Quote:
Originally Posted by Mivo
I don't really agree with the article's claim that Amazon's "stranglehold on the ebook market" is "in a very large part to self-publishing writers". Is this based on figures and facts, or is it just opinion?
Most of the self-published stuff I've read is "OK", but often shows that it never had to go through the slush pile, and that it wasn't properly edited.
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Well, now, maybe you have been unlucky in your choices.
Amazon may or not have a stranglehold on the "ebook market" but indie titles do make up a big portion of Kindle ebook sales--39% of unit sales or thereabouts.
(NOOK is ln record saying indies make over over a quarter of their sales, and Kobo isn't too far behind. So indies are important to everybody selling ebooks. )
Best guess is they make up anywhere from a quarter to a third of the 3Million commercial titles in the Kindle catalog. Half a million of those titles also happen to be exclusive to Kindle. Which means that for people open to the concept of reading indie titles, Amazon offers half a million reasons to go with them.
Now, you need to bear in mind that "indie" titles, even the truly self-published ones, includes a broad spectrum of books, many (most?) of which have in fact had to "go through the slush pile" (which doesn't exist anymore) and were traditionally "vetted" and published at some point in the past. One reason the indie market has exploded in the past four years is that a lot of them are backlist titles that the corporate publishers reverted because they couldn't make money (for themselves, much less the authors) selling them. Which in some cases meant books selling maybe 10,000 copies a year at $9-15. Those same books often sell much much better at $2.99 and keep on selling year after year.
Unlike what you may have heard, most self-published titles these days are professionally edited, formatted, and proofed, and have professionally produced covers, often by the very same freelance personnel traditional publishers outsource to. The publisher of record for most indie titles may be the author but that does not mean the author carries out the entire publishing process, only that the author is the paymaster and retains total control and ownership.
There is an entire "shadow" industry of freelance professionals suppotting savvy authors willing to bet a few hundred dollars on their own titles and make a middle-class living writing. And, much as in traditional publishing, there are a few dozen good enough to make millions by betting on themselves. The best estimates I've seen peg the entire indie ebook market at well over a billion dollars a year, with a couple hundred million more out of indie pbooks and audio books.
There is big money in (good) indie titles and good indie writers have taken note of it. The one big problem they (and all non-millionaire celebrity authors) face is visibility. Getting their books before the readers who might properly appreciate their style and their subjects, whether it be romance or SF, erotica or children's fairy tales.
That is one thing Booklamp's technology aspires to provide for all books, indie and tradpub and, since Apple now owns it, it might provide a more indie-friendly environment at the iBookstore.
Or it might not.
The idea is...debatable.
Edit: if you've made it this far, check these:
http://janefriedman.com/2014/08/05/leap-to-indie/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae...b_5647391.html
And especially this:
http://www.hughhowey.com/the-liliana-nirvana-technique/
Those are just a few of the testimonials popping up this week. Just lurking in one authors forum I see maybe a dozen every week. The names may not be familiar to you (most aren't to me) but they are industry veterans known to other writers. So the message is spreading: if you can write good books, you can make a living at it.
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/07/20...heir-day-jobs/
But you have to go indie. Which isn't for everybody.