You highlight so many issues that most would - be
authors in this genre probably haven't considered.
Not exact matches
Unlike traditional publishers — who only take on a book if it has a chance of doing really well, either because the
author has an established platform or because the book is
in a very popular
genre — I work on a lot of projects that
probably won't be as successful.
My favorite
genres are
probably historical fiction and romance, mystery, paranormal romance, thrillers, and books set
in England or by English
authors.
Go big — content 50 self - publishing
authors in your
genre who are doing decent (
in the top 50K or so on Amazon) and ask if they want to do a group sale, everyone prices at 99cents for one day, and everyone promotes the discount... link to one page (
probably on your site, or a bigger blog) listing all 50
authors (or every
author can copy / paste your post on their own page, listing the 50
authors, links to the amazon page, and links to their blog posts.
One day, all (or at least most) galleys
probably will be available electronically (as well as
in print for those reviewers who prefer hard copies of books), searchable not only by publication date, book title and
author name but also by
genre and key word / phrase.
It means what constitutes a successful publication will
probably continue to change form forever, and trying to force a debut
author to replicate the success of an
author in the same
genre from 10 years ago will be ultimately disappointing, possibly destructive, and a waste of time, when what we need to be doing with them is playing on their strengths and our strengths and the reality of the market.
Title: Dry Heat (Yeah, I never did figure out the meaning behind that title, but it's
probably a metaphor for something I apparently missed)
Author: Yugi Yamada Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing, on their June imprint Volume: One - shot, $ 12.95 Vintage: 2002 by Houbunsha
in Japan, March 2010 by DMP
Genre: Yaoi, mature (18 +), romance, drama
Provided you sell hundreds of thousands of books of course... So yes, don't expect self - publishing to wither away, there are still plenty of self - pubbed
authors who make a lot of sales (and money), particularly
in well - defined niche
genres (romantic suspense is
probably the biggest, as Bella Andre's success shows).
As a
genre author of more than 30 books — all but six with Big House publishers — I am
probably in the minority here.
Probably the biggest challenge for a writer /
author,
in any
genre, is not the writing and publication of their work, but getting exposure to readers.