Self-Publishing article

Interesting story, and hate to be the negative nancy here, but sad thing is, the "success" of self-publishing author Rod Hosington she mentions is a poorly crafted deception -- and before you say it, I know the point of the article wasn't entirely about sales potential of self-published authors.

I did the same thing as her, jumped onto Amazon and checked the bestsellers in the 'Mystery/Thriller/Suspense' section, the same one as her. Rod Hosington was nowhere to be seen, didn't even make it into the top 100. In fact, after searching him up, all of his books are abysmally low on the charts, with the exception of one book, his most popular ones ranked around 180,000th, some much, much lower. I'm aware that the article was published nearly 2 weeks ago, but I'm sure things couldn't have changed that much in such a short time?

Confused about the difference in what she claimed to what I saw, I searched up the particular book she mentioned and noticed it wasn't outselling anybody, it was being given away for free and currently ranked 2,000th on the free list and 13th in Mystery series, and 35th on the mystery subgenre list. I can imagine if people had to actually pay for it, that it would be ranked much the same as his other books.

None of this is to say that self-publishing can't work though, as we know there are very successful self-published authors out there, but just looking at the top 100 paid bestsellers on Amazon shows, it's still traditionally published that dominate it and I suspect that's because self-published authors cannot compete with the marketing contacts and funds that publishers have.

I guess in the end we have to decide for ourselves just what we consider to be a success... The author of the article certainly isn't hitting any top charts on Amazon that I can see, but she seems happy with the results of her efforts.

I suppose as long as we are happy that's all that matters, right?



Moving on from that and onto the point of the article... sure, this Rod Hosington probably does have a good attitude towards his fellow writers and wants to help others out, but there are known traditionally published authors on this forum that we all know are quite willing to help others out, so perhaps it's just the particular person she targeted?

Perhaps it's more because self published authors have more time to spare? With all the book signings and tours and seminar events traditionally published authors are made to do, I can understand that they don't have much time to spare. It's also very possible that Coben doesn't check that email account she contacted, or her email got caught in the spam filter. There are many reasons, yet for the sake of justifying her point she made the assumption that he just didn't want to help her.

I've personally talked with traditionally published NZ authors over here and mentioned my own progress in writing a novel and they were very excited and encouraging, thinking it was great that I too was working towards becoming an author.

I don't agree one bit with her black and white comparison of traditional to self-published attitudes.
 
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I can't speak for the author or Mr. Hosington, but my metric for success is fairly simple:

I want to be able to support myself writing for a living without the need for a day job. I don't really care to be well off, as self-employment has turned me into a workaholic, and there's not much I'd rather be doing than writing anyway. As long as I can make the rent, pay my bills, and eat, I am perfectly happy.

So, from that quality-of-life centric standpoint, I am successful and have been for several years now. From a purely rank-focused standpoint, I've never had a (non-free) book chart in the top 100... but Amazon's share of my revenue has been shrinking, even as iBooks' and Kobo's has been growing.
 
I don't know (yet) what the rate of return for a traditionally published e-book of $2.99 is for the author, but the rate for being self-published can be 70% (if you opt for it). So, it may be possible to have much lower sales but make more actual money through self-publishing.

However, I do think it's undeniable that [in general terms] there's more kudos by far attached to being traditionally published. The very accessibility of self-publishing means that anyone can do it, from Shakespeare reborn to the worst writer in the Universe. Getting a book traditionally published means you've at least persuaded a publisher (and probably an agent too) whose career depends upon selling books that your book is worth selling.

I do think that, over time, blogs/websites will come to help filter good self-published works through objective reviewing, and to an extent that's happening now.

It's also a very good point that self-published authors are far likelier to diverge from flavour of the month fashions, whereas big publishers are more cautious. There's not necessarily a big dividing line between self-published and traditionally published. It's entirely possible to do both.
 
Interesting article. Personally I think more will go hybrid, which is where I'm at - trad published for books fitting that model (ie more mainstream) and self for harder to place projects or ones where we want more creative freedom. I am planning to sp Inish as soon as I get the go-ahead, and I will be honest to everyone about how the process of that feels on a hybrid platform, as it's being released at the same time as my published trilogy. I'm excited about both projects but have no doubt being trad published has opened doors not possible otherwise (I have good retail coverage and seem to be selling more that way, and through events, than online).
 
And to balance, we do need a 'self-published' author to come up with their story about why it was no good for them. I do like Jo's Hybrid model, even if I'm still hanging on for the traditional publishing deal myself in my epic work!:giggle:
 
Reading about failure is less compelling.

There are not many books about Newton's failures as an Alchemist.
Or all the people that failed to invent things successfully.

Journals rarely print the failed experiments or trials, unless its about controversial stuff like homoeopathy, electromagnetic sensitivity or mobile phones causing cancer (no known physical mechanism for any of those, or evidence that there is more than placebo and nocebo effects).
 
The way I see it, there are only three "success states."
  1. Made it.
  2. Ain't made it yet.
  3. Given up.
Only the last is something I'd consider a failure. Until then, you're still on your way, however long it takes. Success isn't inevitable, but it ain't over 'till it's over.
 
Hi,

Just to clarify on the numbers for the book in question - these are them for about five minutes ago.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,783 Free in Kindle Store

#15 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Series
#42 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Mystery & Suspense > Mystery

Note that Amazon has lists, lists, and more lists.

By comparison note that these are my stats for The Stars Betrayed, released exactly seven days ago and just starting its climb through the sales data since I never market and don't do pre-releases:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,369 Paid in Kindle Store
#70 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Genetic Engineering

In all of that the only figure that matters is the paid kindle store.

The point is that Mr Hoisington is doing well in two categories but that doesn't make it a best seller overall. Some of the categories don't have a lot of books in them so it's easy to climb the ranks. There are for example less books in the free store than the paid sales store. But your income relates only to overall sales. To reach the ten to twenty thousand overall paid sales you're probably selling better than 10 books per day. If I was actually at number 70 in the paid kindle store I'd be selling in the hundreds per day. That would be an actual best seller.

Cheers, Greg.
 
By comparison note that these are my stats for The Stars Betrayed, released exactly seven days ago and just starting its climb through the sales data since I never market and don't do pre-releases:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,369 Paid in Kindle Store
#70 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Genetic Engineering

In all of that the only figure that matters is the paid kindle store.

The point is that Mr Hoisington is doing well in two categories but that doesn't make it a best seller overall. Some of the categories don't have a lot of books in them so it's easy to climb the ranks. There are for example less books in the free store than the paid sales store. But your income relates only to overall sales. To reach the ten to twenty thousand overall paid sales you're probably selling better than 10 books per day. If I was actually at number 70 in the paid kindle store I'd be selling in the hundreds per day. That would be an actual best seller.

Oh nice! Looks to me like that release is going well for you. Congratulations and fingers crossed it climbs the ranks even more!
 

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