Say if- I set up a website I posted a sample chapter of my novel I gave people the option see the rest for a pound/dollar or whatever, giving me the money via paypal. This would give them access to a copy they can see on screen but not edit or download. So they couldn't e-mail it everywhere, totally screwing publishing chances in the future. My buddy is a website designer and has suggested this to me. Does anyone where I would stand legally? Is it allowed? Has anyone done this before? Please share your wisdom. Thanks, Alex
You'd probably 'sell' five copies and most that would be famoly and friends. I don't know how it could be 'seeable' and not downloadable. People could still pay for it, than cut and paste it somewhere else if you were worried about stuff like that. And by doing this no publisher with 2 cents would pick you up in terms of that actual piece of writing. Why not tighten you're work up, edit it some more, learn some more trades and than try and get this work published? Better then doing what you are saying. To actually sell copies of you're work means marketing hardcore which means LOTS of effort. There are a few who have self published on this site who can tell you quiet a bit, and others who have been in the industry who can tell you more.
Well people would have to find your website, which requires advertising, which costs money. People would have to be convinced your website was legit, costs customers. Your website would also cost money. Publishers give you what you need, a fancy cover, a professional looking finished product, someone who will edit your work and a form of advertism e.g. the book is in the shops.
I never heard of this, but I doubt such an idea is illegal. But I'd still lean toward simply posting free samples on your site so as to not come off as greedy...especially if you have an online readership that's been very loyal to you for quite some time. I self published but only got 70 orders. Press releases or professional publicists is the only way I'll get significantly more sales since I'm not one of those anomalies who made a name of themselves from blogging; and I'd feel weird obtaining massive readerships with something called "automatic friend adders" Does your site have a links page? You could link up with other self publishers and independent artists. A scratch their back and they'll scratch yours sort of thing. That's my next goal...so far an underground band and a graphic designer accepted my offers and it resulted in 15 additional sales in the first week...I know it's not much, but as self publishers we should take any sale we can.
there actually is a 'read only' way of providing material that can't be copied... amazon uses one version with its 'look inside this book' feature... but i suspect it's very costly and, combined with all the other attendant expenses noted above, would put it way beyond the reach of one whose sales probably won't come close to covering the outlay... if you think your book is good enough that people will pay to read it, why not take the traditional path, with a paying publisher?... besides, self-publishing does not make one a 'published author'... only being paid to have it published [not paying for it yourself] does that...
That doesn;t really work. It only makes it slightly more difficult. If a user can see it, a user can copy it. Just a fact of life. If you have to ask the question, you don't know enough about marketing to be successful doing it yourself. Maia's right. If you want to write a book and sell to a large market, go through the traditional publishing route. Otherwise, you not only need to lear how to write well enough to sell it to a publisher, you have to develop all the skills and connections of a publishing house, and that isn't eveb addressing the financial considerations.
And just to clarify, once something has been put on the net, it has been published in legal terms,so if an editor spotted your website, thought the book was great, you could only offer secondary publishing rights, as it has already been published. I can testify that the Net just sucks up stuff. I wrote an article about ten years ago. When I googled the subject recently, I found my original article still going, but on a website I'd never heard of, and with absolutely no credit to me.
i only meant 'copy' in the computer sense of highlighting/copying, not that one couldn't type a copy by hand, which of course anyone can do with anything...
You could also copy the image and use an Optical Character Recongition (OCR) program on it to retreive it as text.
Why would you want to do this? If your book is good enough, and you're persistent, you'll be able to get it published through regular channels. If it's not good enough, then work on your skills as a writer, run your manuscript through a few more revising/editing cycles and then try to publish it... that's likely to be a better option than putting something inadequate online yourself. Setting up a website to market yourself, with links to where the published book could be bought, sounds like a good idea.
