A reply to Jezebel's story about Amanda Hocking
I you like the cruise the interwebs, you may have already heard about Amanda Hocking's pretty rocking rise to the top. I'd heard a little about it, but no details until I read the article below from Jezebel.
26-Year-Old Writer Makes Millions On eBooks — But How, And Why?
It's a short write up, but as this is my turf, so to speak, I felt I should comment. However, comments aren't working on Jezebel at the moment, so, perhaps more wisely, I'm posting my comment here. Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment of your own!
Dear Jezebel,
I'm a published fantasy author with 3 books in print, and I gotta tell you, I'm 1/2 overjoyed, 1/2 sobbing about this story.
You can believe me when I say that the industry knows that stupid shit sells. The trouble is no one knows which stupid shit will sell and which won't. Every year sure-fire hits fizzle while unknowns rocket to the top. There are several stories of authors who were rejected by publishing houses and sold millions, Paollini is one, Hocking's another. But then again we have Stephenie Mayer who woke up one day and decided to write a book, wrote it in 6 months, got an agent with her first query letter, and had an enormous publishing deal by the end of the year.
The book market is no more fair or predictable or controllable than any market that makes its living catering to people's imaginations. For every Amanda Hocking out there buying a house with her ebook money, there's millions of authors whose ebooks never clear the friends and family threshold. That's why I'm so happy to hear that Hocking made it. That is a feat, and you better bet she worked her ass off for her success, both for writing books that, whatever faults they may have, must have made a lot of people happy to get sales numbers like that, and for the obvious effort she put into promoting her books online.
The part that makes me sad is how people who will dismiss her obvious achievement, forgetting all the work we don't see, the novels that didn't work, the insane risk of betting your family's future on words, and treat this story as some kind of phony sea change. "She made millions from home, now you can too! Screw New York and Big Publishing, publish your novel on Kindle and retire early!" So while I'm ecstatically happy for and, yes, a little envious of her phenomenal success (I would LOVE to sell 100,000 books, let me tell you), I'm also sad that, no matter how much she says "Even I don't know how I did this," scammers and people who prey on the writing dreams of others are going to be using her rise as a pitch for over priced "publishing services" for years and years to come.
And on another note: To the commenter who pointed out there are books on torrent sites. Chica, I feed my kid off book sales. Please don't support pirates. It's the authors who lose, not the publishing houses, and we're not all millionaires.
- Rachel Aaron
26-Year-Old Writer Makes Millions On eBooks — But How, And Why?
It's a short write up, but as this is my turf, so to speak, I felt I should comment. However, comments aren't working on Jezebel at the moment, so, perhaps more wisely, I'm posting my comment here. Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment of your own!
Dear Jezebel,
I'm a published fantasy author with 3 books in print, and I gotta tell you, I'm 1/2 overjoyed, 1/2 sobbing about this story.
You can believe me when I say that the industry knows that stupid shit sells. The trouble is no one knows which stupid shit will sell and which won't. Every year sure-fire hits fizzle while unknowns rocket to the top. There are several stories of authors who were rejected by publishing houses and sold millions, Paollini is one, Hocking's another. But then again we have Stephenie Mayer who woke up one day and decided to write a book, wrote it in 6 months, got an agent with her first query letter, and had an enormous publishing deal by the end of the year.
The book market is no more fair or predictable or controllable than any market that makes its living catering to people's imaginations. For every Amanda Hocking out there buying a house with her ebook money, there's millions of authors whose ebooks never clear the friends and family threshold. That's why I'm so happy to hear that Hocking made it. That is a feat, and you better bet she worked her ass off for her success, both for writing books that, whatever faults they may have, must have made a lot of people happy to get sales numbers like that, and for the obvious effort she put into promoting her books online.
The part that makes me sad is how people who will dismiss her obvious achievement, forgetting all the work we don't see, the novels that didn't work, the insane risk of betting your family's future on words, and treat this story as some kind of phony sea change. "She made millions from home, now you can too! Screw New York and Big Publishing, publish your novel on Kindle and retire early!" So while I'm ecstatically happy for and, yes, a little envious of her phenomenal success (I would LOVE to sell 100,000 books, let me tell you), I'm also sad that, no matter how much she says "Even I don't know how I did this," scammers and people who prey on the writing dreams of others are going to be using her rise as a pitch for over priced "publishing services" for years and years to come.
And on another note: To the commenter who pointed out there are books on torrent sites. Chica, I feed my kid off book sales. Please don't support pirates. It's the authors who lose, not the publishing houses, and we're not all millionaires.
- Rachel Aaron
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