My interview on BBC's You and Yours
Last Friday You and Yours broadcast an item about Amazon and publishing, including a brief interview with a self-published author - me.A month ago, the Daily Mail Online had an article about Hive, a website set up by Gardners to 'try and stop even more independent bookshops from having to close by allowing people to buy books, e-books and DVDs online put money towards a local bookshop at the same time.' Amazon is depicted as the baddie, responsible for closing bookshops; famously nice Michael Palin supports Hive. (Not a good name, Hive - try looking it up on Google.)
I commented on the article: Like every reader, I want bookshops to flourish. But I'm also a writer, and when I looked up my novels on Hive, they are there but 'not available'. Why? Because I'm a self-published author. My books are available on Amazon. Amazon has enabled me to sell 45,000 books, mostly ebooks, over the past year. But it's virtually impossible to persuade bookshops to stock indie books, even with the full trade discount. So my loyalty remains with Amazon, and that's where I'll continue to buy books.
I was somewhat staggered to see my comment voted the least popular. But then I got a phone call from a You and Yours researcher; they were going to do a piece on Amazon, had seen my comment and wanted me to record an interview.
The BBC is only a thirty minute bike ride from Hoxton. I was taken up in a lift to the fifth floor and a small, sound-proof studio with a window into the room next door where two women controlled the sound. They asked me to keep my hands off the table so the microphone didn't pick up stray noise. Peter White came in. It's strange meeting someone you've often heard on the radio - you feel you know him, but he doesn't know you. His pleasant, relaxed demeanour made me less nervous. He asked me questions, and I remembered to keep my hands in my lap while answering. Then I biked back, thinking of all the things I might have said and didn't.
I missed the programme, as my sister was in London that Friday and I met her for lunch, so I didn't hear it until it was available on BBC iPlayer. I got several emails from friends who'd heard it by chance, and a couple from writers asking my advice. I also sold half a dozen paperbacks of Remix and Replica on Amazon.
It was an interesting experience, and I now feel more confident about doing something similar another time.
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Thanks, Michele! I wish you ran Hive :o)I hadn't thought of the logistical problems. Still, one of the main tasks of the publishing industry is to sort the wheat from the chaff, and they really aren't doing much of a job of that right now.
While constantly banging on about how they long to read a new author who excites them, actually they much prefer the guaranteed sales an established name from television will bring, or a book a bit like last year's surprise hit. The fact that 90% of new authors fail to earn out their (very modest) advances suggests agents and publishers are usually getting it wrong.
The tricky thing for new operations is probably a logistical one. How to winkle out the great self-pubbed books from the many, many howlers? Amazon are so big they can afford to let the morass self-sort but a new smaller operation needs certainties.
So the problem remains.
If I ran HIVE I'd be checking your books out pronto and including them on the list properly PDQ.