Posted on 08/05/2013 9:42:58 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It's been called a "cure for rejection-letter fatigue."
Amazon on Thursday released new details about the success of its program for authors who want to self-publish on its Kindle e-reader devices. The company, which unveiled a suite of new e-readers and tablets at a press conference in Southern California on Thursday, says 27 of the top 100 Kindle books were created using a system called Kindle Direct Publishing.
That system allows authors to bypass traditional publishers and instead deal directly with Amazon, which claims to be able to publish their books digitally "in hours."
The authors receive 70% of the royalties from the sale of these books. And some of them are doing quite well.
"Most of my months are six-figure months," said Hugh Howey, a 37-year-old Florida author whose "Wool" series of digital books was highlighted by Amazon. "It's more than I ever hoped to make in a year."
The company says some authors, including Theresa Ragen, who appeared in a promotional video during the Amazon event, have sold hundreds of thousands of books.
During the event Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos displayed a quote from Kathryn Stockett, author of best-selling novel "The Help," in which she lamented being rejected dozens of times before a publisher accepted her.
"What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60?" she was quoted as saying......
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I have the Amazon app on my phone. It’s pretty handy if you end up having to wait somewhere. I can see a regular Kindle would be better to do a lot of reading on. Digital books are pretty neat. No more massive bookcases.
wield power, not weld. Welding is for metal.
The first couple years they were up they were doing around $600/month. I think the number of people self-publishing (since it’s free, so far) is growing rapidly, so it’s not quite the free-for-all it was a few years ago.
“Books of Destiny”
So I poked my nose into your book on Amazon
Wow - nicely done
Great forward
Your writing is beautiful and easy to read
Good luck - I think time (and the Lord) will reward you
If you have a story to tell, it’s worth thinking about. I started writing in 1997 and there was no money in it at all, but I enjoyed doing it. Once the kindle came out and amazon started accepting self-published books, things took off in a big way.
I now make a living on the ebooks I write. I am not one of the amazon superstars, but I’ve got 29 fantasy books up there and another one on the way.
I think you should give it a shot.
bump
I have good ideas but its hard for me to actually write them
I’m a big fan of a science fiction writer named John Scalzi who dreams up imaginative ways to get his works read. Roughly ten years ago, he published his first book electronically as a free pdf. It’s still on the net, called Agent To The Stars. After some traditional releases, he e-published his latest effort as a weekly serial, one chapter at a time at 99 cents a shot. He then released the entire book at a respectable retail price.
Self e-publishing gives you a lot of oportunities for creative marketing.
No, I think it will encourage semi-literate, Hallmarkesque mush, and wannabe hipster bilge. Just yesterday I got a note from the son of a friend - out of the blue - asking me to evaluate “a novel in progress” and two short stories that he had been working on for a year and a half. The “novel” was two pages, the stories one page each. How clueless/delusional can someone be?
We are hurtling into a Dark Age.
“....... Digital books are pretty neat. No more massive bookcases.”
Agreed, like that I can increase the size of the font and leave my reading glasses on the night stand.....but, I will always love a book I can hold in my hands, then pass on to a friend when done. (If it’s any good!)
self ping
Yes, marketing is everything. Or at least 90% of success.
Bookbub.com will send you an email daily with cheap to free books through various sellers (amazon, Google, b&n). If you own a kindle, they have a lending library for prime subscribers. If you don’t have a kindle, amazon has free reading apps including cloud reading.
“I find myself picking up my ‘real’ books more often.”
I always wondered what would happen to all the E-books if there was a giant sunstorm. Is there a backup out there?
The Kindle device is a good delivery system. It works well for me while in bed. I have Kindle for the PC installed on several machines and find it very useful, especially on a laptop.
I do “enjoy” some of my free books and the editing, or lack thereof. Get correction updates from time to time. Still, people are getting recognition.
You don’t know until you try. I actually wrote my first book on a dare from my teenage daughter. I was trying to show her that you can do anything you want to if you work at it. I found that I loved the process of creating a story and just kept writing.
Give it a try. If just sitting down and starting to write doesn’t work for you, try outlining the story first.
I hope I never see a novel written like a text in shorthand
Here's one for you: 500-word short story. Go.
Yes, this is an actual category, as is the 250-word short-story — the latter is surprisingly hard to do well.
I love massive bookcases, I love individual books, their weight and size and paper. I love the smell of old books, I like lying down to read a book, I like waking up with a half-read book under my pillow.
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