Successfull E-book authors

[Genaro Zamora]

I'd have to disagree. Opportunity is enough to become successful. But it's the advantages that the individual takes in that opportunity that make it as successful as they want. For example, final drafts, editing, format, dialog, delivery etc. are tools in the craft for shaping up the story once it's complete. Tools that can be as helpful as the author wants them to be. Also, the same goes for recognizing, and marketing ones target audience, another tool that helps make the author successful. Both which are there in the opportunity to self publish.

It's best to look at these tools as investments into ones talented craft. The more you polish your story, the better it's enjoyable for the reader, which will reflect appreciation.

Just my opinion.

[RAScully]

Getting out in the public eye, trying to reach as many people as you can and attract a following are parts of the key, at least I hope so, lol!

I plan to give my writing 110%. I'll re-invest every penny on me. First question you have to ask yourself, can you do this? I say Yes, absolutely, what is stopping each and every one of us from hitting every store within a 300 mile radius to start? Nothing is, just have to get out there and try. Have yet to visit a place where I didn't sell a few books, some were really good and I sold 25+. Each outing is like a holiday, weekend away from home, kinda nice. You meet new people, make contacts and best of all, you get books in stores, slowly building each time. You also have places you can go back to in the next year with your new novel. It will snowball after a while, pretty confident of this fact. You only get what you put into it, sitting in front of that computer only gets you so far.

[P.A.Woodburn]

JA Konrath just wrote a blog saying that he was now spending a lot less time going places to promote his books. He indicated that the beauty of epublishing is that you can spend more time at home writing more books.

I tend to agree. I don't feel any need to get my book in stores at the minute. There are lots more people making a livable income or almost livable income than have been mentioned in this forum.

What about Amanda Hocking who says that she just quit her job because she is making seven times as much money writing?
David Dalgeish seems to be doing very well, and there are many more. These people will keep getting better and better.

The rest of us will learn more and also improve. There will be some who will just give up, but isn't that always what happens.

[Joseph Mitchell]

I think it's all relative to what you would consider successful. Some people can live on $20k per year, while others would think that was ridiculously low, and still others would be envious, only dreaming of having that much money.
I've never met anyone who claimed not to be broke, no matter how much money they had. How are you doing, Bob? Nice new car you got there. Bob: Oh, just getting by, paying the bills, you know. Everyone is always just getting by, even if they own two houses and three cars, the mortgage payments are just killing them, aren't they? Yet they manage to get by, year after year.
So, from what I've seen, there are at least a small handful of self-published authors making enough money to support themselves comfortably, but I suspect they might disagree with me, since they're still just getting by like the rest of us, and probably always will be.

[HarryT]

Joanne Rowling started out self-publishing the first Harry Potter book, because none of the mainstream publishers were interested. I'd say that she's been a reasonable commercial success.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Joanne Rowling started out self-publishing the first Harry Potter book, because none of the mainstream publishers were interested. I'd say that she's been a reasonable commercial success.

Hmm, I always thought it was Barry Cunningham at Bloomsbury that took on Harry Potter after everybody else rejected it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Hmm, I always thought it was Barry Cunningham at Bloomsbury that took on Harry Potter after everybody else rejected it.

It was indeed, but that was after she self-published the first book - a run of 200 copies - because she couldn't find a publisher to take it on. One of those books recently sold at auction for a vast amount of money.

[jes1]

Yes, I think J.K. Rowling is the ultimate example of a self-published author attaining (huge) success. Most can expect something less than that.

[afa]

I don't think J. K. Rowling's success can be used as a barometer.

Yes, she ended up selling over 350 million books, is reportedly a billionaire (according to Forbes, at least, though Rowling herself denies it) and each of the movies based on those books has been a gigantic success. But all of this happened after her work got picked up by a publisher, in particular after it was picked up by Scholastic, which not only brought the might of a large publisher, but also introduced her work to a significantly larger audience in the United States (and, eventually, worldwide).

The fact that she had self-published a couple of hundred copies is happenstance. I doubt it has anything to do with her success.

[HarryT]

The point is, though, that she HAD to self-publish in order to get "noticed" by a publisher.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It was indeed, but that was after she self-published the first book - a run of 200 copies - because she couldn't find a publisher to take it on. One of those books recently sold at auction for a vast amount of money.

I didn't know that. Fascinating. The knowledge here is astounding.
HarryT.

[afa]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The point is, though, that she HAD to self-publish in order to get "noticed" by a publisher.

