The Book Publishing Opportunity No One Seems to Talk About

I make a living writing fiction; here’s how I do it.

I’ve just read yet another article on self-publishing and Amazon. This one was called “3 More Reasons I’m Not Buying Your Self-Published Book.” As of November 14, it has 4.4k claps and 94 comments.

A previous one I’d read, just the other day, has twice the claps called Why Writers are Leaving Amazon. Before that was “The Hidden Costs of Self-Publishing” by Alison McBain (3.4k claps). All of these very popular articles seem to imply three options for publishing books: Self-publishing, vanity or subsidy publishing, or being “traditionally published,” that is, by a Big Six publisher or one of their imprints.

I’ve been making a living writing books for ten years and I’ve not done any of this.

Because these are not the only options.

There is a whole realm of publishing out there that — apparently — gets completely overlooked in both the blogosphere and amongst the higher-brow literati: independent publishers.

I have had over twenty-five books published by the following: Joffe Books, Bookouture, Inkubator Books, and Aethon Thrills.

This is not self-publishing and these are not subsidy publishers: they never charge a dime for anything, but pay for all editing, covers, and marketing. They have offices (mostly in London, one in the States) and have anywhere from a half dozen people working to twenty or more.

Some of these publishers use Amazon exclusively, others spread their titles across sites like Apple Books and Kobo.

With the exception of Bookouture, since it is owned by Hachette UK, part of the Hachette Book Group, none of these publishers are considered traditional or “Big Six.” They are indies — a regular person owns them; that person probably started them on a laptop in their living room and grew them to what they are today.

So how do they work?

By my own metrics, 80% of sales through these publishers are ebook sales. The other 20% are mostly audiobook, with marginal sales in paperback through print on demand, meaning any time a customer orders one, Amazon prints it up and ships it. (If a book does really well, there is a chance of a paperback distribution deal — some small publishers may handle a deal like this in-house, others use literary and scouting agencies.) I’ve had some film interest, and my books have been translated into other languages.

Many authors who work with publishers in this ilk get multi-book deals. I have done this, but I mostly work book-by-book. I write “on spec,” meaning I don’t have any guarantee the book I’m working on will get published when I’m done. And some definitely don’t. I’ve also made many pitches for books (and series) to these publishers that have been turned down.

When I first started in 2013, the self-publishing gold rush was coming to an end. These small publishers were proliferating and hungry for content — they scooped up lots of the popular self-published authors and were fairly wide open in terms of content.

Things I could get published ten years ago, even six or seven years ago, wouldn’t fly today. (One of my first books had paranormal elements.)

It might be a whole other article, how the Amazon algorithm has affected publishers of all stripes and writers across genres, but suffice it to say the competition has generally gotten stiffer as more and more authors pour in the marketplace and more publishers spring up.

It remains, though, that many of these smaller publishers still offer a much greater chance — and we’re talking an order of magnitude, at least — of getting your book published.

It has to be good, of course. And commercial. These publishers, at least the one’s I’ve worked with, specialize in crime fiction and its sub-genres — psychological and domestic thrillers, the police procedural, the action-thriller, the locked-room murder mystery, and cozies — as well as romance.

I’ve stuck mainly to police procedurals and psychological thrillers, both series and standalones, and I’ve managed to make a living.

Exactly how have I made a living? I’ve averaged about $50,000 a year since 2013. The first couple of years were really supplemental income, but by 2016 I was making all my bread as a writer; that was a six-figure year, mainly due to one book, called “Gone,” that sold 75,000 copies in its first month.

But here’s the thing. Compared to some of the writers in my cohort, I’m just scratching the surface. Every day, I see writers working with small publishers — some of the same ones I work with — doing massive business. Frieda McFadden shares the publisher Bookouture with me. McFadden’s psychological and domestic thrillers have been crazy bestsellers for months now; she’s had multiple titles in the top ten list on Amazon Kindle. Joy Ellis works with Joffe Books and has been topping the UK charts for years. Faith Martin, Robert Bryndza, Lisa Regan, Angie Marsons — maybe you’ve never heard of them, but millions of happy Kindle readers certainly have.

