By Peter Darbyshire, The Province , 6 March 2011
The Amazon Kindle is the device leading the ebook revolution.
Photograph by: Reuters File, The Province
I recently managed to generate some controversy in the usually quiet and conservative world of CanLit by publishing a book.
The book itself isn't controversial -it's the way I decided to put it out.
I self-published it as an ebook. Or rather, I republished it as an ebook. The book, Please, was my first novel and was originally published as a paperback by Vancouver's Raincoast press a few years back. It went on to do wonderful things, including winning the ReLit prize for Canada's best alternative novel. So when it went out of print, the logical thing would have been to find another publisher and get it back into bookstores, not self-publish it as an ebook, right?
Well, maybe. A lot of other people certainly thought so. I received messages telling me I was mad, that selfpublishing is for wannabe, amateur writers only, that ebooks are killing "real" books and that such a move will hurt my career.
I think the critics are wrong. Why? Because of the ebook revolution.
For the better part of a decade, many people have been predicting the end of traditional publishing and the rise of the ebook. That moment appears to have finally arrived, thanks to the popularity of the Kindle and other ereaders, as well as the iPad.
The past few weeks have seen the bankruptcy of the Borders bookstore chain in the U.S. and HB Fenn in Canada, as well as indie stalwart Powell's in Portland laying off staff. As publishers and bookstores fall, ebook sales are exploding. It's not hard to see the relationship.
But, as usual, the bad news for some is good news for others. While publishers and bookstores are hurting, many writers are doing better than ever thanks to ebooks. In fact, some are doing so well they've walked away from careers with publishing houses to go it alone on the Kindle, iBookstore, Kobo and the other e-services that are launching almost daily.
Most of these services allow writers to self-publish and offer them a decent cut -35 per cent to 70 per cent, depending on the price. That's a lot better than the 25 per cent publishers generally offer for ebook rights.
Just a few years ago, most self-published writers lost money. Now many are making more than they could with publishing houses -and they're reaching more readers.
The author leading the charge is Joe Konrath, a mystery writer who had a successful career in traditional publishing before he decided to go indie. Now he sells thousands of ebooks a month. In a recent blog post, he estimates he's on track to earn half a million dollars this year.
Other writers have struck it rich on Kindle without even going the traditional publishing route. Amanda Hocking, a young writer from Minnesota, started self-publishing her paranormal novels on Kindle and other services last year after being rejected multiple times by agents. She's sold around 900,000 books so far.
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/news/book+dead+long+live+ebook/4391644/story.html#ixzz1Fw7jePzW
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