The Death of Traditional Publishers? Part 5: The Game Changer – by Robert W. Walker, continued.

Recently Ellen DeGeneres gave away free Kindle readers to her entire audience for their summer reading. Not long before that, Kindle sales spiked for Mother’s Day. And prior to that, Easter. And prior to that a whopping three million in sales for Christmas! This is a huge audience for writers, and it is growing every day.

Meanwhile USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and The Huffington Post, along with every major news outlet (and Ellen DeGeneres!) are all talking about The Kindle Revolution and the looming demise of traditional publishing as we know it. However, traditional publishers move like glaciers when it comes to a new idea, and they have scoffed at eBook publishing and denigrated it for over thirty years. But with the advent of the state-of-the-art Kindle reader, “the times they are a-changing.”

In this month alone—and there are seven more days in the month—I have sold seven hundred books from my various series on Kindle.  In all my thirty years in traditional publishing with paper books, I never sold these kinds of numbers in one month out of brick-and-mortar stores. Why not?

Paper publishers limit their advertising dollars to one percent of one percent of their writers. They use those dollars to make mega-stars of celebrity authors like Sarah Palin, as well as promote others who correctly have earned their status, but no longer need the promotion: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Janet Evanovich, Nora Roberts, and more. But where one King is crowned and given huge budgets for advertising, 1500 other authors are “promoted” as I was—put quietly on the shelf in the hope someone finds them.

With my Kindle books I have no one to blame but myself if they fail. I write the copy and the book description. I write the ads. I do the PR and the marketing. Decide on title, size of my name on the cover, the cover art, the book design, price (so important now!), and publication date.

In the past, when a book died on the shelf, it was my numbers that failed—despite the fact all of the above was done by the publisher. I had virtually no input on the committee decisions made about my books, but I was ultimately the one “at fault” in the end if my sales were punk. But now, I am responsible for it all—and I accept that responsibility gladly.

I began publishing Kindle titles at the urging of my best friend, Joe Konrath who has blogged extensively on the NEW economics created for both authors and readers since the advent of Kindle publishing. Joe’s blog—A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing—is filled with great information on this subject. (Kris says: I have asked Joe to chime in here. Still hoping!)

Any aspiring author interested in more information should look into:

• Amazon’s Kindle Forum
• Kindlekorner@yahoo.com (a great group of Kindle readers from all walks of life with lively discussions on all things Kindle)

Some other important observations:

1. My wife, Miranda Phillips Walker has her suspense novel, The Well-Meaning Killer, on Kindle. And as an RN, she has published a seven-page information-filled tale about how to kick migraine headaches! Authors can publish eBooks of any length, because with eBooks there is no page limit or requirement!
2. Book descriptions are extremely important to sales. They should be interesting and exciting, enticing prospective readers to buy. They should fill in the traditional Five W’s – who, what, where, when, & why. An author’s blurb must be the best short story they’ve ever written!
3. High quality cover art is critical. My son is a graphic artist; his company is http://www.srwalkerdesigns.com For a sample of his work go to Amazon.com and search for Robert W. Walker to see 44 examples! (Kris says: Jimmy Thomas is a romance novel cover model with a brilliant business plan. More on him and other new entrepreneurs later – I promise!)
4. Publishing on Kindle is free.
5. Before you publish, get a good, professional editor (see below) to vet the manuscript you wish to publish. There are many freelance editors available online. I put nothing on Kindle that has not first been heavily edited!

Robert W. Walker — Download 20 pages of Children of Salem FREE at: www.robertwalkerbooks.com

Kris says: Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday! On June 3rd I’ll post an article by Richard Adin – author of “An American Editor” blog – about the importance of professional editing. See you then!