Indie Publishing: 2016 - The State of Play

Looking back through the archives of this blog, the reader will discover that I've always supported digital publishing. Right at the beginning, when the Kindle was just one of the eReaders fighting for our hearts, minds and money - back in 2011 in fact, in an article entitled, The Times they are a'changing, I wrote, 'It's a new phenomenon and many in the publishing industry believe that the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum - only recently there was a stigma against self publishing, which seemed to be lumped under that dreaded term, Vanity Publishing. These days however things are changing - and rapidly. With the advent of eBooks and the ease in which anyone can publish to a platform like Amazon's Kindle, we are seeing newcomers outselling long established names.'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

And now in 2016 the eBook market has, if not mutured, then at least entered it's troubled teenage years. The Kindle device now dominates the market, although there are other eReaders that have pretty solid user bases. Kobo eReaders for one have a strong following, as does the Nook but for the writer it is the Kindle which is the gold standard. Amazon have the best eBook store out there and for author's hoping to gain an audience it is the Kindle that  offers the best opportunities. Though that is not to say you should ignore the other platforms and it is a good idea when producing your eBook file to create an ePub version alongside the mobi for uploading to marketplaces other than Amazon.


I got into self publishing, though I prefer the term Indie Publishing, back in 2012 when I made the first of the Granny Smith series available to the Kindle and Kobo devices. I'm what you would call a hybrid author - I publish traditionally with Crowood Press and Pen and Sword Books, but I also publish my cozy crime novels under my own own digital publishing house, Red Valley Books. This year will also see two of my western novels, LawMaster and Wild Bill Williams published by the excellent Piccadilly Publishing. Sales of the Granny Smith series have been strong with both Granny Smith Investigates and Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs going top five several times in the Cosy

Crime charts. The first book, Granny Smith Invetigates went as high as No 2.

Next month will see the publication of the fourth Granny Smith title, Mudrer Plot and in the build up to publication the previous three titles are on offer for the knock down price of 0.99c or equivalent. So now may be a good time for new readers to check out the books.

Now after several years of self publshing - no scrub that and start again - Now after several years of INDIE PUBLISHING I have learned one or two things, and I intend to share these hard learned lessons with readers of the Tainted Archive through a series of articles that goes under the collective  title, Indie Publishing. This article here is an introduction to the series, and I aplogise upfront if I mention my Granny Smith series several times in each article...hey, the importance of  self publicity is one of the things you'll learn during this series of articles.

Next: Writing that book