Congratulations to David Baldacci, Amanda Hocking and Stephenie Meyer.
On November 9th Amazon announced that these three authors have earned their key to the Kindle Million Club by selling 1 million Kindle eBooks, and joined Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins, Michael Connelly, John Locke, Kathryn Stockett, Janet Evanovich and George R.R. Martin.
26 year old Amanda Hocking took the most interesting path to her membership. She is the second Kindle member to gain the majority of her million by publishing herself, but her claim to fame is began in 2010, but in January 2011 she exploded onto the publishing scene.
She rocked the publishing world by pricing ebooks at 99¢!
After failed attempts attempts to find a traditional publisher shocking Hocking self-published and sold her novels on online bookstores like Amazon. She sold 164,000 books in 2010, mainly ebooks.
Then in, January 2011, just one month, she sold more than 450,000 copies of her nine titles and over 99% were e-book sales. More shocking, most were priced 99¢ and $2.99 when most traditionally published ebooks were selling at $12.99 and $7.99.
And, contrary to the claims of traditional publishers (trying to get the egg off their face), Amanda Hocking’s books were professionally edited and well-written. Later in the year a top traditional publisher, St. Martins Press, offered the publishing contracts she was denied for years; she accepted. Self-Publishing is a business which took too much time from her writing.
David Baldacci‘s membership is no surprise. In the 15 years since his first novel, Absolute Power was published, 15 of the over 25 novels he’s written have become best sellers. Impressive.
Stephanie Meyers‘ claim to fame is her Twilight Series which are worshiped especially by young female readers. There is no denying her success. However, she has garnered criticism about the skill of her writing and her pedophile main character from many sources. I read the trilogy and found her writing creative, but personally had several issues with the books.
But criticize Stephanie Meyers at your own risk!
Stephen King dissed her writing publicly and has been under attack by outraged teens ever since! They claim Stephen King is jealous of her success–proof of how utterly young and unworldly they are. (A link to King’s very amusing rebuttal is below.)
Links to Further Reading:
Stephen Kings Rebuttal Stephanie Meyers Controversy on You Tube. [This is hysterical!]
Authors catch fire with self-published e-books, Carol Memmott, US Today
KLeRosier 