Jon F. Merz

…and I don’t.

I’ve blogged about this before. How a lot of people – professional, traditionally published authors and indie publishing phenoms – are saying that traditional publishing is dead, that the ebook revolution is here and this new model of doing business is all any writer needs to succeed in the 21st century. No longer do aspiring writers need to wait for the “gatekeepers” of traditional publishing to anoint them as worthy of a traditional deal. Some of them have even go so far as to state publicly that taking a traditional deal in this day and age is “stupid.”

I’m the first person to agree that traditional publishing has a lot of faults. I’ve seen firsthand examples of editorial idiocy, marketing departments shooting down promising novels only to have them become bestsellers, and a business model so out of whack, it’s crazy.

But here’s the thing: traditional publishing actually has a business model (in desperate need of overhaul, though it may be!) The ebook “revolution” does not yet have a business model; or at least not one that seems to be working for all writers. Certainly some, like Joe Konrath and Amanda Hocking are making thousands upon thousands of dollars each month, but the vast majority of ebook writers are not. So when I see these rallying cries to abandon traditional publishing, I have to wonder who it benefits more: the would-be writer or the ebook writers already making money hand-over-fist?

Next week some time, Joe Konrath will post a guest post from me on his blog, explaining my own failures at ebook publishing. He will then take one of my novels and point out exactly what he thinks I’m doing wrong. I’ll then implement changes and a few months down the road, I’ll post again and let everyone know what my sales have been like since I made the advised changes.

In the meantime, I’ve gone ahead and uploaded my entire Lawson Vampire backlist to the Kindle. It will also be available on the Nook in the coming days (just need to sort out the formatting). I’ve had a series of brand new covers designed that I think are outstanding (and cover design is one of the key tenets that Konrath advocates) and once Amazon can manage to get my descriptions out there, I’ll be eager to see how well they all sell. Will I sell thousands of copies each month? Will these ebooks make me more money than what I’ve cumulatively made in traditional publishing? I’m not some stubborn holdout against change, by any means. If these books sell like wildfire, I’ll gladly change my opinion on the power of the “revolution.” But until such time as they do, I’ll keep one hand in the traditional publishing pool.

Take a look at the list of what I have out right now from my Lawson Vampire series – three more stories should finish processing today, but for now, Here’s the list!