Until a couple years ago, a new writer had very few options if he or she wanted to get their work in front of readers. You could try to get signed by one of the big-6 publishing houses (similar odds to winning the lottery), maybe sign with a small house and earn less than minimum wage, or spend thousands of dollars to self-publish your own work. Frankly, none of these options appealed to me as a first time novelist.
While mulling over my options, I stumbled upon J.A. Konrath's blog. Konrath was traditionally published and abused by the industry, so he opted out of it altogether and put up his considerable backlist (along with new content) onto Amazon's KDP platform. According to him, getting into bed with a major publisher is probably the worst thing a writer can do for their career.
It was through Konrath's blog that I learned about a young twenty-something named Amanda Hocking, who had written a paranormal romance series that had been rejected by every publisher she'd submitted to. After John Locke, Amanda was the first KDP author to sell over one million copies. And yes, she is a millionaire now but that's not what impressed me about her story. What impressed me was the fact that she took her career into her own hands and made things happen. That's why I released my first novel with Amazon KDP instead of shopping it around.
Soon after publishing The Island of Ted, I got involved on the Kindle Boards forum, where I learned that Amanda Hocking, while certainly an exceptional case, is not the only indie author making a very nice living by publishing with Amazon. There is actually a good number of indies doing very, very well on this platform. My sales are nowhere near what those authors are pulling, but I have an audience. And that's more than I had a year ago.
In the next blog post I'll talk about some of the details on publishing my next book which, at present, is looking to be a 3-book series. That may change if my editor gets back to me with, "You should wrap this up in a single volume," in which case I will release it as a stand alone title.
Enjoy your holiday weekend, my fellow Americans!
While mulling over my options, I stumbled upon J.A. Konrath's blog. Konrath was traditionally published and abused by the industry, so he opted out of it altogether and put up his considerable backlist (along with new content) onto Amazon's KDP platform. According to him, getting into bed with a major publisher is probably the worst thing a writer can do for their career.
It was through Konrath's blog that I learned about a young twenty-something named Amanda Hocking, who had written a paranormal romance series that had been rejected by every publisher she'd submitted to. After John Locke, Amanda was the first KDP author to sell over one million copies. And yes, she is a millionaire now but that's not what impressed me about her story. What impressed me was the fact that she took her career into her own hands and made things happen. That's why I released my first novel with Amazon KDP instead of shopping it around.
Soon after publishing The Island of Ted, I got involved on the Kindle Boards forum, where I learned that Amanda Hocking, while certainly an exceptional case, is not the only indie author making a very nice living by publishing with Amazon. There is actually a good number of indies doing very, very well on this platform. My sales are nowhere near what those authors are pulling, but I have an audience. And that's more than I had a year ago.
In the next blog post I'll talk about some of the details on publishing my next book which, at present, is looking to be a 3-book series. That may change if my editor gets back to me with, "You should wrap this up in a single volume," in which case I will release it as a stand alone title.
Enjoy your holiday weekend, my fellow Americans!
