– In an ocean of self-published titles, two questions surface: How can readers find quality e-books, and how can authors of quality e-books find readers?
Before
Amazon’s Kindle changed the face of electronic publishing, in 2006, 51,237
self-published titles were printed as physical books, according to the data
company Bowker. Last year, Bowker estimated that more than 300,000
self-published titles were issued in either print or digital form.
How can
readers sift through hundreds of thousands of self-published titles to find quality
e-books that will be worth their investment of money and time?
Author
collectives such as the recently launched “Killer Thrillers” provide one
answer. All 22 Killer Thrillers members are award-winning, bestselling, and
internationally published thriller authors committed to bringing high standards
and professional quality to their self-published works.
Of the 163 self-published
titles currently featured on the Killer Thrillers website, many first appeared
in print. Others are original e-books. All are written by talented, experienced
thriller authors who’ve proven they know how to tell a ripper of a story by
winning major awards, becoming regional, national, and international
bestselling authors, and seeing their novels translated and published in other
countries. Some of the Killer Thrillers titles have also been optioned for
television and film.
New York Times bestselling author David Morrell,
christened “the father of the modern action novel” for his iconic creation,
John Rambo, lists 15 self-published e-books on the Killer Thrillers website
including First Blood, the title that
introduced the world to John Rambo, The
Brotherhood of the Rose, the basis for a television mini-series, and his other
Rambo books.
“I'm in the
process of archiving my entire 40-year output of novels, essays, short stories,
and non-fiction works as e-publications,” Morrell says. “E-books are wonderful
for authors. No more out-of-print titles.”
Killer
Thrillers authors include Brett Battles, Raymond Benson, Sean Black, Robert
Gregory Browne, Blake Crouch, Karen Dionne, Timothy Hallinan, Katia Lief, CJ
Lyons, Bob Mayer, Grant McKenzie, David Morrell, Boyd Morrison, J.F. Penn,
Keith Raffel, J.D. Rhoades, Jeremy Robinson, L.J. Sellers, Zoë Sharp, Alexandra
Sokoloff, Mark Terry and F. Paul Wilson.
I don't red a lot of what are currently described as "thrillers," though, as you know, I like your books a lot. I have read a lot of Tim Hallinan and several things by Zoe Sharp, so this is, indeed, good company. Of course, there are others who may be justifiably pump themselves up by noting their inclusion on the same list as you.
ReplyDeleteI don;t read a lot of thrillers, either. I never red them. No one should deface a book, no matter what color they choose.
ReplyDeleteHeh. Thanks for the kind words.
ReplyDeleteAre y'all's books only available on Kindle? Or are they available under other venues? I'm specifically thinking of Google e-books (for the moment) and Kobo (soon). I'd love to be able to feature these ebooks on the shop website, but...yeah. Amazon's proprietary and all. But if we can make a splash with these through Indiebound, that'd be wicked cool!
ReplyDelete