Advertiser supported model not well suited to fiction publishing on the Internet.
For the past 18 months independent author Declan Stanley has been running an experiment on his web site http://www.DeclanStanley.com. Frustrated at being unable to find a traditional publisher for his novel “Alexandra” he decided to post the full book on his blog in the hope that he could make money from advertising revenue. “Lots of people came to my site to read my novel,” says Declan. “But very few clicked on the adverts.”
One of the problems is that Declan decided to use PPC contextual advertising. PPC networks such as those from Google and Yahoo allow anyone to place adverts on any web site or blog simply by cutting and pasting some code into their web site templates. The networks then scan the web pages for keywords and serve up ads based on the topic of the web pages. This works quite well for web pages that focus on a particular not fiction topic such as digital cameras or computer software. However from the point of view of PPC advertising the text of a novel is not well focused on a specific topic.
Choosing PPC advertising lead to irrelevant ads being shown on Declan’s site. For instance there is a scene in Declan’s novel where one of his characters walks through a door, walking through the door is not a major part of the scene it is just one paragraph, but on the web page the word door gets mentioned six times. This lead to ads for doors being placed on the page: new doors, screen doors, garage doors, wardrobe doors. “People reading an erotic romance are not necessarily going to be interested in purchasing a new screen door for their house, so nobody clicks on those ads,” Declan says with a smile. And as any Internet marketer will tell you visitors not clicking on your web site ads means no income for your site.
“Another aspect of PPC ads is that they encourage your visitors to leave your web site,” explains Declan. “I don’t want people to go else where on the Internet. I want them to stay on my site and read my stories.”
This is a perennial problem for any webmaster. It is a fine balance between keeping people on your site to build an audience and visitors clicking on adverts which give you revenue but take your visitors to another site.
I asked Declan if he had considered going down the Print-On-Demand(POD) route. “The first problem with POD books is the cost. They typically cost between $12 and $15 for a paperback novel. And then you have to wait five days, or five weeks, for it to arrive in the mail. People are not going to do that for an author they don’t know.”
So now Declan has decided to published his novel as a downloadable ebook straight from his own web site. Declan explains, “I chose to publish as a ebook firstly so that my readers could have instant access to my novel. And secondly so as to keep the cost as low as possible.”
Are there any other advantages for your readers stemming from the fact that you publish ebooks.
“I provide the ebook in both PDF and RTF formats so no matter if people want to read my novel on a portable device, or on their computer screen, or even print it out themselves they are free to read it any way they wish.”
Another aspect of the ebooks that Declan provides is that they are DRM free which means anyone can copy or print out his book. I asked Declan if he was worried about bootleg copies of his novel eating into his own sales.
“I wish I was so well know that I had to worry about bootleggers pirating my books,” Declan laughs. “I think most people buy an author’s book because they like the author’s work and they wish to support the author and encourage them to write more books. I don’t think bootlegging is going to be a major problem.”
You can read the first five chapters of Declan’s novel Alexandra on Declan’s own site at http://www.DeclanStanley.com. He also publishes a news letter for the latest news and updates.
In the mean time we wish him the best of luck as he forges a path I am sure many more unpublished authors will be tempted to follow.
About the Author
Declan Stanley is an independent author, writing SF and contemporary erotic fiction and adult fairy tails. Sample chapters and free stories can be found on his web site http://www.declanstanley.com
Contact him on http://declanstanley.com/contact/