Checking In With Amanda Hocking’s Reality – Day 162

The poster-novelist of the epublishing revolution right now is Amanda Hocking. Since she started self-publishing last year (April, I think?), her sales have continued to soar. In December, it was reported she had sold 100,000 copies of her nine published novels. Recently, USA Today reported she had sold 450,000 copies in January. Assuming that she sold all those books at $2.99 (which is a bad assumption since she said her sales points are from $0.99 to $2.99, but for the sake of simplicity…) she made in the neighbourhood of $900,000 US in that month alone.

And her sales seem to be trending up.

For someone who is as young as she is (26 years old, I believe) is generating those kind of numbers this quickly, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. In her most recent blog post, she points out that it hasn’t taken her a year to get this far, but 20 years of writing. In other words, it’s the classic “it took me my whole life to become an overnight success”.

She also states quite firmly that self-publishing is not a “get rich quick” scheme, or that writers should just churn out novels as fast as they can. You still need to polish, edit, and market the book properly to get it read — and most importantly have readers enjoy it.

Even if the writers are a fantastic novelists, she says, “rushing a product out will only hurt them.”

She also mentions that the first novel she published (My Blood Approves) was actually the ninth novel she wrote. (That’s kind of depressing actually, looking at it from the standpoint of here I am, writing my first novel…)

So what’s my point here? I’m not sure. Perhaps, I think, it’s about the fact that you have to work hard at this gig, no matter how you are going to publish.

“If you simply want to be published, and do not care if everyone reads or enjoys your work, then yes, self-publishing is easy. If you want to be sucessful and make a living as a writer, then it is hard work. In a lot of ways, I suspect it is harder than being traditionally published,” she said.

‘Bout sums it up for me.

You can read the whole post here:

http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2011/02/bit-of-reality-check.html

~Graham