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Reading the above article has kind of got me curious about Amazon self-publishing. Word of mouth advertising in this day and age is actually pretty huge. There's a #1 bestseller, the name of which I've completely forgotten now (It was referred to as "Twilight for Moms" in a recent news article :-P) that was huge with eReaders, IIRC. So, yeah. I'm thinking about using this to publish Book one of Becoming Robin.
A couple of key points that I find interesting are that it's non-exclusivity contract, there's no setup fee, "up to" 70% royalties (Note the up to in quotes :-P), and a "Free CreateSpace ISBN or UPC if you don't yet have one."
I'll be honest. I don't care if I don't make millions off Becoming Robin or any of my other stories. I just want to get paid to do what I love to do, be it writing, photography, or whatever. This all sounds too good to be true. I've always been a firm believer that self-publishing is like admitting defeat before you've even tried, but in today's market, where bands can be discovered on iTunes or Facebook without needing a big record label, I'm wondering if maybe the same can happen for authors?
Is it a pipe dream? Am I just fooling myself?
What do you think?
Amazon
All I can tell you, Zoe, is that if you publish it on Kindle, you already have one sale. I've bought everything I've found from the authors here.
Wren
Both CS and Lulu
Both CS and Lulu seem to do Amazon, but Lulu's contract is a little scary. I just hate the idea of giving up any sort of creative control over my own intellectual property, but on the other hand, mainstream authors don't really "own" their stuff either once it's published, so I'm probably just worrying about nothing to that end. :-)
I might just bite the bullet and go through Lulu, in the end. I only have one book I really want to publish. Books 2 and 3 need too much revision to be publishable right now IMO. :-)
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Hmm...
My thoughts would be that Amazon is probably a legitimate route to self-publish (at least for e-books). They'll take more of the profits than a less well known venue would, but at the same time, I believe they'll handle the marketing side of it to a greater degree than other options will.
Some writing resources I've encountered that seem directly relevant to the issue:
A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-11-01T...
A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: You should Self-Publish: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/12/you-should-self-publis...
Carl Graves, Cover Artist: http://extendedimagery.blogspot.com/
Self Publishing, How, When, Why: http://www.spacejock.com.au/SelfPublishing.html
There's also a forum for writers which looks pretty good: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php