Derick W J Tan

Ever since I saw that stupid advertisement which really isn’t that stupid at all, I’ve been thinking about selling ebooks every single day.

I’m 19.

I need money.

I, apparently, can write moderately entertaining stuff.

You have money.

I want your money.

Ignore the last two statements =X

Now, I believe that ultimately most authors write because they want their works to be read, or they just want to entertain people with their works. And thus if they’re able to, they would be more than happy to share their works for free. But realistically speaking that is quite impossible because we have bills to pay, girlfriends to pamper, and games to buy. All of which requires money.

Selling eBooks sound like a good idea.

In fact, we already have a local author who is doing quite well as a self-published author. He doesn’t sell eBooks though but he prints his own works and sell them through online transaction. And behind him is a team of two girls who assist him with all the managerial matters.

Oh by the way his name is Low Kay Hwa.

According to his website, he has sold over 20,000 copies of his works in both Singapore and Malaysia, which is honestly very impressive for an author his age.

The guy started writing a couple of years ago, I remember reading his first story in secondary school and felt completely scammed when I realized that I had to pay for the last two or three chapters. But I admitted that it was a good - albeit a little underhanded to me - marketing strategy because, hey, the guy sold more than 20,000 copies already. He’s doing something right.

Basically what he has proven is that the Singapore market will accept self-published fiction authors. And since he uses online transaction, he has also proven that such platform of payment is welcomed as well.

Both of which are good for me if I intend to sell eBooks.

And so the golden question now is… should I do it?

- Derick

Calm down, Project M.I.G.H.T. is still free and it’ll remain like that even after the very last story is completely released.

Anyway, I was browsing a tech forum just now to look at some models of e-books readers - it’s cheaper to buy a bloody nuke - and I stumbled across this stupid automated spam that was advertising for some “Get rich by selling e-books” site, which is of course most likely a scam.

But the idea was rather intriguing.

The one thing that I don’t like about e-books is that it’s very easy to pirate them online, as you’re already providing the digital file and all a pirate needs to do is upload the file on some free hosting site. And that’s why if I ever get published one day, I’ll definitely request that my book does not get sold as an e-book after a certain amount of time have passed.

However, right now, selling e-books might not be that bad of an idea. In Singapore, most paperback books will cost you from S$15 onwards and hard-cover books can go as high as S$50. If I were to write a story and sell it as a e-book, I can easily let it go at as low as S$5 and still make a killing, lol. And that’s like less than USD$2.50 for all of you in America. Don’t get me started on Europe’s currency.

And the main idea isn’t even to make money in the first place. The idea is to actually see whether people are willing to pay to read my works, and if people do then this can be a very good thing for me in the future when I’m writing a cover letter to a potential publisher – not to mention a major confidence boost.

In fact, if I’m never able to get published traditionally, I don’t see why it’s not possible for me to find a few talented friends and create an encryption software to prevent e-book piracy. They can make a profit selling the software while I can make a profit selling e-books, and you guys will save a hell lot of money to read my stories as compared to if I were to sell them paperback like another local self-published author.

So yeah, I’m definitely going to do more research on this and see if this is a feasible idea. Now I don’t usually get a lot of comments on this blog, but for those of you who are reading this, I’d like to ask for your opinion.

My trademark grammatical errors and typos might not even be a problem since I’ll most probably hire a professional to proof-read the e-book before I sell it.

edit: Special thanks to Matthew for the follow conversion rates

S$5 = US$3.441
S$5 = 2.106 Pounds
S$5 = 2.460 Euros

Now I say this without knowing the market price of e-books around the length of 75,000 words, but bloody hell that’s really cheap for a book, lol. I mean if you look at the Singapore currency, $5, alright it’s reasonably cheap but when you look at the other currencies, it is like ridiculously cheap. I think the price alone should deter readers from going through the trouble of trying to get a pirated copy.

- Derick