Thursday 28 February 2019

Gloomy days for Indie publishing

Gloomy days for indies

Facebook is abuzz about posts from Nora Roberts and others who have revealed the plagiarised, ghosted, pirated scams going on in the world of publishing. The scams have now moved into audio where Audible pays on hours listened just as Amazon pays on pages read; scammers run "loop systems" where the book just plays for hours and hours and... consequently the pay-pool for genuine audio is reducing.

In retaliation, readers are saying that therefore any book offered for free or 99 cents is ghost-written and isn't worth tuppence. Yet many indie writers have, in the past, been advised to offer a 0.99p series leader as an enticement to bring readers into the entire series. The pundits said it was a solid marketing technique; they also advised offering the book for free for a while to encourage reviews and possibly ensure an Amazon ranking. 

Now readers are saying they will never look at 99 cents and free books again. This is a sad blow for the genuine indie writer and publisher, who works very hard to write every word of their offerings.

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