Friday, April 19, 2013
Monday, August 6, 2012
Kindle Freebie! August 6-10. PETE
Her name is Pete. She used to be my best friend. Then she tried to kill me with a chainsaw. Years later, she became a psychotic psychiatrist and imprisoned me in her asylum. This is that story.
FREE!!!!!
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
New novel from crime writer, Karl Vadaszffy!
From Karl Vadaszffy's website (http://karlvad.com/index.html):
Synopsis
John Simmons is en route to London with his girlfriend, Jennie Michaels, whom he intends to propose to that evening. He pulls into the London Gateway Services, leaving Jennie in the car. But when he returns, she has disappeared. Frantic with worry, he turns to the police for help. The police doubt that Jennie exists: there is no trace that she ever existed.
John, convinced Jennie was not a figment of his imagination, sets out in a desperate attempt to find the woman he fell in love with. He has the help of Detective Sergeant Kate Nielsen, herself haunted by a botched undercover operation that led to her being raped four years earlier.
Everything he can remember of Jennie – where she worked, where she lived – turns out to be untrue. Nielsen, following John as he lurches from one lead to another, begins to wonder if Jennie could be the eleventh victim of a serial killer. Their investigation becomes increasingly urgent and threatens to bring back dark and murky images from Nielsen’s past.
Read my interview with the author here: http://johnrlindensmith.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/interview-karl-vadaszffy-full-of-sin.html?zx=18f2ec7b604fc2a9
Friday, June 1, 2012
FREE Kindle Horror: Revenge of the Fast Food Mascots
My new short story, Revenge of the Fast Food Mascots, is free June 1 - 5!
http://www.amazon.com/Revenge-Fast-Food-Mascots-ebook/dp/B0087HQLJC/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1338579365&sr=8-9#_
Mike and Cassie are two fast food mascots who discover they have more in common than just sharing the lowest rung on the fast food ladder: they're both cannibals. Sick of being mistreated, abused, and disrespected, the cannibals decide to make a list of their oppressors and kill and eat them.
Finding a soul mate, one just like you, is a dream come true...but soon, Mike discovers Cassie may be even more sadistic than he is.
Monday, April 16, 2012
The Ebook and Self-Promotion via New New Media
Ten years ago, I remember seeing an illustration in my English textbook depicting how future generations would read the written word. In the picture, a man was sitting on a bench in a park reading a newspaper on a thin electronic pad that resembled a portable computer screen. At the time, I remember thinking: Yeah, right. Like that will ever happen. Cut to 2012: Kindle, iPad, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo. Electronic reading devices are revolutionizing not only how we read, but the publishing industry itself. Through this form of new media, books are more portable, cheaper to buy and produce. At the time, the illustration in my English text was a depiction of the future. Well, now the future is here and it is ebooks.
The advent of ebooks has not only revolutionized the way we read, but who can publish, sell, and make money. To be a successful author, one used to depend upon the teat of the six big publishing companies, also known as Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin Group, Random House, and Simon & Schuster. Now writers are doing the publishing, selling and promoting themselves. One of the most successful and influential names in self-published ebooks is Joe Konrath, author of the Jack Daniels detective series and numerous techno-thrillers, such as The List and Origin. He offers a plethora of knowledge on the subject at his blog: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. In three weeks, Konrath made 100,000 dollars from his ebooks (Konrath). Other self-published ebook authors, such as Jonas Saul are making similar profits. 10,000 ebooks sold in one month being Saul’s boast (Saul). Amanda Hocking, author of Switched, sold 1.5 million copies of her supernatural ebook series, was featured on USA Today’s bestseller list, and even garnered a publishing contract from St. Martin’s and MacMillan press (Pilkington).
Other self-published writers, such as myself and Skyler DeGrote (author of Soul, student at Minnesota State University Moorhead) have not met the same success, but have also published our work as ebooks. According to Konrath, “This has now become the best way in the history of mankind for a writer to earn money. It may be one of the greatest ways to ever make money, period.” The statistics listed above, all that profit was made through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Similar sites that allow you to publish and distribute ebooks are Smashwords, Lulu, and iUniverse, but none of these sites has matched the sales writers are making through Kindle and Amazon, mostly because Kindle allows the author to reap 70% of the profits (if the ebook is priced 2.99 or above, otherwise it’s 35%) (Amazon) and offers mass distribution.
Now, not everyone can be a bestseller. But because of the innovations that Kindle and “the marketing machine which is Amazon” (Konrath) offer, a writer’s chances for success have greatly increased. Konrath says the key to success is good writing, good covers, good descriptions, and good formatting, but you don’t need to be a bestseller to be successful: “You don't need to make the NYT list . . . You don't need to make $100,000 in three weeks . . . . A writer doesn't have to sell 10,000 ebooks a day. They can sell 10,000 ebooks a year--only 27 a day--and because they keep a large chunk of the royalties, that can make a huge difference in the quality of their life. Even 5000 books a year, priced at 99 cents, is an extra $150 a month. Money used to pay bills. Buy groceries. Make things a little bit easier” (Konrath).
Now is the best time to be a writer. In this age of new new media, the power to publish, promote, and sell are in the writer’s hands, not the Gatekeeper’s.
Before Konrath self-published his ebooks, his Jack Daniels detective series was distributed through a legacy press. He hated it. In fact, he hated it so much that he advises any writer who is offered a book deal through a legacy press to “take time to think it over. You're allowed to be flattered. You're allowed to have book signing fantasies, and imagine the radio interviews and reviews in major periodicals. But once the excitement wears off, it's time to crunch numbers and make a business decision based on your goals. Money should play a major role in this decision. As for the luster of legacy publishing . . . Book signings are hell. Radio interviews are work. Most book critics for major periodicals are self-important pinheads. And the Big 6 are AWFUL at selling ebooks . . . .We've all read stories about successful self-pubbed authors signing with the Big 6. Have we heard any stories about authors who once had a Big 6 deal, then went to self-pubbing and found success, and then WENT BACK to the Big 6?”
The Big Six are a Big Waste of Time. I know I wouldn’t want to spend the majority of my time doing interviews and signings. I’m a writer. I want to spend the majority of my time writing. Also, if I put that much time and energy and effort into a book, I wouldn’t want Big Business overruling me on creative decisions such as cover and content. May sound selfish, but it’s my book. Then, after all that hard work, to only earn a miniscule amount of the sales---Ridiculous!
According to Konrath, the legacy press had him do most the promotion for his Jack Daniels series himself and he only got to keep 17.5% of the profits. Only prolific writers such as Stephen King can live off those wages. The difference between King and Konrath being that publishers promote King’s books and King receives monstrous advances, sells millions of copies, and has movie and merchandise deals. Most writers do not receive huge advances, unless their name is already established, and that is only 1% of legacy authors. Hocking sold 1.5 million copies of her ebooks through KDP and earned $2.5 million. Through a legacy press (without advances) that would have only amounted to around $425,000.
