Great Middle Grade Reads discussion

Here's a question for everybody (which may have been asked before - if so, my apologies!).

Do you think the majority of younger readers have converted to the Kindle / e-book reader or still read print?

As an author, I have a middle grade fantasy novel out for Kindle, but I wonder if I am missing out by not having a print version available. A lot of my readers are actually adults (the book is intended as a crossover novel) but I would love to attract more of my target audience.

What do you guys think?

You need it in print too. E-books can't be anywhere near as good as print books.

I am in the process of taking out print editions for my kindle books, through Createspace. Their pricing, and that of other PODs, does not seem competitive at all. Has anyone else gone down this road?

It is frustrating how expensive the POD services make books, and I don't know whether having a print version through CreateSpace (or most of the others) is going to really put your book in front of more people. It does mean your book can be ordered in print, but without a whole lot of legwork, it won't ever be in a bookstore or library where somebody will pick it up. Nonetheless, I think middle grade is still defined by print. Kids can take a book into school to read during free time or after school, but usually can't take a Kindle or tablet. Parents are more willing to let their kids read in bed from a book because they know they aren't playing games or cruising the web.

Having said that, I think the legwork is worth it. Our library system is great about carrying indie e-books, but will also display indie print books if you supply them. While having your books in a library may not seem a great way to sell them, it gets the word out in a different way.

I agree with you. Print books through PODs are not the best option but are better than having your book available only in e format.

Also, getting people to know about the book is more important. If word gets around, and the book is good, it will sell. While free e books seem to work for most genres, they don't create ripples for MG books, I have found.

I recently came across this Nielsen survey that concludes that teens still prefer print to ebooks. Many factors discussed- worth a skim!

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights...

Gita wrote: "I agree with you. Print books through PODs are not the best option but are better than having your book available only in e format.

Also, getting people to know about the book is more important. I..."

This honestly makes sense. MG kids don't buy books, so they don't care about price. Parents want to get books that their kids will read, so if they are price sensitive, they go to the library and if not, they don't care about price (or at least not about free vs. inexpensive). It is a very different incentive than adults who must buy their own books and care more about deals and freebies. With YA books, especially older YA, the price may start to have an impact.

Good points made by all.

I think having a print option certainly can't harm me! I've already had several people asking for the print version for their kids. Guess I'll have to look into this.

Related only, because my son is 18 and almost out of High school... but, even though he's an avid gamer and going to have a career in computers, and has already worn out his first tablet, he refuses to read e-books. He does always have a paper book going for pleasure, and does enjoy most of the assigned reading for school... but he believes e-books should not and will not replace paper books.

I find that most kids read real books, probably for the reasons stated here. I know that I would not let my kids take an ereader to school until just this year (they are nearly done with high school). I went on my Mom's dictum that you don't take anything to school that you aren't willing to lose.

I am able to price my paperbacks, produced through CS, at a price that is fairly compatible with big-name MG books-- 8 or 9 dollars (actually, I just realized that two of my kids' books are priced at 9.99; I had them there because Amazon discounts the heck out of them, but they seem to be at full price right now. Maybe time to drop the price a dollar).

Rebecca wrote: "I find that most kids read real books, probably for the reasons stated here. I know that I would not let my kids take an ereader to school until just this year (they are nearly done with high schoo..."

I checked out your print books on amazon, and was relieved to see them priced similar to what I have done for my first print book, King Neptune's Delite. Of course, price by itself means nothing, it is relative to what the buyer think it is worth, and that is where the (tough) marketing comes in. BTW, I loved your Ninja Librarian cover :)

Thanks, Gita! Yes, marketing is the issue. I have ironically gotten a boost from the much more heavily marketed and similarly-named The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand. I freaked out at first when I saw that, but I'm pretty sure people are finding my book while looking for that one, so no gripes!

Where I sell the bulk of my paper books is when I do local events. I read at the grade schools, and in payment only ask that they give me the right to sell books to any kids who want them. Most schools are good with that, since you would have to pay cash money for a big name to come.

My two sons- 17 and 12- both have ereaders and pretty much read only ebooks, unless the ebook is unavailable in that format. My oldest son has his own bank account so his ebook account is linked to his own debit card, so he doesn't need to have us approve or be aware of all of his purchases. (He's in college, so I let him read what he wants.)

My 12 year old doesn't really ever come to me and ask to buy books. I taught middle school and that is pretty typical for boys that age. I buy things for him that I think he'll like and since his ereader is connected to mine, he can access the books.

