How Amazon’s Kindle is Revolutionizing the Publishing Industry with 99-cent eBook Titles

eddie — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:48:31 +0000

I recently ran across a story about a young Minnesota-based author who’s having tremendous success selling her books in eBook format via Amazon Kindle’s web store.

Her name is Amanda Hocking, and she’d collected hundreds of rejection letters from publishers before turning to self-publishing. Unlike traditional publishers, she offers her eBooks for about $1.00 per copy.

The result? Check it out:

February 2011 sales for Hocking, as evidenced by online proprietary accounts shown to the Pioneer Press: Amazon (via its e-book portal, the Kindle) 227,515 units for all nine of her works, including about 60,000 for her best-selling novel, "Switched." Barnes & Noble (the Nook): 55,135 units. CreateSpace, an online "print on demand" service: 2,948 units.

That’s about 280,000 sales in a single month. Amazon’s revenue split model pays her 70% of the total sales figures, which means that she earned about $200,000 in February alone. Not bad for a young author that none of the publishers wanted to cut a deal with, eh?

In browsing the Kindle bestseller list, I noticed another independent author calling himself “John Locke.” Locke has four titles on the best seller list, each selling for just 99 cents per copy. According to his Amazon author biography page:

Every 7 seconds, 24 hours a day, a John Locke novel is downloaded somewhere in the world.

If those figures equate to actual sales, Locke is selling 500 books per hour, 12,000 books per day, 370,000 books per month. He’s pulling in $260,000 per month selling his titles in electronic format for just 99 cents a pop, all without a publisher or publicist. All without touring, and all without a single mention in the oh-so-sacred New York Times. He’s successfully cut out dozens of middle-men, and is generating more income in a single month than most authors see in a lifetime.

I downloaded the free preview of Locke’s Lethal Experiment: A Donovan Creed Novel and after reading just a few chapters, I was hooked. No, it wasn’t War and Peace, but neither are most of today’s printed best sellers. Hell, it wasn’t even all that original – the book’s premise seemed to be lifted from one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. But it was easy to read and entertaining. That’s all I’m looking for in a casual, “time-for-bed” book, and Locke’s 99-cent title easily fits the bill. I gladly ponied up the 99 cents to purchase the full book, and I’ll surely purchase the other titles in the Donovan Creed series as well.

Locke’s books are just as good if not better than what you’d see from pop-fiction stalwarts like Sidney Sheldon, James Patterson, Robin Cook, and Clive Cussler, to name a few. The user reviews on Amazon are overwhelmingly positive, which tells me that the reading public agrees.

I’ve been critical of Amazon’s eBook pricing schemes in the past. If large publishers can’t see that lower eBook prices are the way to mass sales, I’m glad to see that individual authors are successfully filling the void.

I don’t know what it takes to make the New York Times Best Seller List, but I’ve been told that selling 20,000 copies in a month will usually do it. Both Locke and Hocking are easily crushing that figure, selling hundreds of thousands of copies each month.

Kudos to Amazon for making it all possible.

Getting High Naturally

eddie — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:24:25 +0000

My earlier post about the drug-like effects of Valerian Tea has gotten quite a bit of traffic. Those so inclined may find this one interesting: A book named “Get High Now” lists ways to “get high” naturally, including one method using cheese.

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How Amazon’s Kindle is Revolutionizing the Publishing Industry with 99-cent eBook Titles

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