"Who needs a publisher when I can do it myself and keep all the profits?"
    As a publisher, myself, you'd think I'd be a bit sensitive to a remark like this. You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.
    This question was presented to me by an aspiring writer at a little get-together at my home a few nights ago. He stood there, cocktail in hand, a slightly smug look on his face as he waited for my reply.
    "You don't need a publisher," I said.
    I received a blank stare.
    "If you're a good writer, you're already ahead of the game, so you don't need a publisher unless . . . unless you're also a good editor."
    I paused, waiting for his comment. After a few moments of silence I went on: "And you don't need a publisher if you're a good artist and can come up with attractive cover art for your book."
    Silence.
    "Now, if you know how to promote your book to the media, you've really got something going for yourself."
    The aspiring writer opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again and took a sip of his drink.
    "And if you know how to get your ISBN and submit the information to bowkerlink.com, and to dustbooks.com, well . . . now you're getting somewhere. And I assume you know how to put a good Website together."
    And with that, the young fellow said something about refreshing his drink, and drifted away.
    It was an interesting encounter, certainly not one that's new to me. I have been a professional writer since I was in my teens, and I'm 74 now, so I've been through the blender many times.
    As a publisher, I've always been on the side of my writers, and I always will be. If any of my 100+ authors want to "go indie" I will cheerfully void our publishing agreement and wish him or her well, and I mean that.
    I love the "Indie revolution" that's going on in the eBook industry. My publishing company was one of the eBook pioneers (I started it a dozen years or so ago). We produced eBooks in text format, then html, .rtf and .pdf, and all told we didn't sell enough books to buy a meal at a so-so restaurant.
    Why? Because there wasn't a decent, inexpensive eReader available. Make no mistake, the reason eBooks are taking off now is because of the sudden abundance (relatively speaking) of eReaders from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Sony, etc., not to mention Apple's iPad and the various "smart phones" on the market.
    Suddenly eBooks are the rage, and I think that's wonderful. Unfortunately there are thousands of eBooks being churned out by indie authors that are simply horrendous (poorly written and edited with breathtakingly bad cover art), but some of the titles are not only good, but excellent!
    "Who needs a publisher when I can do it myself and keep all the profits?"
    As you can see, there are two answers to this question, and they're both valid.
    Keep writing!—Ray Hoy, Publisher

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eBook Pricing: I have noticed that some of the larger publishing houses are nudging the retail price of their eBooks ever upward, often to the point where they cost more than the paperback edition. This is a troubling trend in my opinion. No matter what you hear from the giants of the publishing world, it costs less to produce an eBook title than it does its paperback counterpart. I have priced our titles at $4.95 across the board, which I believe is a fair price for you, our customer. It's also a fair price for the author, who spent a lot of time bringing you his or her best work. And finally, it's fair for my publishing company, as we spent money, time and effort bringing the title to market. Our broad range of titles are available in all popular eBook formats (ePub, Kindle, etc.).—Ray Hoy, Publisher

Call for eBook Business and Hobby Titles: We're looking for business-related and hobby-related eBook titles for our "Serious Business" and "Serious Fun" imprints. Query first please. We will publish these titles in all popular eBook formats (ePub, Kindle, etc.). Note: Our titles for the Apple iPad and color-capable smartphones will use full color, video, etc., so let your imagination run wild.

The eBook Market is Hot! We've been in the eBook business more than 12 years now. I can thank my dear friend, the late Patricia White, for prompting me to begin publishing titles in eBook format. Oh, make no mistake, at the time it was a total waste of time and money. We jumped through all the hoops, along with the rest of the pioneering ePublishers, producing our books in text, html, .pdf, and .rtf formats—whatever the "hot file of the day" happened to be. We tried to sell our titles on floppy discs, packaged the same way we packaged our audios. The end result was . . . dismal sales. Why? Read on . . .

Back then, the lack of a reasonably priced eReader suppressed sales in a big way. Now, years later, there is a fairly broad selection of eReaders to choose from: Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Sony's eReaders, Apple's iPad and iPhone, and the KOBO reader. Furthermore, each device is nicely designed and quite affordable. The eBook market is maturing rapidly.

We test our eBooks on each eReader device, to make sure they look the way we want and expect them to look. Our titles are downloadable and available everywhere: Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Sony, Apple's iTunes, Microsoft, KOBO, fictionwise.com, and smashwords.com. In addition, new distribution sources become available to us almost daily.

Looking forward to hearing from you. — Ray Hoy, Publisher