John Locke just passed a million copies of his Kindle books. There’s a good story in the Telegraph (h/t to Glenn for pointing it out) that shows some of what I’ve been seeing as the future of publishing.
John Locke, 60, who publishes and promotes his own work, enjoys sales figures close to such literary luminaries as Stieg Larsson, James Patterson and Michael Connelly.
But unlike these heavyweights of the writing world, he has achieved it without the help of an agent or publicist – and with virtually no marketing budget.
Instead the DIY novelist has relied on word of mouth and a growing army of fans of his crime and western novellas that he has built up online thanks to a website and twitter account.
His remarkable achievement is being hailed as a milestone of the internet age and the beginning of a revolution in the way that books are sold.
Locke, from Louisville, Kentucky, USA, whose only other artistic endeavour was as a singer with a rock band in his youth, admits that the writing it [sic] not even his day job.
See, Locke isn’t working through a publisher. He publishes and promotes his books himself. With no intermediate, that means he can publish for 99 cents; he takes home something like 70 35 cents per copy.
Which means in this case that he’s made something like $700,000 $350,000 gross in a year.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member