My 7 year old daughter seems to prefer print books, but I think that's because she's still at the stage where she likes pictures- and illustrated books are better in print form, I think. Plus, she has an iPad, not an ereader and it's much heavier than an ereader. We'll probably get her one soon since she's managed to not break the iPad in over a year.

I've sold more paper than kindle. My kids still prefer paper at ages 12 & 14. Partly because they have more autonomy picking out books at the library--since they don't have credit cards, they have to get me involved in ebook transactions.

My feeling is that with books, there's never an either/or with regard to format, and even sales channels. The more choices you can offer, the more happy readers you'll have.

Exactly Paula.

Yup. I certainly am trying to have my books available in as many ways as possible.

Here's a good article by Derek Murphy (who made his name online doing book covers, btw; these days he has the most expensive cover design prices that I have seen). He has some balanced points to make, especially for newer authors. http://www.creativindie.com/why-you-s...

My wife and I did have a print version done, but I am a bit of a techie so she just relies on me to figure out formatting and such. We were able to do everything but the cover ourselves. I might have thought about doing the cover ourselves, but 1) it's so important, and 2) we needed an illustrator because there are not a lot of stock photos of roosters holding swords.

I don't really understand the problem with producing a print version. CreateSpace doesn't charge you anything; they just take a percentage of your sales. You have to get a cover done for an ebook anyway, and you should get the interior designed too. I don't see that you have anything to lose.

And BTW, I am paying way more than the $500 for the cover and interior Derek mentions, but I suppose the amount of work varies by the type of book. In my case, I'm having all the major characters, the boarding school, and some other environments designed as well as a logo for the series. Some of these images will go on my Web site, so they're not technically for the book, though.

Yeah, $500 isn't his price for the cover and interior. Here's his: http://www.creativindiecovers.com/pri...

Very reasonable prices, and he does great work too! He must really have his process down to a science. Impressive!

My daughter has a kindle (age 11) and she prefers the real books. She seems to prefer watching movies and playing games on the kindle.

Lesley wrote: "My daughter has a kindle (age 11) and she prefers the real books. She seems to prefer watching movies and playing games on the kindle."

That seems another good argument for sticking to the dedicated ereader. I think that the tablet kind are painful for reading. You need eInk.

He does do good work. I guess his prices include more value than just covers. I've simply seen so many cover designers at lower prices. Mars Dorian (http://www.marsdorian.com/covers/) illustrated our cover (http://www.rmichalodum.com/books/) for $350 front and back and did a GREAT job. If you only need an ebook cover that drops to $250. So I guess it depends on what you need done. To me, if you are paying more than $500 for just a cover and formatting, that seems a bit high.

This is interesting, David. I wonder how much time these designers are putting into the tasks and how much their hourly rate comes out to.

I know that I am proofing my book over and over and over again. I must have been through it at least 30 times by now, and I'm still finding problems. Every time I do that it takes days. So I would imagine that an interior designer would put in quite a few hours making sure that everything is correct and looks pleasing.

As far as the front and back covers are concerned, perhaps it depends on the type of cover. I know that many designers use photography--often stock photography--or Poser characters, which they modify. That takes less time than designing and drawing the characters and environments from scratch (which I'm doing). Then there's fiddling around with the lettering, the blurb, and so on. I've been working with both designers for more than a month now, and there's still a lot to go.

And yet, the covers you've linked to require a lot of that kind of work as well (and yours is gorgeous, BTW). So how do these artists do it for so little? Does it depend on the cost of living where they're based? I live in L.A., which is very expensive, and the prices you're quoting seem really low, but maybe they're quite generous elsewhere.

I would like to know a lot more about how these people work!

:)

As a preface I should say that I am pretty new at the self-publishing scene. I've just read a bunch of blogs and some ebooks, and listened to podcasts.

Interior design can enhance a book, and I'm not downplaying it. But it's a pattern. They don't have to do the entire book, they just have to get the pattern (scene separation, chapter headings, page numbers, etc.). Once they get that pattern they just apply it to the entire book. I did the interior formatting for our print and ebook version based on a Createspace template. Once you get the pattern down, the rest of the design process is easy—the technical process is not always easy if you don't know what you are doing, but that's another matter. Also, if it's not fiction and you have a lot of graphics then that is another matter, as well, especially if you are trying to get those graphics to display correctly in an ebook.

