March 2011

Bestselling author Barry Eisler of the famed John Rain series of thrillers has just turned down a $500,000 traditional publishing deal with St. Martin’s Press in order to go the indie publishing route. He and Joe Konrath talk it out over a lengthy, but SO worth your time post over on Konrath’s Blog. The short of it is this: things are changing, traditional publishers are locking up right s and paying writers crap. So screw it and go indie. But check it out and then come on back. I’ll be here…

Good read, right? And I’m one of those traditional authors who has recently seen the light. For February, I made $3200 from ebook sales – the majority of it coming from my Lawson Vampire backlist and new adventures not available in print. For March, I’m on track to do even better. This isn’t flash-in-the-pan stuff. It’s not some marginal fringe movement (no matter how badly those whose livelihoods are tied to traditional publishing might wish you to believe).

This. Is. Real.

Ebooks aren’t going away. More ereaders are flooding the market at lower price points. And a reasonable price point on ebooks means they become “impulse buys” instead of drawn out financial decisions. Think about iTunes. 99 cents for a song? Easy buy. Click, click, click.

Is print dying? No. But people aren’t buying books like they used to. I’ve often said that my job is to deliver entertainment. I personally don’t really care how that entertainment gets delivered, just so long as it does. And with the plans I have in motion now (“In 3 weeks, everything changes…” <--mysterious side comment not associated with this post) that will be realized. More books, more control, less time to bring books to market, better ability to adapt to changing market conditions, and a consistent and expanding audience. Sounds like a winning combination to me.