On a busy New York street a young man stops an older passer-by. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
The older man puts a hand on his shoulder. "Practice, my boy. Practice."
Old joke; just as true today.
More titles are available than ever before, thanks to affordable self-publishing, and print on demand ("POD"), among other technologies. This is a great blessing for both those who read and those who write: there are no longer just a handful of gatekeepers at the entrance to bestseller Heaven. That doesn’t mean, though, that You Can Become a Rich and Famous Novelist without Really Trying.
Self-publishing on Kindle has become particularly popular. (Note: there are other avenues to digital self-publishing, including Scribd.com, but I’ll stick with Kindle as the stand-in for our purposes, just as I might write "Kleenex" instead of "facial tissue.") It seems so easy. You’ve written a fine book but six agents have turned you down. Pop goes the Kindle! Let the masses decide.
They will, and sometimes in your favor. Joe Konrath is a bit of a cyber-legend thanks to his success on Kindle. In April of this year he wrote that he was selling 180 books a day. But his first digitally-published books were from his backlist, books that publishers had let go out of print, thereby returning the rights to him.
Konrath generously shares his strategies for maximizing both your exposure and your profits with e-books. For him it was a matter of making a number of titles available at bargain prices (as low as $1.99) in order to build a fan base willing to buy future titles, often at a higher (but still cheaper than a dead tree book) price.
Given his track record, Konrath’s further advice had that much more weight: "If you’re a new author, reading this and thinking about the fame and fortune you’ll make on e-books, I urge you to try the traditional route first. Find an agent. Land a deal with a big NY house."
Author Lee Goldberg (a friend of Konrath’s whom he credits for inspiration), has had similar digital success. To the Kindle self-published he advises, "It’s all about how the cover will look in postage-stamp size when you’re browsing Amazon…which is how most people will encounter your cover for the first time. To me, that means bold, simple, striking images…an uncluttered cover with clear, readable type. You also need to create something of a branded look, so your books are easily identifiable from the everybody else. (sic) My Kindle experience has really proven to me that covers DO matter…maybe more so on the Kindle than with a printed book. One of the great things about the Kindle is that if a cover or title aren’t working, you can change them within 48 hours. You have the flexibility to react to the marketplace. Changing my covers-and, in some cases, the titles-of my books has made a huge difference in sales."
But when asked, "What advice would you give to a first-time writer thinking of publishing on Kindle?" he replied, "Don’t do it. I still think selling your book to a publisher, and getting wide distribution in brick-and-mortar stores, is the way to go…and will always be my first choice."
I’m not at all convinced that it will always be his, or anyone else’s, first choice. What we know in August of 2010 is that if you publish on Kindle, they may or may not come. Even Goldberg admits that his second largest-selling e-book, The Man with the Iron Badge, is a distant second to his first, The Walk. Another writer, Jon Merz, has confessed online that he envies the money that Konrath is making and wonders what he’s doing wrong.
So, at some point, might "quality" actually enter the equation? If so we should all listen to the legendary advice and spend at least as much time honing our craft as devising marketing strategies. In other words, "Practice, my boy (or girl). Practice."
For other commentary by California writers on kindle and self-publishing see www.donnalevin.com.