Tech Crunch has some sobering news for the indie author while also highlighting the incredible allure of Amazon,.
“In an interesting post, writer Claude Nougat estimated the total number of books on Amazon – about 3.4 million at last count (a number that could include apps as well) and then figured out how many books were added in a day. Nougat noticed that the number rose by 12 books in an hour, which suggests that one new book is added every five minutes. And, most likely, it’s probably an indie book.
Let’s let that sink in.
What does that mean for the indie publisher? If you’re perpetually optimistic, very little. If you’re even a little bit pessimistic, however, you might want to rethink your career.”
Indie authors
The path for Indie authors has never been easy. What is nice now is that you have an avenue to make your work available. Marketing is still and issue. Getting people to read the book is an issue. But if you get the word out about your book and people want to access it they can.
There has never been a time in American book selling when it has been easy for Indie authors to distribute their books and it has never been easy to market.
Although reading the comments on that page is interesting
Basically pointing out that due to Amazons recommending system and even being 800th in a list (one example the story cites as being abysmal) means you can actually make a good living out of it.
Even being a small part of a big pond can be SO much better than not being in the pond atall.
Yes 12 titles an hour isn’t good but who is to say they are in your category, or that they are actually good, or that they will ever get any readers/buyers? Just makes other things more important like getting people to find your book through social media etc