Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

The Kindle is helping create lots of opportunities for indie authors. In a post on The Luck Myth, my prediction was that some indie authors might get very rich if ebooks continue to grow – especially if someone figures out how to offer indie authors 70% for books below $3.

1. Superstar Indie Authors – Millions of dollars per month in profits.
2. Star Indie Authors - Hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in profits.
3. Solid Indie Authors – Tens of thousands of dollars per month in profits.

Let’s say the number of authors at each level is – 2, 10, and 1,000. That’s 1,012 indie authors who’ll be making a ton of money.

The first two levels are very exciting. Those are the levels everyone will focus on, and those are the levels that will cause established authors to break away from Publishers. However, the equally impactful level is the ‘Solid Indie Author’ level.

Yes, authors at that level will wonder what it would be like to be amongst the handful of indie authors who are making millions a month in profits. However, by dint of sheer size, they will have a huge impact on publishing and will play a vital role in the democratization of publishing.

This level is very important if you’re an author because it’s a level you can hit even if you don’t get every single thing right. Perhaps you can’t write paranormal romance or thrillers. Perhaps you refuse to join any social networks. Perhaps you don’t have the energy to both write great books and do great promotion.

Those are all negotiable – The $1 price isn’t. However, everything else is.

Authors who fail to get everything right, and perhaps only get 90% of things right, will probably end up at the ‘Solid Indie Author’ level. The interesting thing is that the combination of -

1. The fact that anywhere from a thousand to ten thousand indie authors will be at this level.
2. The fact that these indie authors will be earning tens of thousands of dollars a month in profits within a few years.
3. The fact that there are only around 1,000 indie authors who are doing enough right now to even have a shot at this level.

Means that this is very achievable and very lucrative.

If someone were to offer you the opportunity to write for a living, sell hundreds of thousands of books per year, and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year – What would your answer be?

Well, the opportunity is right here. People are just failing to recognize it.

The huge revenues the big publishers make, the huge revenue booksellers and distributors make – All of that will be redistributed between readers and authors and platforms. Provided the ebook revolution continues.

We had $23.8 billion in book sales in the US a few years ago (perhaps 2009). Even if that went down by 75%, it’s still $5.875 billion. Readers are handing over that $5.875 billion and indie authors have as good a shot as any author or company to get a good-sized chunk of that.

If we say 10,000 indie authors will each earn $200,000 a year – That equates to $2 billion. It’s 34% and perhaps a bit ambitious. However, it’s not impossible.

If we say 1,000 indie authors will each earn $200,000 a year – That equates to $200 million. Which is 3.4%. Does anyone seriously think that indie authors won’t grab at least 3.4% of the money readers spend on books?

It only gets better from here. Let’s consider the three main questions.

Do readers want indie authors to get 3.4% or more of the money they spend on books?

Yes, without a doubt.

Readers have made John Locke and Amanda Hocking Top 10 authors. They are happy to give them 35% of the money they spend, and they are happy to see them earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

Readers want authors to get rewarded.

No reader reads a book and thinks – It’s great the author only got 5% out of what I spent on this book. 

Readers want authors to have more. They want to get their books signed. They want to meet authors. They want to read their other books. Readers are patrons of the art of writing.

If it were up to readers, authors would make 70% of what readers spend on books. Of course, readers want the efficiency to be distributed – So they want $1 to $5 books instead of $10 to $20 books. They also want authors to get 70% of the money they spend.

Is it possible to get one of the top 1,000 to 10,000 spots – the Solid Indie Author spots?

This shouldn’t even be a question. What possible concerns could you have?

1. Are you worried it’s impossible for indie authors to do well? There are over 10 in the Top 100 at the moment.
2. Are you worried indie authors aren’t making money? There are at least 10 making over $10,000 a month.
3. Are you worried that you couldn’t do it? You have to try or you’ll never really know.

The truth is that there are perhaps a few thousand indie authors who actually believe they can be successful. Out of those less than a thousand are putting in enough effort to be successful.

So, there are between 1,000 and 10,000 prime spots available. And there are less than a thousand indie authors trying for them.

It’s even more ridiculous when you consider the fact that Publishers are constantly adding more spots. With higher prices, poor attitude towards readers, and strange rules, Publishers are pushing themselves out of the top spots – those spots then become available for indie authors.

We have all these indie authors wondering if they can succeed and moaning about how their $5 books aren’t selling and about not knowing how to reach readers – meanwhile thousands of spots are waiting to be filled.

Will Publishers be able to stop authors and readers?

If you consider the shifts -

• Amount spent on books going down from $23.8 billion a year to perhaps as low as $5.875 billion (assuming the worst case scenario; it’ll probably be much better).
• Authors getting 35% to 70% of what is spent on books – instead of 5%. 

The losers are the middle-men, i.e. Publishers.

So they will try everything they can to block ebooks and kill the revolution in Publishing. That’s what the Agency Model is about. It’s not that $10 books are unsustainable. It’s that if everything shifts to ebooks, then Publishers have no leverage to hold prices at $10.

If everything is in the ether, then how do you justify giving authors just 5% and charging readers $10?

Readers are more than willing. They’ve gotten indie authors into the Top 100, into the Top 10, and into the #1 spot. They’ve gotten dozens of different indie authors into the Top 100.

Are there enough indie authors who can recognize this reality and start putting their heart and soul into writing great books and letting readers know?

The answer to that question will determine everything.

Perhaps Publishers are right and indie authors are losers – incapable of writing good books and lacking self-belief and not worth buying. All of us readers are hoping Publishers are very wrong. In fact, we know they’re wrong.

We’re just wondering when indie authors are going to start believing that Publishers are wrong – When are indie authors and authors going to start trusting in themselves? Not to mention get over the myth/misconception that total profits from books sold is less important than profit per single book copy sold.

We’re also wondering when published authors are going to stop giving away 80% of what they earn to Publishers and split that between us and them.

Filed under: publishing Tagged: | future of publishing, reality for authors