To be honest, the "only books of famous authors are mostly sold" is true no matter where you go. It's the reality of the business. Most books that are published are commercial flops. It's the small number of hits that pay for everything in the industry.

The advantage of something like Kindle and other forms of self-publishing is they allow for smaller gradations of success. You won't get a traditional publishing deal for your book unless someone believes there's a chance it will beat the odds and be a hit, and if that doesn't happen you're counted as a failure. With self-publishing (including e-publishing Smashwords and Kindle), you might sell a few dozen copies or a few hundred or a few thousand... but whatever you sell, it's a net success to you. You're not supporting an entire industry with your endeavors, just yourself. And despite what anybody tells you, there are people who have become successful and relatively famous authors through the Kindle store. I'm not saying this will happen for you. In fact, the odds are against it. But they're very possibly better than going the trad route.

If you don't go for self-publishing, be prepared for a few things. First, you aren't going to get published by a publishing house most people have heard of because you can't just send an unsolicited manuscript to them, you need to have an agent. You're more likely to get a deal if you look at small publishing houses that work in specific niches/markets and find one that suits your book and vice-versa. Second, you will -probably- not get to use your own cover art. A smaller publishing house might give you more flexibility here, but generally, they pick/supply art that they feel represents their brand and/or will catch eyes and sell books. Ever wonder why cover art so often has nothing to do with the inside of a book or misrepresents the main character? That's why. Third, chances are excellent you will be required to sell away the e-publishing rights in perpetuity (they'll say "while it remains in print" and possibly give you a deceptive option to re-negotiate every two years where the book is withdrawn from circulation if you can't reach an agreement, but since they don't need your book in particular as much as you need to have it published, that gives them all the power.)

Fourth... you're just not going to sell many books, and you yourself are going to have to do the work of selling them. You'll have to promote it yourself. Stores won't stock it if somebody isn't repping it to them. There's a slim chance that someone will look at a given book and go "YES! YES! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE WORLD WANTS TO READ RIGHT NOW!", but failing that, your first book deal is likely to be disappointing and no publicity or marketing will be done for it that you don't do yourself.

Look into small presses, but honestly, self-publishing is a better option than it sounds like. There isn't a ton of money in it for most people, but there isn't a ton of money in writing for most people.

The thing is that he'd have to spread that website around himself to sell anything that way. Using Smashwords and Kindle (or if he's lazy, just Smashwords since they can sell through Kindle) would let him basically do the same thing but then people would also stumble across the book through tags and searches and "People who bought this book also looked at..." links.

(Though he's still got to get people to buy it in the first place, so making a personal website to introduce the book and himself and doing some light advertising for that is still necessary.)

Ultiumately the way he publishes/sells it is less important than the fact that he does something to promote it.

Just print the pages of the book using Microsoft Word, staple them together, find a dark alley downtown like some sort of drug dealer and say "Psst, lookin' to buy a book?" to everyone who happens to walk past.

EmpirezTeam wrote:

Just print the pages of the book using Microsoft Word, staple them together, find a dark alley downtown like some sort of drug dealer and say "Psst, lookin' to buy a book?" to everyone who happens to walk past.

Luhlz

Lol, god damn right!