Remember when I wrote about Smashwords, the e-book publishing company? Well, I read today that Smashwords has surpassed a billion published words – nine weeks ahead of schedule. In about October of last year (2009), the company had published 150 million words. It then set a crazy goal to reach one billion by the end of 2010.
On October 21, 2010, the company reached that goal.
And it succeeded because of people like this. Because more and more frustrated authors or would-be authors are turning to modern technology. Because people are realizing that, with more people than ever on the planet, there is more competition and just aren't enough book deals to go around.
That said, I think they hit the nail on the head: not just anyone can and should publish electronically. One absolutely must be a good writer, because most of the time, the star editing treatment is no where to be found in these electronic publishing companies. That's one of their downfalls.
Even so, it's encouraging to see people getting (e-)published.
Yes, even with the ease of electronic publishing, the writing still has to be good and original. Maybe one in million people will sell thousands of their e-books (you can read about their success stories online, like JA Konrath), in a few months, but that won't happen for everyone else. I guess the bottom line is just work, work, work. : )
ReplyDeleteI would love, love, love to have enough balls to publish something like that, but you're right you have to be a kick ass writer to get anywhere without some sort of editing. Quite honestly that's what holds me back half the time from sending pieces out--because I haven't had any feedback from other people and although I may THINK something is good, there is always room for improvement.
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