Here are five reasons I believe most writers would be better off self-publishing via KDP:
In other words, most writers will meet less disappointment and make more money self-publishing ebooks than they would endlessly pursuing Big Daddy and Big Mama Six. As Konrath notes, “My self-pubbed books continue to outsell my legacy books at up to 10 to 1.”
Here’s some statistics for those still considering a legacy press:
“Every year, agents and publishers receive millions of book queries and submissions. Out of those, only 172,000 are published (Goldfarb). Little more than ten percent sell more than 5,000 copies. And only about ten become bestsellers (Ingermanson). Only one percent of [legacy press] authors make a living solely from their writing, a few examples being Stephen King, James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, and Stephanie Meyer” (Lindensmith).
Still considering a legacy press? Writer’s Digest, a magazine that has always promoted Big Six Publishing, is even jumping aboard the self-published ebook bandwagon. In the May/June 2012 issue, April Eberhardt (an agent!) discusses why it’s a good idea for writers to self-publish their works as ebooks instead of pursuing the Big Six. In her article “The New Era of Publishing: Marking It Work for You,” she writes about “two unfavorable trends you should be prepared to face” if you decide to go the traditional (legacy) route: “1)…given the number of writers vying for fewer slots on publisher’s lists, the statistical chances of your manuscript being selected are, unfortunately, getting slimmer. And 2)…of those authors who are offered traditional deals, many are finding their advances are smaller and/or paid out over longer periods than were previously standard---or sometimes even that the contract is offered ‘advance-free.’” And this is coming from an agent! This is coming from an article in Writer’s Digest! The same magazine, that a few years ago, had an article that stated that self-publishing was a writer’s last resort and there was no money in it. The times, they are a changin’!
Eberhardt goes on to say, “Despite my continued optimism that the publishing world will welcome new work, over the past year I’ve seen a distinct diminishment in publisher’s willingness to take a chance on new authors, particularly authors of fiction….After one, two, three, even four dozen queries or more to suitable editors on behalf of an author, I often see a pattern among responses: ‘This is a terrific manuscript---but we can’t take a chance on a new author.’” In other words, the only writers benefiting from legacy presses are authors who are already established, authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and James Patterson. If you’re a new writer, you’re screwed if you go the legacy route.
For five years I wrote, edited, and queried agents about my novel Hell. Apparently, not many agents or editors were interested in a novel about teenagers doing copious amounts of drugs, participating in grotesque sex acts, and murdering one another. I got some positive feedback, but no real interest. I couldn’t even get into the Gatekeeper’s lair. Then I discovered Kindle Direct Publishing. I did some more revisions and finally published the book myself the summer of 2011. I’m not making 100,000 or even 10,000 dollars a month, but I’ve made more money publishing Hell as an ebook than I ever did futilely pursuing agents who receive millions of queries a year. What do I make? About ten dollars a month. It’s small potatoes, but it’s something. The fact is I am actually making money from my writing, even if it is a miniscule amount. And the best part is that I have the potential to keep making money. As Konrath notes: “We can directly and instantly reach hundreds of millions of consumers in a global marketplace. We can set the list price, and we get to keep the majority of that list price. Readers can buy our work instantly on devices that they love. They don't have to go to the store, the store is in their hands. Once a book is written and formatted it can sell unlimited copies, forever, without any costs to the writer other than the initial time investment and monetary investment (formatting, editing, cover.)” I don’t know about forever, but a writer’s ebooks can be available to whomever whenever until the internet is consumed by a massive viral attack or the sun goes black. The potential for sales is endless, especially with access to new new media such as Facebook, Digg, YouTube, and Google+, which offer numerous ways to promote ebooks to the internet’s bottomless pool of potential readers.
Things on the internet go viral. As Paul Levison describes “viral” in his book New New Media, it “used to be called ‘word of mouth.’ But ‘viral’ is something more, because digital word of mouth can reach anyone, anywhere in the world, and millions of people, instantly, in contrast to old-fashioned spoken word of mouth” (70). When it comes to marketing an ebook, the internet is on the writer’s side. An example of old media promotion would be book tours, visiting libraries and bookstores and signing copies (the type of thing a legacy press would encourage a lot of). This is not nearly as effective as spreading word of your book on the internet to millions of potential buyers, who can check out your book by simply clicking a link and reading a preview and deciding whether to hit BUY or not. I did a book signing for my first novel Mystery Man. I sold maybe ten books in two hours. And that is considered a successful book signing! Most authors only sell one or two copies if any. Mostly, a book signing consists of shoppers ambling over to your table, looking your book over, saying it looks interesting or stupid, and then walking off. Or, if you’re really unfortunate, shoppers will avoid you like the plague. Who is this guy? Trying to sell me a book he wrote. What an idiot.
By the time I published my second novel, Hell, I barely bothered with old media promotion. I did two interviews: one for a school paper, and one for a blog. Neither of these particularly boosted my sales into the stratosphere. Konrath has some rather controversial ideas about promotion, but I’ll get to that later. First, I’ll discuss the forms of new new media I used to promote Hell and how effective they were to sales.
The highest rank Hell ever received was somewhere in the fifties. I never got to the top five. But due to the fact that I actually participated in the site, meaning, I read other writer’s material, offered helpful advice, shelved books that had merit, and never asked for a shelve in exchange, I actually made quite a few contacts and friends through the website and peaked a lot of interest in my novel. As a competition site, Authonomy is irritating and full of spammers. But if you use it as a form of social media, you can actually make a lot of connections. I gained 100 or so contacts through Authonomy and through those contacts I made even more. It’s really important to connect with other writers, to read their work and offer suggestions and advice. Writers help each other out. Writers are interested in other writers; if they’re good writers.
For me, Authonomy was not only good for networking, but receiving helpful comments regarding revisions and edits. Some of the revisions in Hell are based on comments I received on Authonomy and my novel is better for them. Writers are used to working in isolation, but networking is fundamental to writing the best book you can. Writers need to share their work and get feedback. If readers show enough interest in your work to offer feedback, they will most likely be interested in seeing a final copy: in print or as an ebook. Many of my sales are a direct result of my participation on Authonomy.
Participation is the key word. I never spammed users. Trying to get in the top five is pointless. And even if you do get in the top five, just think: five writers climb to the top every month and are selected for review by Harper Collins. Every month! Most are rejected. It’s just a futile attempt to get in the Gatekeeper’s lair all over again. You would be better off submitting query letters to agents. At least that way, you deal with the publishing industry directly, instead of spending hours and hours spamming and begging other users to shelf your book so you can claw your way to the top five only to be rejected. Many of the books that reach the top five are not even good quality, because the top five usually consist of spammers and whiners, not good writers.