Like those authors, my books are sold mostly as ebooks, but that doesn’t mean unit sales are the big thing — “pages read” are. Amazon offers a subscription service called Kindle Unlimited and pays the authors for the number of pages read. Additionally, if a reader gets through about 70% of the book, Amazon counts it as a sale, and sales are what position your book rank. The higher the rank, the more chance of your book being seen.

Really, in this world of independent publishers, compared to those other authors I mentioned, I’m what used to be called in the old days a “mid-lister.” I’m making enough to pay the bills, but I’m not making private-island money. And I’m happy with that. Of course I’m always chasing that big hit (after “Gone” it took about five years and a dozen more books to have similar success; my 2021 book “Her Perfect Secret” did quite well and won and award), but I’m grateful to be a working writer.

How to do it.

I think tech has confused people about why books get read. Marketing definitely matters — if no one knows your book exists, it doesn’t matter how good it is. But word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing, so if your book is good, it can go far.

Write good books. With all that’s changed in the industry, that’s still the key.

So is working hard. I’ve had twenty-six books published in ten years, so that’s simply math: I write about 2.6 books a year. It’s my day job. In the beginning, sure, it can be tough to get started. I worked freelance doing all sorts of things — running a small film festival, being a cameraman for sporting events, swinging a hammer as a carpenter when needed; sometimes I wrote in the early morning, other times I wrote in between gigs. If you’re locked into a 9-to-5, you might have to write on lunch breaks and weekends.

I sacrificed doing other things with my free time. I didn’t go out much to socialize; I still don’t. And I worked on book after book. Meaning, if I got to a point where a project really just wasn’t working, I tossed it. I know too many writers who’ve been toiling for years on the same project. It might not work out that way. You need velocity.

Genre matters too, big time. And commerciality. These are often the same thing, but not always.

I don’t see any of this in these articles about self-publishing and Why Amazon Sucks. It’s tough out there, no question. But succeeding here still means doing all the things writers have always needed to do: Work hard, write what people want to read. And submit to publishers. Even though it’s obvious, it might need to be said: if you’re self-publishing a book because it was rejected everywhere, maybe it’s not fit for mass consumption?

That doesn’t mean all publishers are going to work for you all the time. The reason I’ve worked with four different publishers is because sometimes one says no and the other says yes. One is not interested in a particular sub-genre right now, the other is.

As an author of a very successful police series told me once, it all comes down to what you want, and what kind of writer you are, or want to be. I’ve not written anything “literary.” I’ve not wanted to query agents and wait six months to hear back from someone. Remember: velocity. When I have a book that’s ready, I want it published as quickly as possible. Have I sometimes wished I’d waited, maybe held out for an agent or a bigger publisher to respond because I thought the book could have gone further? Yes.

But it’s six of one half a dozen of the other. For every small publisher that seems maybe not brave enough with their ad spend is a Big Sixer who has the money but won’t sink it into your book anyway. Like I said, I’m impatient; I haven’t wanted to wait months and years for the agent-to-publisher process, especially when so few authors earn out their advance, and pay can take a year or more.

These smaller indie publishers allowed me to hit the ground running. Ten years ago, Joffe Books. Six years ago, Bookouture. And four years ago, Inkubator. Writers pouring into the market, especially after Covid, have kept it challenging. And AI is going to have us all on our toes now.

There’s no job security writing fiction and never has been. Every year, I’ve worried I might have to get some other work, that the writing just wasn’t going to cut it. But these publishers (especially Joffe), have kept me afloat, bundling books and reselling them, finding audiobook publishers, running promo deals months or even years after launch.

If you find self-publishing isn’t working out, if marketing your own books just isn’t your thing, or if traditional publishing is either too daunting or lacks enough promise, take yourself, with or without an agent, to the independents.

Joffe, Bookouture, Inkubator, Aethon, Storm, Boldwood, Severn River, Bloodhound, The Book Folks — and many more.

Good luck!

TJ