Comments on: Did Self-Publishing Hype Hit Its Peak In 2011?

By: Bob Mayer

Bob Mayer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:37:17 +0000

Barry Eisler isn’t self-published. Signing with Thomas and Mercer of Amazon is moving from one publisher to another. A smart business play, but I grow weary of him being named as a self-published author.

And the bestseller lists are made up of # of units sold, not profitability. Which one do you think is more important to a business? This is a fundamental flaw in publishing that has prevailed for decades. Someone selling an eBook for .99 has to sell ten of them to equal my selling one eBook at $4.99. So I could sell a ton of books at .99, or not so many at higher prices, and walk home with a much bigger paycheck. I prefer the profitability over the hype. I’ve been on the NY Times, WSJ, USA Today, PW, etc. etc. bestsellers lists over the years. I could care less now. I care about sales x royalties= paycheck.

I went from selling 347 eBooks in January of 2011 to a total of over a third of a million sold by the end of the year, earning close to three-quarters of a million dollars. And you won’t find me on any bestseller lists.

By: Kenya Wright

Kenya Wright — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:02:13 +0000

I hope you are correct. I just published my book Fire Baptized this week. There is one factor that has not been mentioned in this article, but the growing number of book blogs that help self-publishers get word out about their books. I believe that as long as there are so many people willing to promote books for self-published authors, there will never be a drop in self-published titles.

http://www.kenyawright.com

By: John C Savage

John C Savage — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:42:25 +0000

It’s interesting that you chose to feature Barry Eisler in your photos for this piece as he is indicative of the move of traditionally published authors to self publishing.

For most well established authors such as Grisham, Connolly etc Kindle sales will contribute a fairly small percentage (although growing) of their overall book sales.

People like to read authors that they are already familiar with and so it would not be suprising if more established authors start to take the place of newer self published authors.

However the overall pie is growing with so many new kindle owners hungry for content, it is no longer neccessary to break into the top 100 to be making good six figure plus income as a self published author. And of course people like Konrath and many other self published authors have multiple titles on the platform.