Amanda Hocking signs $2m deal with Macmillan
This is a fascinating article from the New York Times:
A Successful Self-Publishing Author Decides to Try the Traditional Route
I strongly recommend you read it. It’s a good microcosm of some of the points. Why would a successful indie decide to go with a traditional publisher (tradpub)? If you are making more than a million dollars doing it yourself, why change what you are doing?
It’s fascinating partially because the inverse is true: if an author is making good money with a tradpub, why consider indie publishing?
One thing is the fear that you can’t do both…and I think this will be an interesting “test”.
Will Amanda Hocking’s core audience consider this “selling out”? Do they care that she has been independently publishing, or do they just care about the books?
My intuition is that her indie status has been a plus for some people…but most people found the price more important than Hocking’s publication method.
However, let’s say Macmillan publishes the e-books for $9.99…will they sell at that price, as opposed to the ninety-nine cent and $2.99 price points she has now?
I will point out one thing that amused me:
“Matthew Shear, the publisher of St. Martin’s Press, said that he wanted “pretty badly” to win the auction for Ms. Hocking’s books and that he would be able to introduce her work to a wider audience of readers.”
A wider audience? The books are already on the USA Today’s bestseller list. Not their e-book bestseller list…they don’t have separate lists.
It does give her a chance to become a New York Times bestselling author, though. I think it’s…interesting…but the NYT does not do rankings for indies.
Congratulations to Amanda Hocking! I’ll be watching to see what happens with this move.
For more on Hocking, see this
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
I Love My Kindle 
March 26, 2011 at 4:59 am |
Did she really make 1 million on Amazon selling under U$1,00?
March 26, 2011 at 12:33 pm |
Thanks for writing, Emanuel!
Amazon doesn’t release sales figures, and independent authors are who use their Kindle Direct Publishing are also not supposed to release those figures.
However, Amanda Hocking has had at least six books on the USA Today bestseller list at the same time. Business Insider indicated she sells 100,000 copies a month. On the ninety-nine cent books, she’d make about thirty cents for each one. On the $2.99 books, she’d make about $2.09 (different royalty rates). My guess is that she may certainly make $1 million from her self-published Kindle store books. Part of that depends on how long the books keep selling, of courrse.
March 26, 2011 at 4:57 pm |
I guess she’s smart to capitalize on the Twilight trend, which is still going strong. There is still a large market for physical books, especially for kids who don’t usually have an eReader. I hope she negotiated better ebook rights than most authors have in the past.