Aside from building a platform of contacts, readers, and friends, Facebook also allows you to create pages and groups, both of which I put to good use to promote Hell.
Hell Page
The Hell group was more beneficial than the Hell page, because a group is a community, while the page is just a list of information and the option to “like” the item. My group started out small: six members, but steadily increased to 135. Now, it’s dwindled down to 120. I think mostly because the book has already been released, so the momentum has died.
To put a group to good use you should update it at least once every two weeks. No more than that or your members will get annoyed (those updates, after all, go straight to their notifications). I got my readers excited about my novel by posting cover art, sneak peeks, and reviews. Also, I created an interactive community: I let members review different cover arts and vote on which one they liked best. I also let most my members give feedback on rough drafts. In this way, the writer and readers built the book together, and when it was published, it wasn’t just some random product the readers had no personal connection to, but an experience readers and writers shared and built. Writing may be a solitary act, but revision and business are not.
At the time I was promoting Hell, I decided it would be cool to film a trailer. I wanted to hire some students to act out a scene from the book, offer a visual representation of a passage to whet reader’s appetites. An acquaintance of mine was a film major at Minnesota State University Moorhead, so I wrote a short screenplay, sent it to him, and asked him if he’d be interested. He immediately said yes and even drew up some storyboards. The problem: the actors. Most didn’t want to participate because the content was too dark. I suppose most Midwesterners don’t want to be associated with a scene that involves oral sex (off-camera, by the way).
For me, YouTube was not an effective means for promoting my novel. I highly doubt it is for most writers. However, there are a few writers I can think of who have created cinematic representations of their books that have caught my eye. While a book trailer is promoting a book, not a movie, it obviously has to be visually-oriented, since it is, after all, a video. An example of a bad book trailer is one that consists of scrolling text and random images set to music. Or worse yet, the author talking about his or her work. Writers write, most are not meant to talk on camera.
Here’s an example of a visually rich trailer done by Ted Dekker, bestselling author of Christian thrillers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iooUj1UBF9E
Notice the cinematic quality. Really makes you want to read the book, doesn’t it?
Here’s an example of a book trailer by New York Times Bestselling author Steve Alten that, while not as visually stunning, peaks the reader’s curiosity by presenting some provocative ideas along with disturbing stock footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OioYWUmRcuw
A book is not a visual medium, but a video representation of the book obviously is. Thus, sound, music, and imagery are all important components, just as in film.
How effective is a book trailer?
“According to a 2009 online survey by Teenreads.com, 4 in 10 teenage readers said they liked to see book trailers on book-related blogs and 46 percent watched book trailers on YouTube. Even more startling, 45 percent bought a book after watching the trailer” (Paul).
In this fast-paced YouTube generation, book trailers may become a very effective means of book promotion. Of course, like any other form of promotion, creating a book trailer will not result in instant sales. For example, Dennis Cass, the author of “Head Case,” created a trailer that received over 70,000 hits on YouTube and won the Moby book trailer award, but he sold less than 5,000 copies of his book (Paul).
If you want to try and start an article about yourself under a different user name, you can try but most likely it will be taken down unless you’ve won awards for your work or sold millions of copies.
Other microblogging sites such as Digg and Reddit have also been disappointing. The main problem being that Digg and Reddit are not for marketing, but drawing attention to interesting blog posts, news articles, and videos (free stuff!). These are not good sites for trying to sell a product. In fact, most the users, rightfully, consider it spamming (especially the users at Reddit, who were furious I posted a link to my book on Amazon. Oops!). Unless you’re posting a link to a blog post you have written or you’re giving away free ebooks, these sites are not helpful.
I no longer update The Church of Fat, but many of those readers are friends on Facebook and are still curious about my writing. Today, I blog using Tumblr and Blogspot. The best way to reach readers is to promote your blog the way you promote your books---through new new media. When you attract readers to your blog, you’ll also want them to know about your ebooks. On my blog, I have created separate pages for my books. That way, if a reader likes my blogging, he/she can just click on the Hell tab at the top of my page and check out information on the novel or purchase it.
As Levinson notes in his book New New Media, blogging is the social medium that put the power of production back in the consumer’s hands. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the equality of consumers and producers ended; “the one-to-one ratio in which every reader was also a writer” was “radically altered” (18). Only “a sliver of the population” contributed to what went into books, newspapers, and magazines (18). “Blogging has in turn changed and reversed all of that…any reader can become a writer” (18). Sound familiar? The advent of ebooks is bringing about a second revolution, in which any reader can become a writer and sell their writing without the middle man or Big Six.
Some might not like the idea of giving Amazon exclusivity, but Kindle is where the money is at. Amanda Hocking made 2.5 million dollars through Kindle, not Smashwords or Lulu. The choice is obvious. Kindle is the hottest ereader on the market and that’s where most ebook consumers are finding and purchasing books. By uploading your book to Kindle, your chances of success increase dramatically.
KDP Select also allows you to have free promos. Offering your book for free seems counterproductive to the task of being your own publisher and selling your own books. But if there is one thing readers love more than cheap ebooks, it’s free ebooks. I offered Hell for free March 25-29 and distributed more than 1,000 copies. Now, I didn’t make any money, obviously, but my ebook was downloaded by 1,000 customers who otherwise never would have read it. Offering your ebooks for free is not about making money, it’s a promotional tool. After the giveaway ended, my sales increased. Not by much, but I sold a few more ebooks than I usually do. My ebook became more visible and garnered more interest because it was free. KDP gives you the potential to make more sales based on increased visibility of your work.
Author Jonas Saul has a similar success story, regarding his novel Dark Visions:
One of the biggest differences between legacy ebooks and self-published ebooks is price. Legacy titles are cheaper on Kindle than in hardcover or paperback, but not by much. In fact, ebook titles are usually only half price. Readers like cheap books. They don’t care if the book is backed by a legacy publisher; they are just looking for a cheap, good read.
The best price range for an ebook is between .99 and 2.99. At least, most the self-published writers I know (who are successful) set their prices somewhere in this range. I sell Hell for 2.99. It’s questionable whether I would sell more units if I lowered the price to .99. I have tried, and it made absolutely no difference.
Most readers can’t afford a twenty dollar hardcover anymore, barely a paperback for 7.99. Readers are switching to Kindle because the prices of ebooks are more affordable. If the prices of self-published ebooks are lower than legacy prices, readers will flock toward self-published titles.
