The Guardian - Kindle gives thriller writer a plot for success – at 71p a shot

[SlowRain]

Probably nothing new, but it's encouraging nonetheless.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...tephen-leather

[wyndslash]

yes, very nice and optimistic. i enjoy reading news articles like that once in a while when i've had enough of the dismal "reality" of life

[Crowl]

I had one of his books come up in the recommended ones on my kindle and at that price I thought I might as well give it a try.

[The Redbaron]

Been a Stephen Leather fan for about 10 years. Stumbled on his novels whilst travelling Asia and they were published by Asia Books (from memory). In my opinion he hasn't written a bad book. One of the reasons I bought a Kindle is because his books are so hard to find in Australia, and when I find them they are often ridiculously expensive. Kindle solves that problem, as well as not having to pay ridiculous postage for paperbacks.

[ucfgrad93]

I think that is great!

[RainingLemur]

That is rather encouraging. And, if the writing is good, it'll bring in more fish.

[Ransom]

I was lucky, in that I had three novellas Hodder had turned down because they were in a different genre from my other books and too short to work as conventional paperbacks. But I realised they might work for the Kindle.

This in my opinion is where e-publishing can be right for any author, big or small. I did something similar a while back and made a deal with a Canadian publisher to carry a short story/novella of mine. I just had the one, and I was considering doing a whole book of short stories based on the major character in this one. I figured that selling it as a digital download first might give me a good idea of how well it would be received and whether or not I should bother doing a whole book of these stories. I recently got out of the deal though because I couldn't come to terms about certain things with the publisher. I may just publish it myself.

I must say though, that this guy hit pay-dirt largely because he already had some books out with a traditional publisher and therefore, some readymade readers. I daresay it will be harder for the rest of us.

Also, this situation of self-publishing at the moment reminds me very much of the way most musicians have gone to independent labels. Even some of the most well-known musicians are rolling their own these days, and everybody has a home project studio in a spare room. But then again, musicians are making the vast majority of their money touring nowadays too.