{"id":8896,"date":"2020-01-20T11:28:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T18:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=8896"},"modified":"2020-01-20T11:28:48","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T18:28:48","slug":"anne-r-allen-indie-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/anne-r-allen-indie-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne R. Allen & Indie Publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The following is an excerpt from Anne R. Allen\u2019s December 22, 2019 blog post. You, too, can be an indie-author. It helps to be informed with willingness to do the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Anne:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a few days we\u2019ll be leaving the twenty-teens to enter the\n2020s. We\u2019ll be saying goodbye to a decade of wild upheaval in the publishing\nindustry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been quite a ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 5th, [we hosted] agent Laurie McLean<\/a> from Fuse Literary Agency, for her annual \u201cCrystal Ball\u201d predictions for publishing in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But today I\u2019m thinking about the decade that\u2019s passing, and\nhow it disrupted and radically changed the way authors approach publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of us got to behave like teens\u2014experimenting with\nradical publishing ideas and trying on lots of new writing venues for size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon\u2019s Kindle had the right name. It fired up the writing\ncommunity in a major way. Self-publishing became a viable, lucrative\nalternative to the soul-crushing process of breaking into traditional\npublishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now things are changing again. Sales of Kindles and\nother ereaders are way down. A lot of indie authors have disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the Self-Publishing Revolution Over?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts agree the \u201cKindle gold rush\u201d is history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But self-publishing is still here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it has gone through drastic changes since\n2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early days, there weren\u2019t many ebooks for Amazon to\nsell to their newly-minted Kindle owners. So they encouraged writers to publish\ntheir own work through their new \u201cKindle Direct Publishing\u201d (KDP.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then Amazon started its own publishing imprints like\nMontlake, Thomas and Mercer, Lake Union, etc. They wanted to market their own\npublishing companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came Kindle Unlimited, the book service that allows\nunlimited reads per month for a flat fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indie incomes went down a lot more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A swarm of scammers, plagiarizers, and crooks learned to\ngame the KU system and top the charts with stuffed, fake, and stolen books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real indies lost out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers left Facebook\u2019s privacy-invading machine. And new\nalgorithms no longer let as many readers see our author pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indie incomes went down a bit more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-books were the bread and butter of the self-publishing\nrevolution, but as people started reading more on glaring tablets and phones,\nthey rediscovered paper books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big tech, which had once seemed so friendly to indie\nauthors, became a minefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Self-Publishing Revolution Didn\u2019t Die<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s true that indie sales are more modest than they were\nmid-decade, and you\u2019re not hearing about any new \u201cKindle Millionaires.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a lot of indies are still thriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many romance, mystery, and thriller writers who joined the\nself-publishing revolution are now making a good deal more than their\ntrad-pubbed counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others are happily plugging along, not making a big income,\nbut enjoying writing as a second job or hobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-publishing is still an excellent way to publish. But\nit\u2019s not the same as it was in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indies now need to have the training and capital to turn out\na top-notch product and advertise it. They also have to be willing to learn the\nropes of online marketing and put in the time with social media to build a\nfollowing. They need to allot the time to put out a blog or newsletter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-publishing allows you to control your career. You\u2019re\nnot dealing with agents or editors who might ghost you, get fired, rope you\ninto predatory contracts, or lose their marbles. (The majority of agents are\nhonest and hardworking, but their incomes are falling with decreasing advances,\nand many simply can\u2019t make ends meet without a second job.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Advice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t choose self-publishing as the \u201ceasy\u201d way to a writing\ncareer in the new decade. Choose it because you have an entrepreneurial spirit,\nenjoy social media and online marketing, and have the time to commit to running\na business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should You Plan to Self-Publish in the Next Decade?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only you know that. Do you write fast? Write in a popular\ngenre? Have good marketing skills? Enjoy social media? Do you blog? Are you\nokay knowing you won\u2019t be nominated for a prestigious book prize or get a\nreview in The New Yorker?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cyes\u201d to most of those questions would make you an\nexcellent candidate. The only other big thing you\u2019ll need is luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So good luck to you. The 2020s may be the time your career\nsoars!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here <\/a>for Anne’s full blog post with almost 100 comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Anne R. Allen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My books are\nmostly romantic-comedy\/mysteries. Maybe a little more comic than romantic.\nSince two of my favorite writers are Dorothy Parker and Dorothy L. Sayers, I\nguess it makes sense that I ended up writing a mash-up of the two \u201cDorothy\u201d\nstyles. Ruth Harris calls it \u201cChick Lit Noir.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been in the writing business long enough to have collected a pretty full set of mistakes. I blog<\/a> in hopes of helping some of the new writers out there make better choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a former life I was an actress, bookseller, and the former artistic director of the Patio Playhouse in Escondido, CA. I\u00a0last appeared in\u00a0A Comedy of Errors\u00a0at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts. I grew up in New England (Waterville, ME and various college towns in CT) graduated from Bryn Mawr College, and spent\u00a0some time\u00a0doing the hippie vagabond thing in several continents. Even got married once. All excellent adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m the author of 10 comic mysteries and a collection of short stories and poems. I\u2019m also the co-author of a guidebook for writers, written with Amazon superstar Catherine Ryan Hyde, and I\u2019ve written a new guidebook for author-bloggers:\u00a0The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All my book-length works are detailed on\u00a0my book page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an excerpt from Anne R. Allen\u2019s December 22, 2019 blog post. You, too, can be an indie-author. It helps to be informed with willingness to do the work. From Anne: In a few days we\u2019ll be leaving the twenty-teens to enter the 2020s. We\u2019ll be saying goodbye to a decade of wild […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[1049,1311,1310,1052],"class_list":["post-8896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-anne-r-allen","tag-indie-publishing","tag-laurie-mclean","tag-ruth-harris"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2ju","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8896"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8899,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896\/revisions\/8899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}