Like it or not, writers are entrepreneurs. This is especially true for indie authors who do it all: Write, publish, market and sell their own books. Indie authors are turning themselves into a small “cottage industry.”

A cottage industry is basically where products are made at home, rather than at a manufacturing plant. I’ve covered this briefly in a 2009 post, but thought it’s worth revisiting. Why now? Because with the economy in the tank people are looking for alternative ways to make a living.

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Amazon wants authors to deliver their books directly to readers by cutting out the middleman: Large publishing houses. The largest online retailer has been doing just that for a few years now by allowing authors to self-publish their ebooks and sell them in the massive Kindle ebookstore.

But Amazon is getting into the “traditional” publishing game. They are scouting for authors, offering them contracts, and then promoting and selling their books. Amazon is the agent, publisher and bookseller – all wrapped up into one.

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A new start-up service called Instebooks is turning everyone with a cell phone into an author. If you have a mobile device, you can be an ebook author with relative ease.

Writing ebooks via cell phone is nothing new. Back in 2009 I wrote a post about how popular these kind of novels are in Japan. It appears that finally, this type of self-publishing might catch on here in the west.

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I have said many times before that ebooks are opening the floodgates for independent (read: self-published) authors. Well the flood gates have really opened for indie author John Locke.

He has sold 1 million Kindle ebooks through Amazon’s self-publishing program, Kindle Direct Publishing. Locke joins an elite group of big name authors like Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larson, James Patterson and Nora Roberts, just to name a few, who have all sold over 1 million Kindle ebooks.

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Note: I started writing this post back in the middle of May, before moving to a new house. The article source I’m use is a little dated but the main thrust of my post remains relevant.

I’ve advocated for a long time here that for ebook prices, cheaper is usually the way to go. At the very least, consumers should not be paying the same price for an ebook that they pay for the print version.

One of the reasons why cheaper is the general rule of thumb is because it produces more sales. But is this always the case? Common sense says yes. However, there are always exceptions to these rules.

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We often hear about authors and publishers speaking out against piracy and how piracy will be the death of the publishing industry. But rarely do we hear about authors pirating their own work.

Is this some kind of publishing bizzaro world? I thought so when I first read this post from Goodreader. In part, it says:

We have found through our research that certain authors have been deliberately been leaking their own books to popular Bittorrent sites such as the Pirate Bay and Demonoid. From the authors we spoke with there were two main reasons why they initially did this. The first factor was to publicly denounce the torrent site for pirating their works and then capitalizing on the ensuing television, radio or online attention that came along with it. The second reason was far more nobler, to share their books for free on sites that often have copyright infringing material.

The first reason I don’t really understand. Uploading your own book to torrent sites and then denouncing them? Seems pretty counter intuitive to me. It’s like murdering someone to make a point that murder is bad.

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I follow the Grateful Dead on Facebook. They might be an older band that doesn’t get a whole lot of attention today, but they sure know how to capitalize on the latest social technology trends.

Aside from giving bits of band history, updates on living band members and interesting GD trivia, fans who follow the GD on Facebook get free songs! I think I’ve downloaded three in the past couple of weeks. We’re talking about full tracks here, not just 30-second samples.

Does this take profits away from the band? Not in the least. Does it cheapen their brand? No way. In fact, since downloading those free songs I’ve been inclined to go onto iTunes and buy some more GD music. The key word being buy.

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Note to publishers: Be afraid, very afraid. Because ebooks are allowing authors to self-publish their work and be very successful, without going the traditional publishing route.

No one personifies this more than Amanda Hocking. She publishes her ebooks on the Kindle platform and, by all accounts, is making millions. No agent. No large publishing houses. If her books were published the traditional way, she would probably be on the New York Times Bestseller List.

This article gives a great glimpse of how indie authors are cutting out the middleman and succeeding:

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Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookseller, announced today in a press release that their ebook self-publishing platform Pubit has 11,000 indie publishers and authors.

In more interesting news, the bookseller also announced a new program that will bring Pubit! authors into their retail stores to talk about how they are using the platform to drive their digital sales:

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Emerging authors have more choices than ever. They can go the traditional route of finding an agent, getting a publisher to buy their work, and rely on that publisher and large book chains to sell their book.

Or they can self-publish their book as an ebook and sell it on their own websites and/or sites like Smashwords (aff link). This direct approach cuts out the middlemen (publishers/agents) and allows authors to deal directly with their readers. It also puts more money in their pocket.

What about print books? Should an author even bother self-publishing their books in print? With ebooks skyrocketing in popularity there appears to be almost no incentive to go the print route. What’s an author to do?

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