An example of how much big names matter when readers are searching for cheap titles is Konrath outselling James Patterson. Yeah, that’s right. James Patterson: New York Times bestselling author and part of the 1% making a living through a legacy press. Konrath outsells many Patterson titles on Kindle (Konrath). When you sell your book, sell it cheap!
The Ebook Bubble
To some extent, this is true. For every good self-published ebook, there are thousands of badly edited, badly formatted, poorly written ebooks. But like any form of media consumption, consumers tend to reject that which they do not like, and consume that which has quality and merit. The fact that shoddy self-published ebooks exist does not demonize all self-published ebooks. Readers will connect over good ebooks and discard bad ebooks, just like they would legacy published fiction. As Sturgeon’s Law states, “90% of everything is shit.”
Legacy presses have no reason to fear self-published ebooks. Amanda Hocking, author of the My Blood Approves series, “signed a contract with MacMillian that gave her a $50,000 advance on four separate books in the series” (Pilkington). Hocking may have started as a self-published ebook author, but the fact that she made 2.5 million dollars through Kindle did not stop her from signing with a legacy press, who could offer her advances (versus writing on spec for free) and other bonuses, such as film and merchandising rights. This is an advantage that self-publishing will never have. Also, writers like Hocking offer a clear advantage to legacy presses: instead of sifting through queries and manuscripts that have no guarantee of success, legacy presses can now offer contracts to writers who are already successful on Kindle.
As agent April Eberhardt notes in her Writer’s Digest article, “In my role as both literary agent and author advocate, I view [the advent of the ebook] not as the end of traditional publishing as we know it, but as the beginning of an exciting era in which more power has shifted into the hands of authors.”
Joe Konrath had this to say about Franzen’s fear of ebooks: “The grand literati concept of ‘Story’ with a capital S has nothing to do with the media that delivers it. The story doesn't exist on paper. Or as e-ink, or screen pixels, or even mp3 audio compression. The Story exists in the reader's/listener's head . . . Ebooks are going to follow the examples set by the music, movie, and TV industries. The future is digital, and anyone who disagrees with that is seriously out of touch with reality . . . Amazon supposedly sold 6 million Kindle Fires in the last three months.”
According to Paul Levinson, author of New New Media, while “we can expect . . . offline media to play a decreasing . . . role in our lives” (98), there are advantages to offline media. For example, “books have been banned and burned throughout history . . . the practical impossibility of rounding up all copies of a book . . . makes them invulnerable to complete banning by government, commercial or religious fiat . . . . That’s not the case for anything online” (98).
As self-pubbed ebook author Jonas Saul noted in an interview with WritingRaw:
“We’ve witnessed a major change in the industry since Amazon opened their doors for writers to upload their books directly. E-book readers have been selling quite well, and the ebook market has blossomed in 2011. According to the Association of American Publishers Annual Book Sales, in 2006 total ebook sales were $54 million. In 2007, it grew to $67 million and in 2008, $113 million. Finally, in 2009, ebook sales were $169.5 million. Although $169.5 million is not a big chunk of the $35 billion publishing industry, ebook sales rose 176%. Last year, 2010, ebooks rose again to $441.3 million, and according to an AAP Publishers report, 2011 is projected to be the first year where the billion dollar mark is hit in ebook sales alone. I conclude, there is no better time to be a writer.”
Amen.
Works Cited
Amazon. "Sales and Royalties FAQ." Amazon. Kindle Direct Publishing. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A30F3VI2TH1FR8>.
The advent of ebooks has not only revolutionized the way we read, but who can publish, sell, and make money. To be a successful author, one used to depend upon the teat of the six big publishing companies, also known as Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin Group, Random House, and Simon & Schuster. Now writers are doing the publishing, selling and promoting themselves. One of the most successful and influential names in self-published ebooks is Joe Konrath, author of the Jack Daniels detective series and numerous techno-thrillers, such as The List and Origin. He offers a plethora of knowledge on the subject at his blog: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. In three weeks, Konrath made 100,000 dollars from his ebooks (Konrath). Other self-published ebook authors, such as Jonas Saul are making similar profits. 10,000 ebooks sold in one month being Saul’s boast (Saul). Amanda Hocking, author of Switched, sold 1.5 million copies of her supernatural ebook series, was featured on USA Today’s bestseller list, and even garnered a publishing contract from St. Martin’s and MacMillan press (Pilkington).
Other self-published writers, such as myself and Skyler DeGrote (author of Soul, student at Minnesota State University Moorhead) have not met the same success, but have also published our work as ebooks. According to Konrath, “This has now become the best way in the history of mankind for a writer to earn money. It may be one of the greatest ways to ever make money, period.” The statistics listed above, all that profit was made through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Similar sites that allow you to publish and distribute ebooks are Smashwords, Lulu, and iUniverse, but none of these sites has matched the sales writers are making through Kindle and Amazon, mostly because Kindle allows the author to reap 70% of the profits (if the ebook is priced 2.99 or above, otherwise it’s 35%) (Amazon) and offers mass distribution.
Now, not everyone can be a bestseller. But because of the innovations that Kindle and “the marketing machine which is Amazon” (Konrath) offer, a writer’s chances for success have greatly increased. Konrath says the key to success is good writing, good covers, good descriptions, and good formatting, but you don’t need to be a bestseller to be successful: “You don't need to make the NYT list . . . You don't need to make $100,000 in three weeks . . . . A writer doesn't have to sell 10,000 ebooks a day. They can sell 10,000 ebooks a year--only 27 a day--and because they keep a large chunk of the royalties, that can make a huge difference in the quality of their life. Even 5000 books a year, priced at 99 cents, is an extra $150 a month. Money used to pay bills. Buy groceries. Make things a little bit easier” (Konrath).
Now is the best time to be a writer. In this age of new new media, the power to publish, promote, and sell are in the writer’s hands, not the Gatekeeper’s.
Legacy Press vs. Self-Publishing
Legacy Presses are the Gatekeepers: the six big publishing houses (or as Konrath calls them: Big Daddy and Big Mama Six) that control the majority of what we read in mainstream bookstores such as Barnes&Nobles, Books-a-Million, and, until more recently, Borders. To be published through a legacy press, a writer has to first impress an agent (the middle man) with a query letter. If the query letter spikes the agent’s curiosity, he or she will confront the six leviathans of publishing seeking a contract. If a deal is made, the writer is published and receives fame and fortune (or not).
