Amanda Hocking is what you would call an indie book author. She has never been formally published. Her blog (run by Blogspot) is called “My Blood Approves” and doesn’t look much different from this blog. She’s 26 and has self-published 8 books and one novella. All of those are available for download on Kindle, Barnes & Noble or other platforms. What’s the big deal then? Well, in January she sold 450,000 copies of those books (of which 99 percent were e-books). Those are really good sales figures for any author, let alone someone who is not traditionally published.
People in the book publishing world should take note. Hocking sells her books for $3. On Kindle, she keeps 70 percent of all sales with Amazon keeping the other 30 percent. The low costs of adding one’s books to these sites, combined with the potential payoff, have led many more fledgling authors to self-publish their works. More than 20 million people read e-books last year. With those numbers bound to increase, the publishing world must adjust its model or be left behind.
Amanda Hocking proves more and more people don’t need to follow the traditional path to success in the book world.
Not Intent on Arriving 
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