This Week in Indie Publishing

Amazon tries to snuff out a bunch of Kindle publishing scams

Amazon has been working for years to clean its sites of fake reviews and fake products. It’s still got work to do.

The online retailer on Wednesday filed five separate legal actions through the American Arbitration Association to cut down on a variety of alleged scams used to make money on Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing service, according to documents obtained by CNET.

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Why I’m Still Trying to Get a Book Deal After 10 Years

Ten years ago, while sitting at my computer in my sparsely furnished office, I sent my first email to a literary agent. The message included a query letter—a brief synopsis describing the personal-essay collection I’d been working on for the past six years, as well as a short bio about myself. As my third child kicked from inside my pregnant belly, I fantasized about what would come next: a request from the agent to see my book proposal, followed by a dream phone call offering me representation. If all went well, I’d be on my way to becoming a published author by the time my oldest child started first grade.

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How I got a 6-figure book deal

I’ve received a lot of questions lately about getting a book deal, for my upcoming book, Company of One, so I figured I’d answer them for everyone — in case you’re curious. Even if you don’t plan on writing a book, or plan on ever pursuing traditional publishing, it’s hopefully pretty interesting. I’ve avoided most things that require a gatekeeper in the past, so this is very new to me.

I will note that I’m definitely not an expert in this subject, since I only have the one experience so far. Read this more as a “one person who’s done one thing once” than my usual writing, which tends to come from decades of experience and deep(ish) thinking.

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Creating a Successful Book Tour: Five Tips from an Indie Author

When I decided to organize a book tour to promote my memoir, Getting Naked for Money: An Accidental Travel Writer Reveals All, I worried that self-publication might work against me. This was all terra incognita. I’d done signings and readings for my four previous books, put out by traditional presses, but never planned a book tour for a self-published title. Now I was planning an ambitious trip covering four states.

Self-publishing wasn’t really an issue, I discovered. Bookstores are more concerned about your book bringing in an audience than how it was published.

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We Live in a Literary World of Terrible Self-Published Authors

There are a copious number of online self-publishing companies that promise aspiring authors the opportunity to distribute their ebook all over the world. Millions of authors publish with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Draft2Digital, Kobo Writing Life, Nook Press and Smashwords. Most “authors” who self-publish an ebook never sell more than a handful and over 75% of all authors never earn a living through their writing. We live in a world full of terrible e-book titles that ruin ebook discovery and make it difficult to find a good book. It is no small wonder why e-book sales have plummeted in recent years.

YouGov conducted a recent poll that said the most desirable job in is an author  – with 60% of people saying they’d like to do it for a living. This is a 24% higher than those who want to be a TV presenter and a remarkable 29% higher than those who want to be a movie star. I can see why being an author would be sexy, you only have to look at the success of J.K. Rowling. Sadly, being an author does not earn significant revenue. A survey of 1,007 self-published writers – one of the most comprehensive insights into the growing market to date – found that while a small percentage of authors were bringing in sums of $100,000-plus,  average earnings were just $10,000 a year. This amount, however, is significantly skewed by the top earners, with less than 10% of self-publishing authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue and half of writers earning less than $500. Meanwhile in the United States the median household income in the US is $52k per year and the average indie author from the USA earns less than $100 over the lifetime of their book.

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