Cutting out the middle men

Tying in with number six on my list of why you should self publish, it's a history lesson today for those just joining the world of all things publishing and self publishing.

Two years ago a big shake up was taking place. Amazon was about to announce its New York imprint had bought print and digital rights to bestselling self-help author Timothy Ferriss and his next book, and JK Rowling was launching the new Pottermore website which would be the only outlet for the eBook versions of Harry Potter. These significant developments in the world of publishing posed a couple of mighty big questions: Will authors start to cut out all of the unnecessary middle men ie. agents, publishers and commissioning editors and begin dealing solely with the companies that sell their work direct to the public? And if that's the case, what is the role of the Traditional Publisher from this point onwards?

Traditional Publishers naturally came in for a bashing. They were accused of not keeping up. They were also accused of giving in to supermarkets and the high street retail chains for greater discounts in order to keep stock moving, thereby pushing the price of books down. In doing this, they had been chipping away at the royalty rates for their authors.

When an author realises their income is in the hands of just a few buyers, why wouldn't they reach out to a bigger audience if the opportunity presented itself?

This time two years ago the first Kindle Fire was also released. Amazon had created "an end-to-end service" that "developed, promoted and delivered the product." A neat little package indeed.

So here we are, fast forward a couple of years and Amazon is stronger than ever, but interestingly Trads still exist. The debate rages on and the quality and pricing of eBooks comes under fire quite regularly. Amazon has introduced strict policies to keep books in their KDP program up to scratch. We still have Waterstones even though the tablet market continues to explode with better and better handheld devices for reading. But most importantly, if you're a writer and you want to see your work published instantly, you now have that opportunity. Nobody stands in your way and there's no financial risk.