The CWA hosted a clinic last night titled, Publishing Revolution: The New Hybrid Author. The experts were J.D Kirk and Melissa Addey. J.D. Kirk is the nom de plume for his DCI Jack Logan crime novels set around his home in Scotland. His name is actually Barry Hutchinson, under which he writes science fiction and regularly writes for comics including the Beano. Melissa Addey writes historical fiction and also works with the Alliance of Independent Authors. So what did I learn about the publishing revolution and hybrid authors?
Hybrid authors are those who are both traditionally published and self-published. By self-published the discussion centered around Amazon and its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) business, with the caveat that other self publishing outlets such as Kobo and Apple are available. Barry said that he earns more from three of his books on KDP that he does from 180 with Harper Collins. Melissa cited some research available on the Alliance of Independant Authors website which confirms this. Independent authors incomes are, on average, 50% higher than traditionally published authors.
Barry made an interesting point about control. He cited an example from his early traditionally published work in children’s fiction. His publisher asked if he could fit some unicorns into his book as they were very popular at the time. It messed with his vision of the book, but did it anyway. It wasn’t a success. The author has much more control of their own work when self-published. Both Barry and Melissa agreed that there is still a role for agents for the more successful self-published authors, but it’s more likely to be concerned with film and TV rights and foreign language rights.
Barry spoke about how as a traditionally published author he still had to do most of his own marketing. The difference is that with his self-published work he sees how effective it is in real time on the Amazon dashboard, whereas with traditional publishing he saw how effective it was six months later when a royalty statement arrived.
Of course the lions share of earnings go to the few authors at the top of the lists. So what sells books? It’s simple: cover, blurb, and reviews. Covers need to be like other covers in your genre. The top three mistakes that self-published authors make are:
- Publishing a book that isn’t ready.
- Not engaging their business brain
- Not writing enough. Life is so much easier when you have seven books out.
I had been wondering why Barry used a different name for his crime books than his science fiction. They’re totally different audiences. Any crime fan would skip past a Barry Hutchinson crime book because they would associate it with science fiction.
They closed with the thought that Charles Dickens was self-published and a brilliant marketeer. Nobody goes on Amazon looking for the next book looking from their favourite publisher.
As for the Alliance of Independant Authors, I’ve taken a look at their offering and will be joining as soon as I’ve posted this.