might want to make sure you're a follower on Facebook's networked blogs too, as that still links through to the new blog.

And if you've got a feed from this blog to your own blog, you'll need to go in and change the settings to take that feed from the Nemesis website instead of here.

So, to pastures new. Take care, and keep reading. And writing. Definitely keep writing.

The advancing army of ebooks

As a small publisher, just starting out on the road to bestsellerdom and Booker award dinners (because that's what it's all about, right?), one of the most important issues to address is the rise of the ebook.

I say rise, because even if the ebook's percentage of today's market today is relatively minor - research stats vary, but it's only a few per cent, if that - you can rest assured that the number is rising, and isn't likely to fall away any time soon.

Eighteen months ago, I shook my head and smiled mockingly when someone suggested I might want to buy an ebook reader and give them a whirl. No chance, says I. I'm a traditional kinda guy, and I know what I like and I like what I know.

Earlier today I was reading Peter Cox's column in The Bookseller, where he talks about the pricing of ebooks and the recent standoff between Amazon and Macmillan. As interesting as the column is, it was the comments it attracted that caught my interest. There are still those within the industry, or commentating on the industry, who continue to dismiss ebooks out of hand. It's their opinion, of course. But, having delved into the ebook phenomenen since I somewhat harshly dismissed them, I now find it hard to believe anyone connected with publishing can brush the ebook off like an irritating sprinkle of dandruff on the shoulder of their pristine suit.

We may still be a long way off the rule of the ebook, but today's younger generation will only further embrace them.

Pricing remains the key to ebooks. Sure, the technology needs to improve (and come down in cost, which it surely will), as does the quality and quantity of titles available as ebooks. But to my mind, if ebooks are pitched at the right level - be it by the publisher or the 'bookseller' - then the market will sit up and take note.

What is that price? If a new paperback costs £7.99, what would we pay for the same title as an ebook? £3.00? £3.50? Lower than a three...? I don't know, but everyone has a level at which they will be persuaded.

There are markets that Nemesis can look to tap into with ebooks. There are communities of Manx across the globe, throughout America, South Africa, Dubai, New Zealand and Australia. Having written a couple of books, I know the difficulty of selling to these communities when it costs so much to ship the book over, particularly if it's a somewhat weighty tome.

Ebooks could just be the answer. In fact, they are the answer; we just need to persuade our fine, upstanding potential customers around the globe that that is the case.

And so the research continues. Has anyone tried an ebook reader? How did you find the reading experience? What price would persuade you to ditch the hard copy and go with the ebook? And surely there are some authors, your favourites, for whom you'd be happy to fork out for the hard copy, regardless of how cheap the ebook might be...?

Thanks for reading
JohnQ

What's that, authors? You want to be paid, as well?

I had the rather cool pleasure to be a guest panellist on the Litopia After Dark podcast at the weekend, alongside Martin Daniels, who, amongst other things, blogs for The Bookseller. There's not a whole lot he doesn't know, or have an opinion about, in the world of publishing.

If you’re not familiar with the podcast (and if you’re serious about books, you should be), each panellist raises an issue they want to talk (or rant) about. The ebook phenomenon has been a regular feature in recent months, and Friday night’s show was no exception.

We started with a look at the threatened boycott of Amazon's Kindle ebook reader by independent publisher Antellus, who has been riled by the fact that ebook editions published for the Kindle, and subsequently retired and taken off-line, are still being sold, not to mention claims about Amazon's seller agreement, which it says allows Amazon to modify and sell books from its suppliers in whatever format it chooses.

Martyn then weighed in on the issue of royalties from ebooks - and whether authors are being screwed. With advances going down, at all levels but the very top, and with a market where the recommended retail price often has little relevance, where is an author's money coming from - and how will authors be paid for ebook sales?

He suggested that, rather than an across the board contract between publisher and author, a publisher could have separate digital rights for each sales avenue - eg Amazon, Google - and on renewable contracts, allowing for changes. On the face of it, these suggestions sound reasonable.

The whole ebook industry remains an entirely unpredictable business. Its share of the book market is advancing year-on-year, but quite how that growth is going to continue over the next five, ten or twenty years is difficult to predict. The likes of the Kindle are increasing in popularity, yet I've yet to speak to one person who would ever consider going for an ebook over a traditional slab of paper, other than some agents, who like the flexibility of being able to take a couple of hundred manuscripts to the gym with them for a good read on the treadmill.

One thing is sure - as a new publisher, it's an area in which we need to keep our eye on the ball, starting now. I'm woefully ignorant about ebooks and their implications for the publishing industry, and I don't think I'm alone. It's going to mean a tonne of research and trying to understand an area that is complex to say the least. And we'll be considering Martyn's suggestions for when we enter the ebook market.

But it's equally important for authors to keep abreast of developments, to ensure they understand the implications for their profession. If ebooks are here to stay, then it's better to be in from the start than trying to play catch-up when the ebook industry is well and truly cooking.

It won't hang around for you.