IS EPUBLISHING A BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST? AND PROOF IT ISN'T!

Is ePublishing another tech bubble?

BEFORE YOU GET DEPRESSED ...

HERE IS THE LINK TO 36 EAUTHORS WHO ARE IN
The "200,000+ self-published ebooks sold" club:

http://selfpublishingsuccessstories.blogspot.ca/

Also there is a list of 177 eAuthors who have sold more than 50,000 books!

Ewan Morrison claims that market will collapse in 18 months:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/30/tweet-about-cats-just-write

When social media marketing collapses it will destroy the platform that the dream of a self-epublishing industry was based upon.

Self-epublishing author Louise Voss recently said that the success of her ebooks came about as a result of spending about 80% of her time marketing

(her writing partner also had a marketing background) and only 20% writing.

Sfumato! I might forget the alphabet if I did that.

San Diego-based "book publicity and promotions expert" Paula Margulies,
takes the 80/20 rule even further.

She claims that when tweeting and Facebooking you should spend "80% of your time posting about things other than your book, and 20% selling. You turn people off when you do otherwise.

Fine. Amanda Hocking famously wrote one of her bestselling ebooks in only three weeks.

But then again, Hocking has recently given up on self-promotion and self-epublishing to go with a mainstream publisher.

"I want to be a writer," she explained. "I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation."

The bad news for social media is that after all the hype and the projections, there are those pesky stats:

there is evidence, there are consequences, and heads may well roll.

In publishing terms it has recently been revealed that 10% of all self-epublishers make 75% of all the money; that 50% of self-published ebooks make less than $500 a year;

and that 25% doesn't cover the costs of production. What this means is that if you went out on the street with a book in your hand and tried to sell it to a stranger for 99 cents,

and you did this every day, you would still be making more money than 50% of all self-published authors on Amazon and all the other new epub platforms.

Ouch!

In economic terms, the only thing social media has yet effectively proven to be able to generate is more social media.

Anne Hill takes the opposite view:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-hill/social-media-for-authors_b_1745168.html

Of course, she has also written a guidebook on how to build your own platform, too.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SIR8OS/?tag=gnosiscafe-20 {$1.99 for 15 pages.}

I do not believe self-publishing will collapse. I also believe that social media isn't the magic wand many of us would like it to be.

Let's take Amanda Hocking:

At the time she hit big, she had 500-1000 visitors to her social media outlets. Can a 1000 visitors drive 2 million in sales? No. Sometimes lightning just strikes.

Let's take gracious, warm hearted Indie Author, Lorna Suzuki:
http://bestsellerlabs.com/interview-with-indie-author-lorna-suzuki/#comment-456

"As fate would have it, just as I was contemplating writing a fantasy to break the helpless woman mould, the entire management staff at my workplace was let go.

On Feb. 6, 2002 I had a job to go to, the next day, I didn’t. I started writing the first book in the Imago series on Feb. 7, 2002. I suppose it was destiny.”

"I think what initially caught the attention of the executive producer who optioned the rights to the first three of nine novels in this series

was when I was interviewed on MTV.

I was discussing the book and doing a martial arts demo with my husband, Scott White, when he used my book as a weapon."

Lorna is a beautiful, loving woman who wrote the novels with her daughter, Nia, in mind as lessons in wisdom and self-reliance.

BUT HOW MANY OF US ARE GOING TO BE INTERVIEWED ON MTV?

It is lightning striking that propels eAuthors into the million seller ranks. All we can do is work hard and be prepared if ever the lightning strikes us.

But we should not bet the family farm on it.