BooksForABuck.com
“BooksForABuck.com is an independent e-publisher that provides a commercial outlet to e-authors in Romance, Science Fiction, Mystery/Suspense, and General Fiction. All of our novels sell for $1. Our current royalty rate is 50%. We are looking for excellent novels of greater than 50,000 words.” - Author’s page on the BooksForABuck.com site.
The TeleRead take: Could this be the future of e-publishing as competition grows? Based on a very cursory look, I hate the four-year-old site’s primitive layout with a clashing mix of blue, red and yellow in the graphics. As a piece of virtual Americana, however, BooksForABuck.com offers promise–as shown by the cover and two sample chapters of Tornado Bait. I wish the publisher, Rob Preece, much luck. So many e-books from established publishers do cost too much. The challenge is to provide an inexpensive alternative with sufficient polish and to drive sufficient traffic to the site. Is there the equivalent of the Fiction Bitch for small e-press sites? With better aesthetics and more discipline and enough incoming links, perhaps this one will eventually be a winner.
Detail: Rob Preece holds a Ph.D. in economics. It will be interesting to see how–from that perspective–the site works out in the end. The present business model mixes revenue from the $1 books and advertising. Might Preece do better with $1.50 books, a professional Web designer, and fewer ads to distract the visitor?
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