Writer Unboxed: The Critical Aspects of Digital Publishing

Kath here. New York Times bestselling author Barry Eisler made headlines when he turned his back on a six figure deal to self-publish his highly anticipated thriller THE DETACHMENT as an Amazon Kindle exclusive.

Barry, a former CIA covert operative, had been appearing on the bestselling lists for years with his nailbiting thrillers. His handshake deal with St. Martin's was one any author would be thanking their lucky stars to entertain. So when news about Barry's move to Amazon hit the intertubes, people raised a brow — and authors watched closely. Was he insane for walking away from that kind of money and the in-house support offered by traditional publishers? Or was he prescient? Now it seems that Barry's decision is a harbinger of things to come for authors looking for their footing in the new digital age, and that traditional publishers (or what he calls "legacy publishing") are finding it difficult to react to shifting consumer patterns — to the detriment of their authors.

We asked Barry to share his insights with the WU community, and happily for us, he agreed.

Please enjoy our guest post with Barry Eisler.

There are really just a few critical aspects of the revolution in publishing. If you understand these aspects, you'll have a proper framework. If you have a proper framework, you can make good decisions.

First: Digital is increasingly becoming the dominant means by which books are distributed. Digital will never replace paper entirely, but it will displace paper, relegating paper to a subsidiary right. For anyone who doubts this, I recommend my blog post Paper Earthworks and Digital Tides, and Be the Monkey: A Conversation About the New World of Publishing, a free downloadable book I wrote with novelist J.A. Konrath.

Second: Unlike in paper, where an author needs a distribution partner to cost-effectively reach a mass market of readers, in digital a lone author has exactly the same ability to distribute as any New York-based, billion-dollar multinational conglomerate........

http://writerunboxed.com/2011/11/25/11329/