Just a few years ago articles in the "traditional" press were far and few between about self publishing. They mainly portrayed self published books as works of "wanna be" authors whose work wasn't good enough for agents and publishing houses to sign with. These self pubbed books were produced as "Vanity Publications", many times disappearing into obscurity. Perhaps they were right, back then.
Roll forward to today and every week there is an article published about an indie writer who is now in the NYT or USA todays best selling list, or who has signed a publishing deal with a major publishing house.
Two such indie authors I follow are very different from each other. Samantha Young is a young Scottish writer who will tell you on her blog that she always wanted to write. She graduated college but faced employment issues. No work. Basically there were no lasting jobs with these ecomomic times. With college loans looming over her head and living at home, she decided to publish her paranormal YA stories. She had the time. She did her research. She purchased her covers from an artist whose work was used by other authors. She found people who would read and proof-read her books.She connected with bloggers who would read and recommend her books. She kept a blog with "vlogs" about books that she read and enjoyed. I found one of her books on Goodreads.com from the list of books similar to the one I was reading. I was "wowed", started to follow her and read several of her other books. She recently signed with Penguin books to publish her new novel "On Dublin Street", and landed a 2 book deal for over 7 figures!
The second author I recently started to follow is Hugh Howey. He lives in Florida (my state) and wrote an e-book that is kind of sci-fi/horror based. I saw articles about this book named "Wool" that was very popular. It started as a short story e-book, and grew into Wool Omnibus, the accumulation of the subsequent storys in one book. Mr. Howey conducted a class at the Miami-Dade International Book Fest this year. I didn't attend, but I was hoping to get a signed book. I didn't realize that this book was only an e-book. But not for long! Mr. Howey has signed a deal for his book to be published, while he retains the e-book rights. Wow!
The columnists out there in the traditional publishing world have missed the boat Although there will be people who write books that people don't want to read, there are a growing number of authors who self publish who are as good, sometimes better than the traditional pubbed authors. We, the readers, are finding them, and buying their books right onto the best seller lists.
The columnists are ignoring that the young authors of today are uniquely wired for the social media requirement for spreading the news of their work. They have their own time tables but can easily produce a new book from start to finish in 3-4 months, instead of up to 2 years. They are networking with other like minded authors who volunteer as proof-readers, or "beta reader". They use the net to find people who are willing to create the cover of their book. I know of a self pubbed author who found a model from Australia who posed for the cover, sent this to an artist in Poland for her cover, and finished the lettering from her home computer. They feel that they have the freedom as self pubbed writers to tell the story as they want to, not to simply mimic the current trending book. The indie authors call this "trend chase" writing. They are even developing their own lingo. They like this outlet that lets them publish their work for others to read. If they make some money for it, then Yeah!
NPR recently published an article about the self pubbed phenonemon. http://www.npr.org/2012/12/19/167448748/self-publishing-no-longer-just-a-vanity-project?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20121223
So, am I right? have they missed the boat?
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