That said, I did catch an error in my own interior design. In chapters 1-6 the chapter number was bolded, whereas in chapters 7-13 it was not. Apparently no one noticed, and I did not notice until I was updating the ebook files to look better by taking screenshots of all my chapter headings and inserting those into the ebook, but yeah, that was something that I missed. However, I don't know that the interior design process is incredibly time consuming if you know what you are doing. It was time consuming for me because I was learning as I went. I was very frustrated by the end of that process, but I hope that future books will be easier.

You are correct in saying that many designers use stock photography. Lots of the best ones seem to, but they also do a lot of Photoshop work, and they often use multiple stock photos and blend them together. If we had a book with people instead of animals then we probably would have hired someone to do something like that. For example, the cover for Twilight could have been a stock photo. Delete everything except for the arms, hands, and apple, make everything black and white except the apple, make the apple maybe a little more red, and voila!

Actually, we are having another cover done for the first in a series of short stories that we are doing. We are on a very tight budget right now so I outsourced it to a foreign design studio on elance.com for $75. We'll see how it turns out and I can post it here once it's finished.

Hi, David,

I completely agree that the interior is based on a pattern. In my experience, applying that pattern properly, especially when you find errors or want to change your text, is the tricky part, as you explain above. Every time you touch something, something else gets out of whack, especially when you have little doodads at the beginnings of your chapters and sections. Then there are the widows and orphans to watch out for, running heads, page numbers (the worst!), etc. In my book, I've also included some floor plans, and getting those the right size and with the proper captions took a lot of doing. But I have to admit that I am not an experienced designer, so maybe that's the problem.

I'm very curious to see how your new cover comes out! Please let us know.

BTW, Iacopo Bruno (http://iacopobruno.blogspot.com/) was very high on my list of potential cover designers, but considering his track record, I didn't even try. I would have had to do a Kickstarter campaign to afford him! What do you think of him?

WOW! His work is AMAZING! Yeah, I guess I could see someone like him charging a pretty penny. I recognize that "School of Good and Evil" book. Isn't that pretty popular right now? So you don't know how much he would cost? It looks like he does a lot of computer art, including 3D. I wonder if he has a design studio or if he does it all himself.

Isn't it? Who needs the text when you have covers like that? (I'm not serious. Just really impressed!)

He does have a studio! http://www.theworldofdot.com/about

I was emailing my illustrator and just remembered that he is also an author! He's got a couple of science fiction books out and one non-fiction.

The Elance experiment is not going incredibly well. I think we are almost to the final product and I might just not use it and hire Mars again. Their first character concept was cringe-worthy. When I post the pictures I might include that one, too, just for laughs.

On Amazon, I'm finding my book - The Monsters' Anonymous Club - is selling 3x as many Kindle versions. However, when I use traditional "on the ground" marketing - including local retailers and parents/teachers - they are only interested in the paperback version. Bottom line - no reason not to have both!

David wrote: "The Elance experi..."

Sorry to hear that, David. Did your cover artist read your whole book or work from a summary? I wonder if knowing the entire book helps. In my case, the artist is working from my synopsis. It seems to be working out quite well, but we've also had a lot of back and forth about the characters and the environment as well as the story itself.

I agree with Paula.

I don't ask my cover artist to read the books. I do a lot of brainstorming with a friend to get the concept, and then we back-and-forth a lot with sketches. She seems to do it very well.

I did my MG fantasy POD and Kindle--both have sold about the same amount. As has been said, there's really no downside to having a print edition. CreateSpace does make it easy, and will provide you with a template. That said, there will be some formatting issues that you might feel surpass anything you had to deal with as far as story arc and character development. ALSO of course, you'll need a new ISBN for the print edition, and while CS will be happy to give you one for free, you need your own ISBN or CS will own the paperback! But maybe you have a batch of ISBNs, so that wouldn't be a problem. Pricing is a pain--my book is almost 400 pages, and while a trad-pubbed book would go for $6.99 - $8.99, it's $12 on Amazon (although constantly discounted) and, when I place it at indie bookstores, it usually sells for $10.

Note that using a CS-provided ISBN does NOT mean they "own" your book. They are listed as the publisher, but they have no rights in your work, and you maintain complete control of it.

Yes, and thanks - I
overstated the case, which has in any event become slightly more complicated than when I first dealt with this in 2012. (It seems that CS now offers three tiers of ISBNs!) There's some evidence (though not universal) that Barnes & Noble won't accept books from Amazon companies, and if CS is listed as the publisher, then that's a red flag. Anyway, I bought a batch of 10 ISBNs for $250 and considered it a good investment.

