TakeAway: Established writers and new writers take advantage of self publishing with the evolution of digital books.
Good example of the Long Tail Strategy.
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Excerpt from WSJ: “Secret of Self-Publishing: Success”
Self-publishing has been available for decades.
But thanks to digital technology and particularly the emergence of e-books, the number of self-published titles exploded 160% in 2010 from 2006.
Amazon.com fueled the growth by offering self-published writers as much as 70% of revenue on digital books.
By comparison, traditional publishers typically pay their authors 25% of net digital sales and even less on print books.
A veteran romance author self-published her first e-book in April 2010. She has since cumulatively sold 265,000 units of 10 self-published titles.
Her total take from those 10 titles since last April: in excess of $500,000 after expenses. Previously, the most she ever made from a book was $33,000.
“One of the big differences between e-books and print is the sales cycle … It’s almost inverted.”
A chain store buyer makes a decision as much as six months before a book is published, and then it has no more than six months on the shelf. At that point, the sales cycle is essentially over.
But with e-books, it’s completely the opposite.
“It’s often six to nine months before your book takes off, and you never take it down.”
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The Homa Files 