The Indie Revolution in publishing comes down to this one thing: eBooks. It’s as simple as that. Sometimes I tend to forget that if it wasn’t for Kindles, Nooks, iPads and other eReaders we would still be trapped by the tyranny of paper, a tyranny lorded over by a handful of publishers in New York City.

It has taken me a while to make the complete transition, but I’m there.

Even Indie writers sometimes look back and yearn for paper books, imagining days gone by at Borders, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million. When they think of their books, they want to see that rack at the front of the store stuffed to the gills with their new bestseller, people plucking it off the shelf before the person next to them can get one.

It’s time for indie authors to move on, to forget the old ways of paper publishing and embrace the new technology. Why? It’s spelled Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I have come late to the party, but I’m here to stay.

In early March, I posted the first of my books on KDP, LAST ONE CHOSEN.  By the end of the  month, I had added the second book in that trilogy, NEXT BEST HOPE.

I am learning how KDP works and beginning to appreciate the beauty of it. I am putting behind me the notion that giving books away every  now and then doesn’t make economic sense.  Free days aren’t sales; they are marketing, free marketing on the site of the 500 pound gorilla of digital retail, Amazon.

I see comments here and there from indie authors who talk about how they like to go to book fairs at county libraries and work the crowd.  Perhaps that model works for them.  But it seems far-fetched to me to think that a few sales at such events could rival the potential of hundreds or thousands of sales by the punch of a button on a Kindle. That’s a lot of book fairs, a lot of time, a lot of effort and not an inconsequential investment, even if the author uses POD to order only tens of paper books at a time.

Only a few writers have mastered the art of selling eBooks. That is because it is so new and requires a lot of experimentation.  But people are figuring it out, and the market is growing exponentially.

Not many writers have found the best way to sell their paper books either, I might add.

 

 

For instance, I can tell you right now about LAST ONE CHOSEN. In it the government attempts to silence a brilliant scientist when he refuses to assist in a plan to deploy the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

And I can also tell you that on Tuesday, April 3, 2012, LAST ONE CHOSEN  will be free on the Kindle store.

 

 

 

 

Or, I can tell you that in NEXT BEST HOPE  Christian Militants attempt to overthrow the United States government, and all hell breaks loose.

And I can tell you that NEXT BEST HOPE will be free on the Kindle store this Wednesday, April 4, 2012.

 

The little snippets  above are the ones I would use if I had three  minutes to spend with a curious reader at a book fair.   Now, with blogs, social media and Amazon, I can tell people all over the world the same thing.

How about you?  Have you made the transition?  If not, why not?

 

And, while you’re at it, why don’t you meet the author by clicking play on this YouTube video?  Thanks for dropping by.

 

 

 

 

 

httpv://youtu.be/9weOVxaErJ4