Naysayers

Anonymous said…
Anyone else notice how all the people who are doing well in ebook publishing on the kindle are the ones who started a year ago?

The writers who’ve pulled in traditional contracts or registered huge sales numbers (more than 5000 copies sold of a single title) were the ones who noticed the trend ahead of the masses. Correct me if I’m wrong, but has there been anyone after Karen Mcquestion who has done anything other than sell a few hundred copies per book?

I’m sure it feels nice to kid yourself into thinking this is the new publishing model where everyone, regardless of talent, can play in the sandbox, but that’s not the way this is going to play out.

If you’re thinking you have a chance to break through, or start a indie career, or even be able to call yourself a published writer after uploading your manuscript to the kindle, then you’re delusional.

The opportunity to break into traditional publishing through the kindle has passed.

Youre indie career will be limited to moving a few thousand copies of your manuscript at the most.

Just because you figured out how to upload your typing onto a website doesn’t, and never will, make you a published writer.

Also, keep in mind that Joe’s primary goal is to sell books, and everything he does or has ever done is geared toward that goal, and that includes acting as a self-publishing messiah to the hopeful and the hopeless alike since you guys buy a lot of books.

He’s a smart guy, and he’s riding your hopes and dreams all the way to the bank.

Just a small dose of reality.

Newbie’s Guide to Publishing Blog,
Friday, June 18, 2010
7:25 PM

Zoe Winters said…

@Anon (who called Joe a self-publishing Messiah),

I don’t think Joe is doing that at all. I’ve watched his mind slowly change on this blog. I think he looks at it like a lot of us who are doing well look at it, that we don’t want to see someone miss an opportunity that could benefit them.

When I started this a bit over a year and a half ago I said “do it now before the biggest opportunity passes” but a whole bunch of people said, “I’ll just wait and see how you do first.” Now a lot of those people are jumping on board.

I don’t think the opportunity is “gone” but I do think it will be harder for anyone who doesn’t already have an established ebook buying fan base to rise up in the ranks. But writing a great book, packaging and editing it well, getting it out there, strategic partnerships with writers already doing well, these things all count.

My friend Kait Nolan who also writes paranormal romance, is consistently under 2k in the Kindle store, and sometimes under 1k. And she just released her first ebook a couple of months ago. We cross-promoted each other’s books in our description section. Just a simple line: “If you like Zoe Winters, you may also like Kait Nolan”. And she posted the reverse.

There is never a time when all opportunity is gone and all the success to be made has already been had. Those who think that way are making excuses for not taking action. The excuse starts out: “I’ll see how you do.” And it ends up, “Well, the opportunity is gone now.”

But we should recognize what it really is: An excuse not to step out and take an action you’re afraid to take. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Something. But it’s not rational. There is always a way to get found and get read. It gets harder and more competitive the more people who do it, but just like in traditional publishing… if you’re doing things right, about 90% of your competition is just noise.

10:35

C. Pinheiro, EA ABA said…

“Youre indie career will be limited to moving a few thousand copies of your manuscript at the most.”

A few thousand copies, coupled with Amazon’s royalty structure, could easily be $4,000. That’s very close to what traditional publishers pay a new author as an advance.

There are a lot of people out there who would love to have an extra $4,000 bucks.

By the way, this argument is designed to pop the baloons for fiction writers everywhere, but I’ll tell you that if you write non-fiction, a “few thousand” books can be a full-time salary (it is for me).

So either way, it’s a WIN for fiction writers and a WIN for non-fiction writers.

1:30 AM