Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/3477
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I've written and had illustrated a children's picture book.

I'm thinking of making this into an App for download from the Apple Apps store.

I'm also considering looking for a publisher to publish a printed version of the book. Perhaps via an agent.

I'm reluctant to sell the digital rights to a publisher (the rights to sell an App of the book) because I figure that since digital publishing is new, then publishers probably have lots to learn about it, and so I can perhaps do just as good a job as an established publisher can do in marketing the App. And if I publish the App myself, I would not need to give away a percentage of the revenue to a publisher. But equally, I don't know a lot about this yet, and there might be advantages that a major publisher would have, that I don't know about.

For a printed version, I do believe a publisher can do a much better job than I can in getting the book into bookstores, simply because of their connections with distributors, etc.

I'm guessing that an interested publisher would want the digital rights / rights to the App, if I don't first publish the App myself.

I'm guessing that the deal would be less attractive to a publisher if I don't offer the digital rights. But that if I publish the book as an app first and get a good number of sales, then this should demonstrate that the book sells well and therefore that it's worthwhile for a publisher to take on the printed rights only.

So I'm thinking of publishing the App first, and then approaching publishers or agents to offer the rights to the printed version.

Does this strategy sound sensible?

Original score: 6