Before Konrath self-published his ebooks, his Jack Daniels detective series was distributed through a legacy press. He hated it. In fact, he hated it so much that he advises any writer who is offered a book deal through a legacy press to “take time to think it over. You're allowed to be flattered. You're allowed to have book signing fantasies, and imagine the radio interviews and reviews in major periodicals. But once the excitement wears off, it's time to crunch numbers and make a business decision based on your goals. Money should play a major role in this decision. As for the luster of legacy publishing . . . Book signings are hell. Radio interviews are work. Most book critics for major periodicals are self-important pinheads. And the Big 6 are AWFUL at selling ebooks . . . .We've all read stories about successful self-pubbed authors signing with the Big 6. Have we heard any stories about authors who once had a Big 6 deal, then went to self-pubbing and found success, and then WENT BACK to the Big 6?”
The Big Six are a Big Waste of Time. I know I wouldn’t want to spend the majority of my time doing interviews and signings. I’m a writer. I want to spend the majority of my time writing. Also, if I put that much time and energy and effort into a book, I wouldn’t want Big Business overruling me on creative decisions such as cover and content. May sound selfish, but it’s my book. Then, after all that hard work, to only earn a miniscule amount of the sales---Ridiculous!
According to Konrath, the legacy press had him do most the promotion for his Jack Daniels series himself and he only got to keep 17.5% of the profits. Only prolific writers such as Stephen King can live off those wages. The difference between King and Konrath being that publishers promote King’s books and King receives monstrous advances, sells millions of copies, and has movie and merchandise deals. Most writers do not receive huge advances, unless their name is already established, and that is only 1% of legacy authors. Hocking sold 1.5 million copies of her ebooks through KDP and earned $2.5 million. Through a legacy press (without advances) that would have only amounted to around $425,000.
Here are five reasons I believe most writers would be better off self-publishing via KDP:
1. Keep 70% of the profits
2. Global distribution.
3. Absolute control over creative content
4. Unlimited availability
5. 70% OF THE PROFITS
In other words, most writers will meet less disappointment and make more money self-publishing ebooks than they would endlessly pursuing Big Daddy and Big Mama Six. As Konrath notes, “My self-pubbed books continue to outsell my legacy books at up to 10 to 1.”
Here’s some statistics for those still considering a legacy press:
“Every year, agents and publishers receive millions of book queries and submissions. Out of those, only 172,000 are published (Goldfarb). Little more than ten percent sell more than 5,000 copies. And only about ten become bestsellers (Ingermanson). Only one percent of [legacy press] authors make a living solely from their writing, a few examples being Stephen King, James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, and Stephanie Meyer” (Lindensmith).
Still considering a legacy press? Writer’s Digest, a magazine that has always promoted Big Six Publishing, is even jumping aboard the self-published ebook bandwagon. In the May/June 2012 issue, April Eberhardt (an agent!) discusses why it’s a good idea for writers to self-publish their works as ebooks instead of pursuing the Big Six. In her article “The New Era of Publishing: Marking It Work for You,” she writes about “two unfavorable trends you should be prepared to face” if you decide to go the traditional (legacy) route: “1)…given the number of writers vying for fewer slots on publisher’s lists, the statistical chances of your manuscript being selected are, unfortunately, getting slimmer. And 2)…of those authors who are offered traditional deals, many are finding their advances are smaller and/or paid out over longer periods than were previously standard---or sometimes even that the contract is offered ‘advance-free.’” And this is coming from an agent! This is coming from an article in Writer’s Digest! The same magazine, that a few years ago, had an article that stated that self-publishing was a writer’s last resort and there was no money in it. The times, they are a changin’!
Eberhardt goes on to say, “Despite my continued optimism that the publishing world will welcome new work, over the past year I’ve seen a distinct diminishment in publisher’s willingness to take a chance on new authors, particularly authors of fiction….After one, two, three, even four dozen queries or more to suitable editors on behalf of an author, I often see a pattern among responses: ‘This is a terrific manuscript---but we can’t take a chance on a new author.’” In other words, the only writers benefiting from legacy presses are authors who are already established, authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and James Patterson. If you’re a new writer, you’re screwed if you go the legacy route.
For five years I wrote, edited, and queried agents about my novel Hell. Apparently, not many agents or editors were interested in a novel about teenagers doing copious amounts of drugs, participating in grotesque sex acts, and murdering one another. I got some positive feedback, but no real interest. I couldn’t even get into the Gatekeeper’s lair. Then I discovered Kindle Direct Publishing. I did some more revisions and finally published the book myself the summer of 2011. I’m not making 100,000 or even 10,000 dollars a month, but I’ve made more money publishing Hell as an ebook than I ever did futilely pursuing agents who receive millions of queries a year. What do I make? About ten dollars a month. It’s small potatoes, but it’s something. The fact is I am actually making money from my writing, even if it is a miniscule amount. And the best part is that I have the potential to keep making money. As Konrath notes: “We can directly and instantly reach hundreds of millions of consumers in a global marketplace. We can set the list price, and we get to keep the majority of that list price. Readers can buy our work instantly on devices that they love. They don't have to go to the store, the store is in their hands. Once a book is written and formatted it can sell unlimited copies, forever, without any costs to the writer other than the initial time investment and monetary investment (formatting, editing, cover.)” I don’t know about forever, but a writer’s ebooks can be available to whomever whenever until the internet is consumed by a massive viral attack or the sun goes black. The potential for sales is endless, especially with access to new new media such as Facebook, Digg, YouTube, and Google+, which offer numerous ways to promote ebooks to the internet’s bottomless pool of potential readers.
Promotion via New New Media
Things on the internet go viral. As Paul Levison describes “viral” in his book New New Media, it “used to be called ‘word of mouth.’ But ‘viral’ is something more, because digital word of mouth can reach anyone, anywhere in the world, and millions of people, instantly, in contrast to old-fashioned spoken word of mouth” (70). When it comes to marketing an ebook, the internet is on the writer’s side. An example of old media promotion would be book tours, visiting libraries and bookstores and signing copies (the type of thing a legacy press would encourage a lot of). This is not nearly as effective as spreading word of your book on the internet to millions of potential buyers, who can check out your book by simply clicking a link and reading a preview and deciding whether to hit BUY or not. I did a book signing for my first novel Mystery Man. I sold maybe ten books in two hours. And that is considered a successful book signing! Most authors only sell one or two copies if any. Mostly, a book signing consists of shoppers ambling over to your table, looking your book over, saying it looks interesting or stupid, and then walking off. Or, if you’re really unfortunate, shoppers will avoid you like the plague. Who is this guy? Trying to sell me a book he wrote. What an idiot.
By the time I published my second novel, Hell, I barely bothered with old media promotion. I did two interviews: one for a school paper, and one for a blog. Neither of these particularly boosted my sales into the stratosphere. Konrath has some rather controversial ideas about promotion, but I’ll get to that later. First, I’ll discuss the forms of new new media I used to promote Hell and how effective they were to sales.
