Last year, romance novelist Nyree Belleville was dropped by her publisher. Today, she might tell you it was one of the best things to happen to her writing career.

The author of 12 titles under the pen name Bella Andre, the most Belleville made from her books through her publisher was $21,000.

Depressed, she decided to try self publishing her work. At first, the profits trickled in. Before long, they were gushing in. According to The Washington Post, after the first few weeks, Belleville made $281. The next month it was $474. When she self-published a new ebook in July, she made $3,539.

So she started publishing manuscripts she’d written years earlier. By the end of her first quarter, Belleville had sold 56,008 books, raking in $116,264.

If that doesn’t make every unpublished writer want to run out and self-publish, I don’t know what will.

But wait.

The article by Neely Tucker also includes some more sobering statistics. Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords.com says in the article, “We have less than 50 people who are making more than $50,000 per year. We have a lot who don’t sell a single book.”

The article also quotes Jeff Belle, Amazon’s vice president of books. “There are a lot of books, even low-priced, on Kindle that are not selling at all.”

Oh.

Well, that’s a downer. Still, given the changing publishing landscape, and the success of self-published authors like Belleville  and Amanda Hocking, all writers – published and unpublished – should probably be exploring all of their options.

Read the full article here.

Self-publishing sensation Amanda Hocking continues to blaze her own trail.

She’s just sold her previously self-epublished Trylle trilogy to a traditional publisher. St. Martin’s Press will publish the best-selling trilogy as both ebooks and treebooks.

On her blog, Hocking says the story will not change but that the books will be more polished. In the past, Hocking’s books have sold for 99 cents. The prices are likely to rise but Hocking expects them to remain lower than most ebooks. She’ll contines to self-publish the trilogy for the next few months at their current prices. 

Hocking, 26, first made headlines for selling more than a million copies as a self-epublished author. Three of her self-epublished young adult paranormals appeared on the USA Today top 50 bestseller list.

In March,  she signed a four-book deal with St. Martin’s Press for a new series called “Watersong.” Bidding is said to have reached over $2 million for world English rights.

Self-published ebooks are continuing to shake up the publishing world.

I first ventured into the world of ebooks after getting a Kindle for my birthday last November.

Although I did buy some ebooks in the $6.99 to $8.99 range, I soon realized I could still purchase my favorite authors’ new paperback releases at Target or other discount stores for a 25 percent discount. I’m still buying from the big publishers, where I can be assured of a certain quality and high standard, but I go where I can find the best price – whether it’s digital or paper.

However, when it comes to my Kindle, I’ve quickly fallen into a pattern of giving less expensive ebooks a second (and third) look. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, I am not alone.

Reporter Jeffrey Trachtenberg reports that a recent Amazon top 50 ebook best-seller list featured 15 books priced at $5 or less. One part-time thriller writer who sells his titles for 99 cents had seven spots on the best-seller list. The self e-published author, John Locke, he says he made $126,000 from his Amazon sales in March alone.

The country’s six largest publishers set the retail prices of their ebooks. Amazon reports it sees a higher rate of growth on titles it can discount. I still look for ebook deals from the established authors and publishers. Honestly, I have never bought a 99-cent ebook but apparently there are plenty of readers out there who have.

It all goes to show it is still a crazy world of the unknown when it comes to ebooks and self-epublishing.

Or as literary agent Jane Dystel says in the article,  “This is a Wild West of a world.”