Question
What are your experiences as a self-published author?
Answer
Published http://tempobook.com last year. Paperback via LightningSource, using the short discounting model outlined in Aaron Shepherd's excellent "Aiming at Amazon" (basically a way to sacrifice physical retail for Amazon for higher margins and profits for those who expect 99% of sales to be online anyway).
http://www.amazon.com/Aiming-Ama...
eBook 6 months later via KDP and Nook. I ignored Kobo and the other long tail channels, but not very hard to get at all of them via LightningSource. You don't want to use LightningSource for Kindle and Nook because the volumes are high enough that saving on the commission is worth it.
I priced the book at the same levels as comparable regular publisher books, so my margins are much higher, as Aman pointed out. I chose not to make it unusually cheap or free. At some point I may do that. Right now it is paperback at $18.95, ebook at $9.99. Margins on the order of 70% in ebook, 65% on paperback. I may drop the price at some point in the future, but probably never permanently to free.
If I were to do it again, I'd go ebook first, or even abandon paper altogether. I'd price low, normal or high depending on the content, market and intent. I am generally averse to pricing low/zero for volume/publicity reasons or accepting a loss leader for dubious derivative benefits. Being able to sell at a meaningful profit is an important test of credibility for me. I may consider switching from LightningSource to Createspace (or using both).
As others have no doubt told you, having a marketing channel in place is more important than the publishing process. You can successfully publish a photocopied and stapled handwritten book if you've set up the marketing right.
http://www.amazon.com/Aiming-Ama...
eBook 6 months later via KDP and Nook. I ignored Kobo and the other long tail channels, but not very hard to get at all of them via LightningSource. You don't want to use LightningSource for Kindle and Nook because the volumes are high enough that saving on the commission is worth it.
I priced the book at the same levels as comparable regular publisher books, so my margins are much higher, as Aman pointed out. I chose not to make it unusually cheap or free. At some point I may do that. Right now it is paperback at $18.95, ebook at $9.99. Margins on the order of 70% in ebook, 65% on paperback. I may drop the price at some point in the future, but probably never permanently to free.
If I were to do it again, I'd go ebook first, or even abandon paper altogether. I'd price low, normal or high depending on the content, market and intent. I am generally averse to pricing low/zero for volume/publicity reasons or accepting a loss leader for dubious derivative benefits. Being able to sell at a meaningful profit is an important test of credibility for me. I may consider switching from LightningSource to Createspace (or using both).
As others have no doubt told you, having a marketing channel in place is more important than the publishing process. You can successfully publish a photocopied and stapled handwritten book if you've set up the marketing right.