Interesting, via the Bookseller. US independent publisher Perseus Books Group has launched a distribution and marketing service for authors wanting to self-publish their own e-books, offering a 70% royalty rate to the author. Called Argo Navis Author Services, it will be offered to authors represented by agencies that have signed an agreement with Perseus, with [...]

Cross this off the list of things only traditional publishers can do: distribute to libraries. Well, it has always been possible to get a print book into a library before, but not very easy since libraries have limited shelf space and only select a fraction of traditionally published books, let alone self-released books. But ebooks [...]

This seems pretty momentous – another notch in Konrath’s death spiral.  Plenty of writers are going from self-publishing to traditional publishing, but not many taking the plunge backward again.  She grew her platform via Harper Collins and now she has the standing to ditch them and still make a living. Novelist ditches publisher at book [...]

That headline might seem relatively commonplace, but this is a pretty amazing development – maybe even more amazing than Amanda Hocking’s success. The news (emphasis added): Self-published author John Locke has signed a deal with a traditional publisher. The print editions of John Locke Books will be sold and distributed by Simon & Schuster, the [...]

IndieReader’s new Discovery Award is open to entries: What do you get when you cross a bunch of great self-published books with extraordinary publishing industry professionals?  IndieReader’s first annual “Discovery Awards” (IRDAs), where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference. With the rush by traditional publishers to sign them and their [...]

Important info, from Aaron Shepard’s blog: Over the past month or two (or three?), Amazon.com has quietly been letting its stock of many Lightning Source books dwindle and disappear. It has then been assigning most of those out-of-stock books an availability status of 2-3 weeks. In more rare instances, a book shows no direct availability [...]

Wow. You might have heard of Pottermore already – the new internet venture for the Harry Potter franchise – but may have thought it was a product of her publisher. The Pottermore site is being completed via a partnership with Sony, but the ebooks will be released as part of her own imprint. The biggest [...]

The Daily ShowTags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook Via Galleycat: In the above video, Nagin talks to Jon Stewart about how he chose to self publish the book rather than go through a publishing house, after shopping it with a literary agent. He said: “Once you turn over [...]

Via press release: Amazon.com today announced that John Locke has become the eighth author to sell over 1 million Kindle books, becoming the newest member of the “Kindle Million Club,” and the first independently published author to receive this distinction. As of yesterday, John Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). [...]

Very interesting development. With big publishing buying only the crème de la crème of books, and more authors turning to self-publishing, many literary agents are getting squeezed right out of the middle. But some savvy agents are acting as literary consultants to help their authors self-publish, a role that offers up new opportunities and challenges [...]