Do E-Books Serve Independent Literature?

I’ve spent time lately learning how to format manuscript and book cover files for digital publishing platforms. If you’re familiar with HTML and CSS, the process isn’t too difficult or even that scary. It merely entails converting files via a digital uploading platform and then going through the converted files to make sure that the text is formatted accurately.

Converting files of fiction is a pretty simple process. After all, the fewer formatting requirements a file has, the fewer times something has the chance to go wrong — just make sure paragraphs break where they’re supposed to, margins are aligned and indentations set at the same inch ratio, and, for the most part, the rest is smooth sailing.

Poetry, on the other hand, is like dealing with an insufferable kid with peanut butter and jelly all over his hands sitting in the back of your new car kicking and screaming, all while you’re trying to navigate inner city rush hour traffic. In other words, it’s a bitch. But no matter, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And formatting so many impromptu line breaks and off-key indentations has got to be worth something, right? Right.

Anyway, my point here isn’t to moan about formatting. I actually enjoy it. Rather, I’d like to ask a question: Does independent publishing have much to gain by publishing books on a digital platform?

The obvious and easy answer is yes. Of course it does. Digital publishing provides a vast and diverse readership, one that is in some ways difficult to attract through traditional modes of distribution. Digital publishing is cheap and relatively easy to do and if trends are to be believed, more and more people are reading on Kindles/iPads/etc.

The not-so easy and more complex answer is no. Independent publishing doesn’t have much to gain by publishing on a digital platform. At least for now. For all the talk about reaching a new and different set of readers, I don’t see that happening any time soon. Exceptions to the rule do happen, but it seems to me the only person interested in reading a digital book published by an independent publisher is the very person interested in the same book published as a paperback.

Publishing  (and selling) an E-book raises the same sales challenges that publishing a paperback does: How do you break the friend/family/community bubble and reach a wider audience? Sure, giving a reader the option of how he or she wants to read a book is the practical, smart thing to do. But I wonder, if a person is interested in a title as a matter of course, doesn’t that mean he or she will purchase the title regardless of its platform?

I say this because, while publishing digitally is a cool and an interesting alternative, I don’t necessarily think it will have much impact on book sales. It’d be one thing if Dark Sky Books published mainstream (or authors with broader reputations) titles. As such, I definitely agree that books available both digitally and in print form set an advantage. But as it currently stands indie publishers usually only publish up-and-coming authors whose books are going to have a hard time attracting an audience that breaks the friend/family/community bubble.

Is that a negative assumption? Sure. But it’s also the reality. Nonetheless, I’ll continue to convert our books to E-books (available soon!).

But answer me this, readers of indie lit, wouldn’t you read the books anyway — if indeed you were interested in the title — even if they were published strictly as paperbacks?