Have we reached the tipping point in book publishing?

Joe Konrath, author and self-publisher

By Joe Konrath, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing

One of the traits I value most about myself is my ability to change my mind about something as more data becomes available.

Well, the data is in. And I’m reversing one of my long-held beliefs about writing.

For many years, I said DO NOT SELF-PUBLISH.

I had many good reasons to support this belief.

1. Self-publishing was expensive
2. The final product was over priced and inferior
3. Self-pubbed were impossible to distribute
4. Most self-pubbed books weren’t returnable
5. Chances were, the reason you had to self pub was because your writing wasn’t good enough
6. Most POD houses were scams

I had ample evidence to support my opinion. Writer Beware and Preditors & Editors and Absolute Write all had detailed tales of authors being screwed. I’d done enough local signings with self-pubbed authors to see how epic their failures were. I was a judge for several self-pub contests for Writer’s Digest, and saw firsthand the dreck being released.

Yep, I was pretty confident that traditional publishing was the only game in town.

Then, in 2009, I became aware of the Kindle.  Continue reading →