By Laura Beil
On her deathbed, David Dobbs’ mother asked her children to cremate her body, releasing the ashes in the Pacific so she could be with a man named Angus. The request was startling — Angus was not Dobbs’ father. Dobbs could recall one other time his mother had made reference to Angus, telling her son about a World War II romance with a flight surgeon whose plane was later shot down over the Pacific.
Dobbs embarked on a search for Angus, leading him to a story of wartime love, heartbreak, forensics and family. But no one seemed anxious to publish it. The New Yorker and Wired both rejected the idea. He had a complex tale, too long to tell in a standard magazine article and too short to carry a book. The story languished for years, until he pitched it to Evan Ratliff, editor at The Atavist, a newly launched publisher of ebooks. The story became My Mother’s Lover, a best selling Kindle Single that has earned Dobbs more than any magazine article, and become more popular than his previous books, Dobbs said during the NASW workshop on ebooks.
The message: ebooks are a new and growing means for writers to publish work that can’t be packed into a magazine. Panelist Deborah Blum’s just-published 10,000-word Atavist book, Angel Killer, is already a best seller on Kindle Singles. Other e-publishers include Byliner and Matter, a science and technology focused publisher launching soon. E-publishing has become so vital to the future of science writing that Carl Zimmer and other writers this year launched the website Download the Universe as a way to promote and review ebooks.
(For an exhaustive list of links to information, publishers and resources, see the ebook session handout.)
The payment structure depends on the publisher. Some writers who already have a national following can self-publish and keep the maximum per-book amount when books are sold. The Atavist uses a model journalist David Wolman described in Nieman Reports as a “hybrid of a magazine-book deal,” paying a flat up-front fee for acceptance that usually runs lower than a usual magazine per-word rate. But once the book is published, writers split the profits of every book sold. If an ebook sells for $2.99, Amazon may take about 30 percent, with the rest divided between the author and Atavist.
Ebooks are growing in popularity partly because readers have an easier time committing to a $3 ebook than a $26 hardback. But many readers also like the flexibility of the format, panelists said. These books are not simply the electronic version of their print cousins, but stories embedded with audio and video, maps or other interactive features that make ebooks an experience that transcends reading. At its heart, though, an ebook must have a compelling and well-crafted story and be published with the ebook reader in mind, said Seth Mnookin. Ebooks that simply recycle published print articles can fall flat, he says — the key is thinking ebook from the story pitch.
It’s still too early to know what the ebook market will become, but few doubt its potential. “We’re starting this evolution,” Blum said. “We’re not at the end of it.”