Did she 'have' to? I doubt it. Publishers generally don't look favorably upon self-published titles. I'm not an expert on Rowling, but in all the stories I have read about her road to success, this is the first I'm hearing about the 200 copies. (Thanks for that info, by the way.) I don't doubt that it's true, but I haven't heard that those copies were what got her noticed.

Here, for example, is an excerpt from her Wikipedia page:

The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.

That information itself is taken from an article that appeared in The New Zealand Herald shortly before the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The chapter in question was given to the chairman as a sample by Rowling's agent, Christopher Little.

[P.A.Woodburn]

We don't all need JK Rowling's success, but I think many authors are making a nice bit of extra month every month which is making a difference to their lives. Some names I could mention are David Dagleish, Vicki Tyler, Amanda Hocking, Ellen O'Connell, David Mc Affee, Imogen Rose and I'm sure there are many, many more. I did not check all names so some may be mispelled-my apologies.

We have to present the best possible product, and we need to study how others are marketing their's. We also have to be open to suggestions from other writers. I have already changed my cover and product description, and I'm willing to make more changes if necessary.

Another point I might add is that from everything I'm reading this is a continually expanding market, some people who had given up reading have started again, and others have increased their reading when they get an e-reader.

Ann

[jaxx6166]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Yes there are great opportunities now, but only if you rise above the crowd and I think that is becoming increasingly difficult as fewer self-published authors who want to rise simply just sit at their computer, put the words on screen, and press Publish to Internet.

This discussion has been had many times before but the one thing that has never been satisfactorily answered is: What mechanical steps does the successful self-published author take to help ensure that his/her product has the opportunity to be successful?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And that's the problem. There are the hypersensitive artists who believe that their work is the most amazing thing to ever come into existence. They'll demand to be displayed in the louve, regardless of the fact that they can barely draw a stick figure. The same thing applies to writers. We have all sorts of leet kiddies out there who believe that they're God's gift to creativity. I've already seen a bunch of them on the self promotion threads. Language as a whole is becoming more and more, craptastic, for lack of a better word.

As the internet becomes more and more mainstream, and ppl who tipe lik dis n think iz ok 2 rite lik dis bc itz readable, people are going to probably end up less tuned to language as a whole. Literacy rates are down nationwide here, there's plenty of people who can't read at all or read anything higher than a third grade level.

Unfortunately, some can't even write at that high of a level.

What was the point of my rant? Oh yeah..

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes you can't see it until you put your darn glasses on. It's your book, write it how you want. But don't. please, for the love of Pete, write your book during NaNo and then immediately stick it up on the Kindle store when you're done.

That. Would. Be. Bad.

You can tell this to people until you're blue in the face, but you probably won't make an impact. I think the future of digital publishing will rest in the hands of the guilds.

I think there's a couple of writer's guilds out there for indie/self pubbers right now. Some of them are united with indie artists who can do covers, and there may even be a couple of grammarwhores in there too that know their stuff.

But grammar isn't really the problem. I mean, look at Cormac McCarthy. He's done just fine telling everyone ion the ivory towers to shove off.

The problem is QUALITY. It could be a great book, but when Joe's name changes to Jim on page 43 and then he becomes Joshua on page 187 and back to Joe on page 253, there's a problem. Or if he's being chased by the Mohicans in Chapter 3, then finds out that there's a giant space alien ready to eat his face at the start of Chapter 4, actually that might be kinda cool.

Or if you introduce a capable secondary main protag in Chapter 6 only to have her disappear and leave a billion questions unanswered..There's a problem when you can drive a semi truck through all the plot holes, especially when a second pair of eyes or a respectable editor would have come in handy.

I wrote my NaNo in 30 days, like a billion other people. I thought it was great at the time, until I reread it six months later and noticed all the "stream of conscious speed bumps" that I left behind. These are things that were caught on the fifth read through by me and the first by a couple of trusted beta readers. I started banging my head against the desk every time I noticed a speed bump of tense shift, POV shift, or even switching to passive voice. Passive was my biggest ass kicker, "and then" alone gave me a concussion.

And then Lag Nebios vanished without a trace and I had to call Mulder and Scully to find her...

Seriously people, read your work. =)

/Rant.

[jaxx6166]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Joanne Rowling started out self-publishing the first Harry Potter book, because none of the mainstream publishers were interested. I'd say that she's been a reasonable commercial success.

And don't forget our friend Chris Paolini, who sold his Eragon tripe out of the back of a truck, and his mother's book store, but mostly a truck