James, I don't understand why your book is going for more than you want it to on Amazon. I realize they discount a lot, but why would they *increase* the price from what you've set? Or have I misunderstood you?

Thanks!

My "official" Amazon/CreateSpace $12 price was set so that I wouldn't actually lose money on international (especially UK) sales. Each independent bookstore sets its own price. Some stay with the $12; many have gone with $10, seeing that as a better price point. Of that, I might get 50% or 60%. Of course, some stores ask for an upfront stocking fee, and don't cut a check until (and unless) at least 3 (or 5) are sold, so this isn't exactly a guaranteed moneymaker...especially when you factor my print and shipping costs. If I weren't doing MG, I might not care as much about getting physical copies onto shelves. Also, of course, I'm old-fashioned and like physical books...even though they're relatively new-fangled. I'm sure when books came in, a lot of skalds and minstrels felt the technology was unnecessary, and nothing would ever replace wandering bards with harps.

Victor wrote: "Here's a question for everybody (which may have been asked before - if so, my apologies!).

Do you think the majority of younger readers have converted to the Kindle / e-book reader or still read p..."

I'm a librarian at a Jr/Sr high school. We offer a site where students can download books for free, but not many do. I think it's mostly because they don't have a reading device (Kindle)and they don't like reading from a laptop. I recently bought a Kindle and I do love it. I feel like a traitor to book stores, but it IS so convenient, especially when traveling.

James wrote: "Yes, and thanks - I
overstated the case, which has in any event become slightly more complicated than when I first dealt with this in 2012. (It seems that CS now offers three tiers of ISBNs!) Ther..."

At that price, I might be tempted to do my own ISBNs as well. But I have all mine with CS ISBNs so far, and all are currently listed at B&N, both paper and Nook (the nook versions come through Smashwords anyway).

Rebecca, how does the Nook/paperback readership balance out, and is it different for different books of yours?

To be honest, I sell very few books in Nook format. If we ignore local sales, which are all paperback of course, my on-line sales probably run about 40-60 paper vs. Kindle, with a few other ebook sales thrown in for a garnish once in a while.

I have my books/ebooks priced to give me about the same profit either way (except when paper books are sold through CS's "extended marketplace," where another middleman takes a cut and my take drops to a pittance), so I don't much care how the sales come out.

Interesting "IndieReader" article suggests that some authors are turning away from ebooks because they're becoming economically unfeasable thanks to KU pricing. I don't know whether that makes sense or not...
http://indiereader.com/2015/04/author...

I don't know about turning away from ebooks. But I saw from the start that anything that requires exclusivity is a bad idea from a market perspective (i.e., giving all the power to one area of the market, which will then turn around and stop giving the authors any significant money). Eventually self-interest will lead authors to "just say no."

I value my work. I don't give it away, or let Amazon give it away and toss me a couple of peanuts.

I think the ebook market has largely been spoilt by the number of freebies. Like Rebecca, I think we should value our work, unless you have a series and can benefit from one freebie. You should definitely have a print version, Vincent - nothing like holding your book in your hands! CreateSpace make it easy and I find it much easier to promote a print book in the local market.

I currently make more money on my ebook than my physical book. KU is a factor, but it is a totally okay way to do it in my opinion, especially for new authors. Actually it's better than the brick and mortar model because someone could read your entire book and simply put it back on the shelf.

Anyway, isn't $1.50 or even $1.33 more royalty per book than you would generally get if you went with a traditional publisher?

Joanna Penn still recommends KU for new authors: http://bit.ly/1ERjFtk. A new author's worst enemy is obscurity, and decreasing barrier to entry can be important if you want to defeat it.

As for authors who have more books out, have some money trickling in, and want to increase their revenue, they have more options.

So we finally released the short stories. We went ebook-only on this one since it is currently our email subscriber hook, so it only cost us $250.

See it here: http://www.rmichalodum.com/the-advent...

If you really want to see the results of the Elance experiment (one big mistake is that we went with a cheaper ebook specialist instead of an established artwork specialist), go here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7eac69p690...

David wrote: "So we finally released the short stories. We went ebook-only on this one since it is currently our email subscriber hook, so it only cost us $250.

See it here: http://www.rmichalodum.com/the-adven..."

Oh my goodness, David, the cover is fabulous! I see what you mean about the failure of the Elance experiment. The cover you ended up with is so much better!!!