Illustration by Leif Parsons
Check out this article by Isia Jasiewicz from The Books Issue of Newsweek (first posted only July 30th, 2010):
Boyd Morrison was finishing a Ph.D. in industrial engineering when he wrote his first novel. Five agents rejected it. Nine years later he tried again, and this time he did get an agent—after nearly three years and three novels. But that turned out to be some kind of cosmic tease, because 25 publishers turned down The Ark. With nothing left to lose, Morrison uploaded The Ark and his two other unpublished novels to Amazon’s Kindle store in March 2009. Within three months, he was selling books at a rate of 4,000 a month—a number that attracted the attention of the same publishers who had rejected him. This May, when The Ark was released in hardcover from Simon & Schuster, it became the first self-published Kindle book to be picked up by a Big Six publisher. Morrison says that the phone call from his agent telling him he’d finally see his book in print was “one of the most amazing moments of my life.”
Until recently, reviewers and booksellers looked down on self-published authors the way Anna Wintour scorns Dress Barn. Now new writers and established authors alike are increasingly taking publishing into their own hands, and the publishing establishment is paying attention. According to a recent Bowker report, the market for “nontraditional books” in the United States grew by more than 750,000 new titles in 2009—a 181 percent increase over 2008. Five of the top 100 bestsellers in the Kindle store—which now produces more sales than Amazon’s hardcover list—are currently self-published.
Bob Young, CEO of print-on-demand service Lulu.com, says that the publishing and distributing of books online will not be the old book industry on a new platform. It will be a new industry, dependent not on bestsellers but on niche publications. Young compares Lulu to eBay, which many feared would kill the traditional auction business. “Ten years and 60 billion transactions on eBay later,” Young says, “Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and the farm auctioneers are still doing fine. That’s because it was not people with Picassos who were selling on eBay. And in our case, it won’t be John Grisham selling millions of copies on Lulu.”
Maybe Grisham isn’t a Lulu customer yet, but writer John Edgar Wideman (Philadelphia Fire) is. Wideman’s latest collection of short stories, Briefs, came out from Lulu this spring. In a traditional paperback publishing deal, the author keeps a mere 8 to 9 percent of royalties. Under most self-publishing agreements, authors keep 70 to 80 percent of their profits, with the remaining cut going to their distributor. “It’s an even playing field for the first time,” says J. A. Konrath, a thriller author (Whiskey Sour) who plans to release all his future novels as self-published Kindle books. “The gatekeepers have become who they should have been in the first place: the readers.”
Konrath began self-publishing e-books in April 2009. He quickly realized that by cutting out the middleman, he was making as much money on a single $2.99 e-book as he would on a $25 hardcover. “I started to be able to pay my mortgage on e-book money, then pay my bills on e-book money,” Konrath says. “I’m going to make over $100,000 this year, and a lot of the money is from the books that New York publishers rejected.” Konrath attributes his strong sales on Amazon to user-generated ratings and reviews on message boards, as well as to the low price of his e-books. “Three dollars is a cup of coffee,” Konrath says. “Wouldn’t you rather have eight hours of entertainment from a book?”
[...] from: Who Needs a Publisher Anyway? This entry was posted in Books and tagged amazon, Books, konrath, message-boards, the-low. [...]
What a great story. I’d love to know how Morrison managed to get 4k a month sales on Kindle. The dark side of this is that as a novice Kindle writer, I’m finding so many self-published kindle writers peddling their books to each other. Kind of a disturbing trend. While the idea of readers as gatekeepers is intriguing (especially since publishers and agents haven’t been doing such a great job) it would also be helpful if reviewers including the mainstream press would look at self-published books. With so much out there, there is a need if not for a gatekeeper, then at least for a bit of guidance.
Thanks for your comment, Marion.
Morrison’s Kindle version of The Ark is set at $11.99, which is a bit high for an Ebook, but if he set his royalty at the 70% option, then he earns about $8.40 per sale. Do the math and you’ll see he only has to have 480 sales to reach 4K. 480 sales in one month is completely achievable given his genre.
In my opinion, the mainstream press is probably getting paid to review the books they review. If you have the money to invest in one of those reviews, then I say go for it.
I’m actually honored to have other writers (indie or not) read my work, so call me a peddler if you want. Most of my personal friends who would read my work anyway are writers or readers (or both). And I’m sure they feel the same way. I don’t think that’s disturbing at all. Stephen King even said that why you aren’t writing, then you should be reading.
Readers are definitely the gatekeepers. Stop and think about the vampire frenzy going on right now. I went through the first one with Anne Rice many years ago, not about to take part in the current one.
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-Shannon
LLBR
I agree with Marion about the press and media. I have a feeling the break point will come with the first genuine breakthrough critical as well as financial success. I set up eight cuts gallery press as a (highly genre-specific micro/anti)press specifically to sidestep the rules against self-published novels that many prizes use as barriers. We are publishing two of the most extraordinary books you’ll read (Oli Johns’ Charcoal, Cody James’ The Dead Beat) later this year, and fully expect a hatful of shortlists. With any luck that will make the media get its head out from, well, you know where.
I have to say, I think it’s great that self-publishers are more and more saying they don’t need a publisher. It makes me a little frustrated when they say “if I’m successful then a publisher may pick me up” -as frustratd as people who try for an agent, fail, and then go self-publishing. It’s as though many self-publishers are themselves perpetuating the snobbery.
Dan-
Financial success is already happening for many authors who begin as self-published, and they are getting critical breakthrough reviews from big time reviewers, only after their title is picked up by the mainstream…Still Alice, Eragon, The Lace Reader, to name a few.
Congrats on 8 Cuts Gallery Press, however, with no ISBN how do you plan to bring your highlighted books into the mainstream?
As for self-publishers saying they don’t need a publisher, there are a few that are humble and actually mean it. As for the “snobs,” they’d probably take the paycheck if it was offered and never look back to where they got their start. They are writers, after all, and plenty of them are snobs to some degree.
Thanks,
Shannon
LLBR
Yes, it’s a shame that the great critical coverage has come only AFTER crossover – that’s why I think we’ve yet to see the tippnig point.
We aren’t looking to get into the mainstream – we want to get to our readers, who mostly hang out bulletin boards, at music venues, and in bars. I genuinely don’t understand the ISBN thing (I’ve written about it a few places) for non-mainstream books. Once you take away the “it’s always been done this way” argument and say “what are the best ways to get my book to its readers?” then something like the ISBN will come a long long way down. We have a website. We will have direct contact with our readers. For those who cross over with traditional book readers we have great indie bookstores with websites who’ll etail for us.
We’re also not at all committed to the book as a sole format. The Dead beat is also available as an amazing zine through a leading zine printer, and Charcoal almost certainly will be too for example. We work with writers who are committed to the same principles we are. If they change their mind and go mainstream (one of our authors actually pulled out of talks with a mainstream publisher to come on board with us) that’s great, but I’m hopeful many won’t. Our major rationale is to sidstep the prejudice that stops self-publishers being considered for major prizes. Every book we select will be entered for several of the major awards. We want to get our authors’ work before the judges’ eyes and try to makethem change their mind about self-publishing that way.