Monday, April 25, 2011
Self Epublishing And The Coming Paradigm Shift
If you’re a writer, or aspire to be one, you should be visiting Joe Konrath’s blog on a regular basis. Also, I recommend downloading his ebook, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing (same name as his blog). Hell, it’s only $2.99. Basically, it’s material from his excellent blog.
One thing that strikes me as I’ve been perusing A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing is how much Mr. Konrath has evolved in his thinking regarding self publishing. Early on, he was ambivalent at best when it came to self publishing, but now he’s a huge proponent. Rightly so I believe. I suggest you visit this post and see what I mean:
Two hundred and seventy-six thousand, one hundred and eleven.
That’s how many self-pubbed books I’ve sold.
About 245k of these on Kindle.
20k on Smashwords,
5k on Createspace,
The rest divvied up among Nook, OverDrive, and my website.
In March, I earned over $68,000. But I know that number can go up. Other authors have earned more. A lot more.
It’s been fascinating to watch how this has all developed over the last two years.
Keep in mind that Mr. Konrath is a dead tree published author through Hyperion. He’s finding it considerably more advantageous to self Epublish rather than going the traditional route. He’s not alone. New York Times best selling author Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 dead tree deal opting instead to go the self Epublishing route. Yeah, it’s old news at this point, but worth repeating. He and Joe discuss it here. If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest grabbing a beer (or beverage of your choice) and taking the time to read it. It’s a long one, maybe you’d better grab a couple of beers. For me it was about a six pack read, but ... I digress.
One thing that I’ve noticed while visiting several forums and blog comment sections regarding this subject is the hostility from many. Its almost as if some are putting up a battering wall in a last ditch--although hopeless--effort to stave off the inevitable shifting of the old paradigm.
What will that shift be? Hell, I don’t know for certain. I’m simply an unpublished nobody with an opinion and we all know that there is no such thing as a humble opinion. One change that I’m pretty certain of, though, is that the gatekeepers for talent will no longer be agents and corporate publishers. That job will shift to you and me; the public. The reasons are many, I’m not going to rehash them because they’ve already been discussed on Mr. Konrath’s blog in his posts and in his comment sections. Go read it. I’m certain that most reasonable people will be persuaded.
