Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Great news from Marko!
You'll recall that a couple of months ago, Marko Kloos self-published his first military science fiction novel, 'Terms Of Enlistment', after the umpteenth rejection from agents and publishers. He proceeded to hammer the Amazon Kindle best-seller lists into a cocked hat. Way to go, Marko!
He's just announced that he's been signed by publishers 47North, an imprint of Amazon. They'll be re-releasing 'Terms Of Enlistment' within a few days under their logo, and publishing the sequel early next year.
This is great news for Marko, and a thoroughly deserved success. He's put years into learning his craft, and suffered almost endless frustrations along the way. It's really hard to break into the big time in publishing today - so many publishers are on the ropes, financially speaking, that they no longer look for new talent at all, preferring to concentrate on existing, established authors. It's estimated that well over 300,000 books are published in the USA each year, with up to ten times that number of wannabe authors trying to break into the field. Marko's now broken free of the pack, as Larry Correia did a few years ago when he self-published 'Monster Hunter International', and forged a path ahead by his own efforts. He was subsequently signed by Baen Books, and now has half a dozen novels out with more in preparation.
This is also very encouraging for me personally. Two of my gun-forum buddies, fellow forum moderators and bloggers have now succeeded in this way. When my first novel comes out (hopefully next week), can I emulate their success? Will 'third time lucky' apply to me? Here's hoping!
Peter
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5 comments:
That is great news!!!
Sweet! I really enjoyed Terms of Enlistment, and can't wait for the sequel.
I also can't wait to read your novel. Let us know when it's ready!
I will be watching for your novel!
I put my first novel up on Amazon KDP one month ago. It has been loads of fun, and has even sold a few hundred copies. All I did to advertise was post a link to my facebook. I suggest all loyal readers here do at least that much for Mr. B. R. Man.
I am sure it is because I am ignorant of the details of publishing but, I don't understand why someone who has proven they don't need a publisher to be a success and make money would sign on with a publisher to take part of their profits.
BenC - Primarily, being an indie publisher means that an author (and his wife, in BRM's case) has to become proficient in all the tasks that a publisher normally does - either enough so to do them personally, or enough so to know what they want and be able to hire it out (and also then have to manage contracts and timelines with the people you've hired.)
Publishing is like learning to play a banjo - it's very easy to learn to play badly, and extremely difficult, with a lot of practice, to learn to play well.
If the author would rather spend his time writing the next book and leave the cover art, cover design, ad copy, blurbs, proofreading, formatting for all ebook readers and screen sizes, layout and pagination for dead-tree, distribution, etc... to someone else, it's a business decision on whether the cut in royalties per copy is worth the time gained, and possibly the increase in number of copies sold.
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