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Even traditionally published authors such as Barry Eisler and H.M. Ward have walked away from the publishing houses and turned to self-publishing. The work coming out of self-published authors is incredible. Hugh Howey's dystopian science fiction Wool would probably have never seen the light of day if not for self-publishing and his books have sold millions of copies. There are other yet-to-be discovered authors such as William D. Richards Aggadeh Chronicles Book 1: Nobody or Michael Patrick Hicks Convergence who are turning out real page turners with gripping stories and excellent writing.

Hi Frightened_Turtle,

I just wanted to say thank you for mentioning my work here. Your kind words are very much appreciated, and to see myself mentioned in the same graf as Barry Eisler and Hugh Howey is high praise indeed, IMHO. Thank you!

Mike

"Luckily for libraries, they're safe for now because they still beat Kindle Unlimited and its competitors in at least one category: content you want to read.

There is so much wrong with that backhanded insult that there is no "content you want to read" among self-published books.

Currently, the top bestsellers lists contain more self-published authors than authors represented by publishing houses. Self-publishing authors are outselling traditionally published authors and are .

The OP's comment comes from the misnomer that self-publishing is the last bastion of a writer whose writing was so bad, he couldn't get it accepted. The reality is the cartel of the Big-5 publishing companies have been artificially keeping the number of authors on the market artificially small so they could better control the markets in terms of product availability and price controls.

The advent of digital publishing has given authors a way to get around the market controls of big-industry publishing. Even traditionally published authors such as Barry Eisler and H.M. Ward have walked away from the publishing houses and turned to self-publishing. The work coming out of self-published authors is incredible. Hugh Howey's dystopian science fiction Wool would probably have never seen the light of day if not for self-publishing and his books have sold millions of copies. There are other yet-to-be discovered authors such as William D. Richards Aggadeh Chronicles Book 1: Nobody or Michael Patrick Hicks Convergence who are turning out real page turners with gripping stories and excellent writing.

Yeah, there is some crap out there (published as a joke; read the description; the author, Phronk, is a satirist and pretty damned funny). If you are unsure about a book by a self-published author, just download the free sample of their work and see how it reads before you buy. Many authors with a series of books offer the first book free—if you don't like it, you aren't out any money. If you do, then you've got a whole series to buy.

Many independent writers take their craft very seriously. They employ a team of editors, proof readers, and a cover artist or two to ensure that the reader is going to get the best reading experience possible. If they weren't putting so much work into assuring the quality of their work was there, the self-publishing movement would have collapsed years ago. Instead, because of the commitment to quality by the authors, the self-publishing movement has been growing in strength, variety, and quality. Self-published authors gain no support from advance payments, no corporate backing, and no financial assistance. They are not subsidized by monies from other authors (as is a practice in traditional publishing). Instead, they make 100% of their incomes from direct sales to readers. If they weren't doing the proper Q.A. on their books, their livelihoods would be unsustainable.

So, don't go listening to big-publishing shills trying to shoot down the first real competition they've ever faced. There is plenty of excellent reading to be found among self-publising writers, contrary to what the O.P. alludes. And as far as public libraries are concerned, independent writers are huge supporters of libraries, unlike big-industry publishers who try to milk money from municipalities by over-charging libraries for books and ebooks.

I always found it amusing that the Author's Guild always seems to enthusiastically back whatever it is the publishers want to happen, even to the detriment of their supposed constituency...

I'd rather hear from authors, personally, than a group that fought against libraries/universities making electronic archives of books for research...

Look, if authors/publishers aren't happy with Amazon, they don't have to do business with them. They can sell their books direct to the customer, even in a format the user can load right onto their Kindle, nothing's stopping them. Saying Amazon is the "only buyer" is B.S. The term 'buyer' doesn't mean anything (in the way you're using it) when you're dealing with purely electronic goods. Amazon doesn't "buy" an inventory of ebooks to sell, there's no supply to monopolize.

Amazon works very well for self-published authors. A lot of them went the traditional route and went self-published and made a crap-ton more money as self-published as they ever did, plus they retain the ownership of their own works. http://www.hughhowey.com/

That's Amazon's whole point. They have the data that shows that $9.99 is pretty much the sweet spot for "major label" authors, and 5.99-7.99 for all other authors. Publishers would make a lot more money if they priced the ebook at $9.99, but they have to protect their print sales so they generally price the ebook at $14.99 so that the $12.99 paperback looks attractive.

The other forgotten point in this discussion is that traditional publishing houses "cannabalize" their back catalogs and stop printing older paperbacks when they go out of print in order to promote their newer authors and/or new "bestsellers". Ebooks never need to go out of print so it doesn't make sense to do that, but they do it anyway. They drop a book for a while, and then reprint it right when the royalty deals with the author expires, extending the deal and their "ownership" of the copyright. It's pretty shady stuff.

Read it from the indie author's view: http://www.hughhowey.com/

Hugh Howey. If you want to follow this from the author's perspective, try reading his blog. http://www.hughhowey.com/

Re Hachette: Nice background http://www.hughhowey.com/more-...