Authonomy
Authonomy is basically a virtual version of American Idol for writers. Writers upload their books to the site (along with cover art), and other users give feedback, rate it, or add it to their bookshelf. The virtual bookshelf is the most important part of Authonomy: if a writer’s book is placed on enough bookshelves, then it moves up the ranks. The top five books at the end of each month are reviewed by editors at Harper Collins. If the editors really like the book, the writer has the chance to sign a publishing contract with Harper.
The highest rank Hell ever received was somewhere in the fifties. I never got to the top five. But due to the fact that I actually participated in the site, meaning, I read other writer’s material, offered helpful advice, shelved books that had merit, and never asked for a shelve in exchange, I actually made quite a few contacts and friends through the website and peaked a lot of interest in my novel. As a competition site, Authonomy is irritating and full of spammers. But if you use it as a form of social media, you can actually make a lot of connections. I gained 100 or so contacts through Authonomy and through those contacts I made even more. It’s really important to connect with other writers, to read their work and offer suggestions and advice. Writers help each other out. Writers are interested in other writers; if they’re good writers.
For me, Authonomy was not only good for networking, but receiving helpful comments regarding revisions and edits. Some of the revisions in Hell are based on comments I received on Authonomy and my novel is better for them. Writers are used to working in isolation, but networking is fundamental to writing the best book you can. Writers need to share their work and get feedback. If readers show enough interest in your work to offer feedback, they will most likely be interested in seeing a final copy: in print or as an ebook. Many of my sales are a direct result of my participation on Authonomy.
Participation is the key word. I never spammed users. Trying to get in the top five is pointless. And even if you do get in the top five, just think: five writers climb to the top every month and are selected for review by Harper Collins. Every month! Most are rejected. It’s just a futile attempt to get in the Gatekeeper’s lair all over again. You would be better off submitting query letters to agents. At least that way, you deal with the publishing industry directly, instead of spending hours and hours spamming and begging other users to shelf your book so you can claw your way to the top five only to be rejected. Many of the books that reach the top five are not even good quality, because the top five usually consist of spammers and whiners, not good writers.
Facebook
Many of the contacts I met through Authonomy crossed over to my Facebook and became friends there. This is also where I met many of their writer friends and built my network up to 500 contacts. Facebook is the ultimate social media platform, as of now. In fact, out of all the forms of social media I used, Facebook and Authonomy (together) made me most my sales
Aside from building a platform of contacts, readers, and friends, Facebook also allows you to create pages and groups, both of which I put to good use to promote Hell.
Hell Group
The Hell group was more beneficial than the Hell page, because a group is a community, while the page is just a list of information and the option to “like” the item. My group started out small: six members, but steadily increased to 135. Now, it’s dwindled down to 120. I think mostly because the book has already been released, so the momentum has died.
To put a group to good use you should update it at least once every two weeks. No more than that or your members will get annoyed (those updates, after all, go straight to their notifications). I got my readers excited about my novel by posting cover art, sneak peeks, and reviews. Also, I created an interactive community: I let members review different cover arts and vote on which one they liked best. I also let most my members give feedback on rough drafts. In this way, the writer and readers built the book together, and when it was published, it wasn’t just some random product the readers had no personal connection to, but an experience readers and writers shared and built. Writing may be a solitary act, but revision and business are not.
YouTube
Book trailers are video representations of a book to get viewers excited about reading.
At the time I was promoting Hell, I decided it would be cool to film a trailer. I wanted to hire some students to act out a scene from the book, offer a visual representation of a passage to whet reader’s appetites. An acquaintance of mine was a film major at Minnesota State University Moorhead, so I wrote a short screenplay, sent it to him, and asked him if he’d be interested. He immediately said yes and even drew up some storyboards. The problem: the actors. Most didn’t want to participate because the content was too dark. I suppose most Midwesterners don’t want to be associated with a scene that involves oral sex (off-camera, by the way).
For me, YouTube was not an effective means for promoting my novel. I highly doubt it is for most writers. However, there are a few writers I can think of who have created cinematic representations of their books that have caught my eye. While a book trailer is promoting a book, not a movie, it obviously has to be visually-oriented, since it is, after all, a video. An example of a bad book trailer is one that consists of scrolling text and random images set to music. Or worse yet, the author talking about his or her work. Writers write, most are not meant to talk on camera.
Here’s an example of a visually rich trailer done by Ted Dekker, bestselling author of Christian thrillers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iooUj1UBF9E
Notice the cinematic quality. Really makes you want to read the book, doesn’t it?
Here’s an example of a book trailer by New York Times Bestselling author Steve Alten that, while not as visually stunning, peaks the reader’s curiosity by presenting some provocative ideas along with disturbing stock footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OioYWUmRcuw
A book is not a visual medium, but a video representation of the book obviously is. Thus, sound, music, and imagery are all important components, just as in film.
How effective is a book trailer?
“According to a 2009 online survey by Teenreads.com, 4 in 10 teenage readers said they liked to see book trailers on book-related blogs and 46 percent watched book trailers on YouTube. Even more startling, 45 percent bought a book after watching the trailer” (Paul).
In this fast-paced YouTube generation, book trailers may become a very effective means of book promotion. Of course, like any other form of promotion, creating a book trailer will not result in instant sales. For example, Dennis Cass, the author of “Head Case,” created a trailer that received over 70,000 hits on YouTube and won the Moby book trailer award, but he sold less than 5,000 copies of his book (Paul).
The more cinematic a trailer, the better your chances though. Talking heads and scrolling text do not titillate.
Wikipedia
Recently, a self-published author asked me if he could use Wikipedia to promote his novels. The answer is No. You’re not supposed to write a Wikipedia post about yourself. Wikipedia has a strong stance against articles that benefit the writer or parties related to the writer in any way. I don’t think this is unfair. Wikipedia shouldn’t be used for shameless self-promotion; it’s an encyclopedia, not a social media site for funny cat videos, memes, or advertisements for your ebook.
If you want to try and start an article about yourself under a different user name, you can try but most likely it will be taken down unless you’ve won awards for your work or sold millions of copies.
Twitter/Reddit/Digg
Some of the contacts I have made through Authonomy and Facebook I also follow on Twitter. But Twitter has not helped me promote my novel in a huge way. Most my readers are part of the Hell group on Facebook and have no reason to follow me on Twitter. I gain new followers on Twitter all the time, but few of them check out the links to my books or blog.
Other microblogging sites such as Digg and Reddit have also been disappointing. The main problem being that Digg and Reddit are not for marketing, but drawing attention to interesting blog posts, news articles, and videos (free stuff!). These are not good sites for trying to sell a product. In fact, most the users, rightfully, consider it spamming (especially the users at Reddit, who were furious I posted a link to my book on Amazon. Oops!). Unless you’re posting a link to a blog post you have written or you’re giving away free ebooks, these sites are not helpful.
