Jeremy Greenfield (Special for USA Today) has posted a new article on the USA Today website about how new firms have sprung up to help writers get their ebooks published:
In the spring of 2010, Amanda Hocking, a social worker from Rochester, Minn., uploaded several books she had been working on to Amazon.com. In the first weeks, she sold a few dozen copies — success for someone who just wanted to have her work read.
In the next few months, she published several more manuscripts, and soon, the sales started piling up. By the end of the summer, Hocking had made enough money to quit her job, and in January 2011, she sold “an insane amount of books,” she said, estimating the total at 100,000.
Her sales numbers soon drew the attention of Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the world, which signed her to a four-book deal for more than $2 million, followed by a deal to republish three of her most popular titles for $750,000 more.
Hocking, now 29, went from social worker to best-selling author and millionaire in a year.
Inspired by her story and that of other early self-publishing success stories, hundreds of thousands of others have followed in Hocking’s footsteps. While many are traveling the same trail she did several years ago, few are finding anything near her level of success.
That doesn’t mean she’s the only one making money from the new boom in American self-expression. The old yarn about the San Francisco gold rush applies here: Even though a tiny percentage of those heading west looking for gold ever found fortunes, those who sold the pickaxes, pans and whiskey got rich.
You can read the whole article HERE.