Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Indy publishing and you.

Writing today is the easiest thing to get into. A lot of people write, but think they would never have a chance at getting published. Most people confine themselves to just being published traditionally. I admit, when I first started writing seriously several tears ago, I heard the story about how it was near impossible to break into this business. I heard the horror stories about self publishing, and how it costs thousands of dollars to get your book in print, and there's almost no chance to sell more than a few copies to friends and family.

That may have been true five or maybe six years ago. It was darn near impossible to do anything without getting a publishing contract. Today, with the advent of E-readers, as well as Amazon opening their doors to Indies, those days have all but gone away. Barnes and Noble as well as other book stores are now opening their doors to independent authors in the form of ebooks. Create-a-space and a few other smaller POD publishers are now quite affordable if you want your book to be in more than just ebook format.

I'd have to say that ebooks, however, are the wave of the future. Millions of people are picking up Kindles and Nooks to mention a couple, and finding the almost limitless libraries of books out there. Ebooks are usually way cheaper than traditional paper books, not to mention, you don't have to kill trees to print all those millions of books. Today, it's never been easier to be self published and actually have a chance to find readers who you may never have met before.

I think this will also help those people that are still looking for traditional publishing contracts as well. As more and more successful authors start to publish themselves, more spots are going to open up for newer authors. I'm not saying it's happening yet, but it could. Why should someone like Stephen King settle for 18% royalty, when he already has a name and following for himself? Why shouldn’t he self publish and get 70+%? Sooner or later, top authors are going to realize this. Why wouldn't they? Don't be surprised when they do. And personally I think it will be soon. So if you're thinking about publishing those vampire romances, or maybe that zombie story, now is one of the best times ever to do it.

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