Blogging
If you’re a writer, you should have a blog. Some of the customers who purchased Hell used to read my blog The Church of Fat on Xanga. I wrote this blog when I was 17. I published Hell five years later and those readers stuck around long enough to buy it. Blogging is that important. Blogging allows you to share snippets of your writing and personality (for better or worse). Blogging allows you to attract an audience. Blogging allows you to write in public. Blogging allows you to receive criticism about your work, yourself. Blogging allows you to improve upon both these aspects. Blogging allows you to network with others. Blogging is very important.
I no longer update The Church of Fat, but many of those readers are friends on Facebook and are still curious about my writing. Today, I blog using Tumblr and Blogspot. The best way to reach readers is to promote your blog the way you promote your books---through new new media. When you attract readers to your blog, you’ll also want them to know about your ebooks. On my blog, I have created separate pages for my books. That way, if a reader likes my blogging, he/she can just click on the Hell tab at the top of my page and check out information on the novel or purchase it.
As Levinson notes in his book New New Media, blogging is the social medium that put the power of production back in the consumer’s hands. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, the equality of consumers and producers ended; “the one-to-one ratio in which every reader was also a writer” was “radically altered” (18). Only “a sliver of the population” contributed to what went into books, newspapers, and magazines (18). “Blogging has in turn changed and reversed all of that…any reader can become a writer” (18). Sound familiar? The advent of ebooks is bringing about a second revolution, in which any reader can become a writer and sell their writing without the middle man or Big Six.
KDP Select
KDP Select is a new program Amazon.com offers that helps authors promote their ebooks. Basically, when you sign up for KDP Select, you agree to sell your book exclusively through Amazon for three months. The advantages are worth it: your ebook is placed in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, where Amazon Prime members can borrow it for free.
Some might not like the idea of giving Amazon exclusivity, but Kindle is where the money is at. Amanda Hocking made 2.5 million dollars through Kindle, not Smashwords or Lulu. The choice is obvious. Kindle is the hottest ereader on the market and that’s where most ebook consumers are finding and purchasing books. By uploading your book to Kindle, your chances of success increase dramatically.
KDP Select also allows you to have free promos. Offering your book for free seems counterproductive to the task of being your own publisher and selling your own books. But if there is one thing readers love more than cheap ebooks, it’s free ebooks. I offered Hell for free March 25-29 and distributed more than 1,000 copies. Now, I didn’t make any money, obviously, but my ebook was downloaded by 1,000 customers who otherwise never would have read it. Offering your ebooks for free is not about making money, it’s a promotional tool. After the giveaway ended, my sales increased. Not by much, but I sold a few more ebooks than I usually do. My ebook became more visible and garnered more interest because it was free. KDP gives you the potential to make more sales based on increased visibility of your work.
Author Jonas Saul has a similar success story, regarding his novel Dark Visions:
“I offered Dark Visions for free at Amazon late October [2011]. It raised the rest of my titles in sales and when it stopped being free, people continued to buy it like crazy.
Overall, I had over 26,000 downloads that month with more than half of them free, meaning no royalty. So say, 10,000 I got paid for. I don't know the breakdown of how many were 70% and how many were 35% royalty, but I can tell you that my income shot up four times in October and has stayed high since.”
Overall, I had over 26,000 downloads that month with more than half of them free, meaning no royalty. So say, 10,000 I got paid for. I don't know the breakdown of how many were 70% and how many were 35% royalty, but I can tell you that my income shot up four times in October and has stayed high since.”
Choose a Platform
Abusing too many social media outlets can be cumbersome, especially if you contact mostly the same people through each platform. Readers may be annoyed if they receive updates about your book through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, MySpace, and every time you log into Skype. It’s best to choose a platform or two and stick with them. I chose Facebook and Authonomy, others may find Twitter or Google+ helpful. Use the platform where you have the most access to potential readers. Since I have 500 some friends on Facebook, I use Facebook. If you have more followers on Twitter, by all means, use Twitter.
Konrath on Publicity
Konrath has some controversial ideas, not only about publishing, but publicity as well. In his blog post “The Value of Publicity,” Konrath gives these seven tips to newbie writers:
1. Don't sweat publicity. It can't hurt, but I don't think it will drive your sales unless the publicity is really huge. And even then, the publicity is only responsible for temporary sales, not long term sales.
2. Focus, as always, on writing good books and presenting them in a professional way. The more, the better.
3. Social media and word of mouth are helpful, but you have to reach a lot of people before these become a factor. Less tweeting, more writing.
4. Reviews don't have the gravitas they used to. Certain ebook review sites can help sales, but even better is giving away free books to fans in exchange for an honest review.
5. Study Amazon and how it sells ebooks. Experiment. Take chances. If one of Amazon's imprints offers to publish you, accept. Right now they are the only publisher who can increase your sales.
6. Avoid all legacy publishers. You can do everything they can, faster, and you don't have to give away the majority of your income . . . .
7. Don't give up. It can take years before you get to where you want to be. Luck plays a part. Stick with it until you get lucky.
2. Focus, as always, on writing good books and presenting them in a professional way. The more, the better.
3. Social media and word of mouth are helpful, but you have to reach a lot of people before these become a factor. Less tweeting, more writing.
4. Reviews don't have the gravitas they used to. Certain ebook review sites can help sales, but even better is giving away free books to fans in exchange for an honest review.
5. Study Amazon and how it sells ebooks. Experiment. Take chances. If one of Amazon's imprints offers to publish you, accept. Right now they are the only publisher who can increase your sales.
6. Avoid all legacy publishers. You can do everything they can, faster, and you don't have to give away the majority of your income . . . .
7. Don't give up. It can take years before you get to where you want to be. Luck plays a part. Stick with it until you get lucky.
Pricing!
One of the biggest differences between legacy ebooks and self-published ebooks is price. Legacy titles are cheaper on Kindle than in hardcover or paperback, but not by much. In fact, ebook titles are usually only half price. Readers like cheap books. They don’t care if the book is backed by a legacy publisher; they are just looking for a cheap, good read.
The best price range for an ebook is between .99 and 2.99. At least, most the self-published writers I know (who are successful) set their prices somewhere in this range. I sell Hell for 2.99. It’s questionable whether I would sell more units if I lowered the price to .99. I have tried, and it made absolutely no difference.
Most readers can’t afford a twenty dollar hardcover anymore, barely a paperback for 7.99. Readers are switching to Kindle because the prices of ebooks are more affordable. If the prices of self-published ebooks are lower than legacy prices, readers will flock toward self-published titles.
