Hugh Howey, an author, businessman, and major advocate for independent publishing, published not a work of fiction, but a very important survey yesterday. You can find it here, and although lengthy, if you are looking into becoming published, it is well worth the read.
The graphics, if nothing else, tell the story vividly. Indie authors like me now make up more than half of the genre titles sold through Amazon (which is by far the largest bookseller in the world at this time).
These numbers mean, to me, that I made the right choice in not pursuing a traditional publishing deal. No, independent publishing isn't for everyone, and I am not going to tell every person I meet who has written a book to follow the path I did. I have had support from knowledgeable mentors, skills in business, design, and art that most would have to develop from scratch, and it's not easy, to push your book out into the cold world knowing that if it sinks, you only have yourself to blame.
Dorothy Grant starts out a fascinating post of market data, pricing, and readers with a quote from William Ockham. "I discovered something very interesting this weekend. There are about 7.5 million adults in the U.S. who read more than 100 books a year. That’s 3% of the adult population. And we (because I’m one) read somewhere between 750 million and 1 billion books a year, more than 25% of all the books that get read."
I'm not going to summarize it all, but it does go into great depth on pricing, and discussion of who fans are, and what they mean to us as authors.
I'm going to apologize for the brevity of this post. Homework this semester is catching up with me, and in combination with other things, leaving me very little brain power. I haven't written much since school started, and I'm not sure I'll be able to. However, Trickster Noir will go out to beta readers (Thank you, thank you! to all my brave volunteers) sometime in the next 24 hours, if it kills me!