Self-publishing is something worth writing home about
Traditional publishers and novelists may be sniffy about them, but some writers have found there’s a lot of money in e-books. Jessica Barrett reports.
FIVE YEARS ago, Mark Dawson could say he was the author of two novels. But neither The Art of Falling Apart nor the questionably titled Subpoena Colada had sold well – despite his practice of visiting bookshops and moving his books into more prominent positions – and the former lawyer was spending his days working in film classification as a censor.
It was only after a colleague’s suggestion that he looked into selfpublishing. “He said that he’d written a novel and had self-published it on Kindle,” he recalls. “I was a sceptic, I didn’t think I’d want to replace reading a book with reading on a device.”
Dawson soon realised he shouldn’t be sniffy. He has now published 22 novels via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), including the popular John Milton and Beatrix Rose thriller series, and sold more than two million copies. Dawson, who was able to quit his day job in 2014, says his annual income is now in the “high six figures”.
When his books were being published in the traditional manner, Dawson said he felt like his books were at the end of a long list when it came to the promotion.
“But the thing with being a selfpublisher is that you’re responsible for everything,” he says. “So I’m responsible for getting my book and making it visible, the marketing and advertising – I do everything. It’s your baby and you’re more likely to go the extra mile for it.”
Self-publishing has been around for some time now, of course – EL James, author of Fifty Shades of Grey, first attracted attention from publishers thanks to posting Twilight film fan fiction online. Meredith Wild and Adam Croft are among other names to have found success.
It has many advantages. Work can be uploaded in minutes, and authors can decide how long it is, whether it’s edited, what cover art to use and what price it’s going to be.
When Kindles were launched 10 years ago, KDP was being tested on small audiences. By last year, Amazon was releasing four million e-titles a year; 40 per cent of those were selfpublished through the company’s own business.
Many of the titles that are released by their authors are of dubious quality, of course, uploaded by dreamers who do not go on to make fortunes. But among them are hidden talents.
With the huge sales these authors are now enjoying, it’s easy to understand why they’re tending to stick with self-publishing once they’re in demand: money plays a huge part.
A conventionally published author makes only 30 per cent royalties, whereas self-publishers make 70 per cent via Amazon. Depending on how much authors choose to spend on cover art, professional editing (many choose not to do this) and marketing, the profits can be huge.
Dawson says he’s now making “10 times” his previous salary as a lawyer, but the outgoings can be high too – he spent £200,000 on Facebook advertising last year.
“I made half a million back, so spend one get two; it’s a pretty compelling equation when it works like that.”
Any snobbishness from the established publishing community seems to have turned into grudging admiration, as thriller writer Rachel Abbott points out. “In the early days some traditionally published authors were under the impression that selfpublishing equated with failure to secure a publishing deal.
“In fact, I have seen it written more than once that any self-published author with talent would be picked up by a publisher,” she says.
“It doesn’t always occur to people that self-publishing might be an active decision, but that’s changing and I don’t think readers care how a book is published as long as it is enjoyable and has been well edited.”