An example of how much big names matter when readers are searching for cheap titles is Konrath outselling James Patterson. Yeah, that’s right. James Patterson: New York Times bestselling author and part of the 1% making a living through a legacy press. Konrath outsells many Patterson titles on Kindle (Konrath). When you sell your book, sell it cheap!
Controversy
The Ebook Bubble
The concept of the Ebook Bubble is that all this “hype and speculation” (Morrison) over self-publishing ebooks is a gold rush that is destroying the publishing industry. Instead of books that are proofread and edited and thoroughly revised by a publisher, book consumption is increasingly becoming poorly written drivel that self-published authors are selling cheaply to readers to make a quick buck. According to Ewan Morrison, who writes for The Guardian: “Everyone can be a writer now: it only takes 10 minutes to upload your own ebook, and according to the New York Times ‘81% of people feel they have a book in them ... And should write it.’”
To some extent, this is true. For every good self-published ebook, there are thousands of badly edited, badly formatted, poorly written ebooks. But like any form of media consumption, consumers tend to reject that which they do not like, and consume that which has quality and merit. The fact that shoddy self-published ebooks exist does not demonize all self-published ebooks. Readers will connect over good ebooks and discard bad ebooks, just like they would legacy published fiction. As Sturgeon’s Law states, “90% of everything is shit.”
Legacy presses have no reason to fear self-published ebooks. Amanda Hocking, author of the My Blood Approves series, “signed a contract with MacMillian that gave her a $50,000 advance on four separate books in the series” (Pilkington). Hocking may have started as a self-published ebook author, but the fact that she made 2.5 million dollars through Kindle did not stop her from signing with a legacy press, who could offer her advances (versus writing on spec for free) and other bonuses, such as film and merchandising rights. This is an advantage that self-publishing will never have. Also, writers like Hocking offer a clear advantage to legacy presses: instead of sifting through queries and manuscripts that have no guarantee of success, legacy presses can now offer contracts to writers who are already successful on Kindle.
As agent April Eberhardt notes in her Writer’s Digest article, “In my role as both literary agent and author advocate, I view [the advent of the ebook] not as the end of traditional publishing as we know it, but as the beginning of an exciting era in which more power has shifted into the hands of authors.”
Old Media vs. New Media
Not everyone is enthusiastic about ebooks. Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom and The Corrections, for example, fears that ebooks will have a detrimental effect on the world (Flood). Franzen says: “Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I'm handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that's reassuring . . . . Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”
Joe Konrath had this to say about Franzen’s fear of ebooks: “The grand literati concept of ‘Story’ with a capital S has nothing to do with the media that delivers it. The story doesn't exist on paper. Or as e-ink, or screen pixels, or even mp3 audio compression. The Story exists in the reader's/listener's head . . . Ebooks are going to follow the examples set by the music, movie, and TV industries. The future is digital, and anyone who disagrees with that is seriously out of touch with reality . . . Amazon supposedly sold 6 million Kindle Fires in the last three months.”
According to Paul Levinson, author of New New Media, while “we can expect . . . offline media to play a decreasing . . . role in our lives” (98), there are advantages to offline media. For example, “books have been banned and burned throughout history . . . the practical impossibility of rounding up all copies of a book . . . makes them invulnerable to complete banning by government, commercial or religious fiat . . . . That’s not the case for anything online” (98).
As self-pubbed ebook author Jonas Saul noted in an interview with WritingRaw:
“We’ve witnessed a major change in the industry since Amazon opened their doors for writers to upload their books directly. E-book readers have been selling quite well, and the ebook market has blossomed in 2011. According to the Association of American Publishers Annual Book Sales, in 2006 total ebook sales were $54 million. In 2007, it grew to $67 million and in 2008, $113 million. Finally, in 2009, ebook sales were $169.5 million. Although $169.5 million is not a big chunk of the $35 billion publishing industry, ebook sales rose 176%. Last year, 2010, ebooks rose again to $441.3 million, and according to an AAP Publishers report, 2011 is projected to be the first year where the billion dollar mark is hit in ebook sales alone. I conclude, there is no better time to be a writer.”
Amen.
Works Cited
Amazon. "Sales and Royalties FAQ." Amazon. Kindle Direct Publishing. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A30F3VI2TH1FR8>.
Eberhardt, April. "The New Era of Publishing: Marking It Work for You." Writer's Digest May-June 2012: 19-22. Print.
Flood, Alison. "Jonathan Franzen Warns Ebooks Are Corroding Values." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 30 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/jonathan-franzen-ebooks-values?newsfeed=true>.
Goldfarb, Jeffrey. "Bookish Britain Overtakes America as Top Publisher." Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times, 10 May 2006. Web. 09 Mar. 2012. <http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/NM10/Bookish-Britain-overtakes-America-as-top-publisher/Article1-96344.aspx>.
Hocking, Amanda. "An Epic Tale of How It All Happened." Amanda Hocking's Blog. Blogspot, 27 Aug. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2010/08/epic-tale-of-how-it-all-happened.html>.
Ingermanson, Randy. “Those Brutal Numbers.” AdvancedFictionWriting. Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, July 2007. Web. 9 Mar. 2012. <http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/ezine/2007/AFW_Ezine_2007-08-07.txt>
Konrath, Joe. “$100,000.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/100000.html>.
Konrath, Joe. “Reality Check.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 13 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/reality-check.html>.
Konrath, Joe. “Self-Pubbed Author Beware.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/self-pubbed-author-beware.html>.
Konrath, Joe. “The Value of Publicity.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 18 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/value-of-publicity.html>.
Konrath, Joe. “The Myth of the Bestseller.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 19 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/myth-of-bestseller.html>.
Konrath, Joe. “At Home with the Sixes.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/at-home-with-sixes.html>.
Konrath, Joe. “Franzen and the Ebook Bubble.” A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Blogspot, 31 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/01/franzen-and-ebook-bubble.html>.
Levinson, Paul. New New Media. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2009. Print.
Lindensmith, John. "The Challenges and Opportunities of Creative Writers: An Interview with Rosa Sophia." North Dakota State University - Minard Hall, Fargo. 16 Nov. 2011. Speech.
Morrison, Ewan. "The Self-epublishing Bubble." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 30 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/self-e-publishing-bubble-ewan-morrison>.
Paul, Pamela. "The Author Takes a Star Turn." Nytimes.com. New York Times, 9 July 2010. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/fashion/11AuthorVideos.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all>.
Pilkington, Ed. "Amanda Hocking, the Writer Who Made Millions by Self-publishing Online." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 01 Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/12/amanda-hocking-self-publishing>.
WritingRaw. "The 7 Question Interview with Jonas Saul." WritingRaw. WritingRaw, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <http://writingraw.com/files/7%20Question%20Interview%20with%20Jonas%20Saul.pdf>.
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