This is something Bob Mayer and I constantly discuss. We started out with his backlist and a couple of my backlist books. We recently just published his epic Novel Duty Honor Country, A Novel of West Point to the Civil War. We did it partly because the day we released it was the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War. NY would not have been able to get the book out on the date considering when it was finish.

I'm a business person by training. My degree is Business with a concentration in Marketing and Sales. Going into this business with Bob we knew exactly what we were getting into. We've always said it's just as hard as traditional publishing, and it is. Yes, the books get published, but they have to find their audience. We are doing all the same things promotion wise that we would have done with NY.

Everyone talks about Amanda, because she hit what a lot people would consider pay dirt. We talk of Konrath,  Bob Mayer, LJ Sellers, Barry Eisler and Connie Brockway because they all were successful in traditional publishing and then went their own way. Konrath and Bob have been having great success with their efforts. It can be argued its because they already had a strong readership and long history with publishing. 

Anyone who goes into self-publishing needs to educate themselves on how to market their books. Anyone who gets a NY contract needs to the same thing. The newly NY published author has just as a big of an up hill climb as the author that chooses alternative methods. Most first novels fail partly because of the business model we work in. The distribution channels are changing. Consumers are buying more and more eBooks. Yes, there is a saturation level, that is true in any business, however, it is much harder today to get that good publisher that will put their publishing power behind a new author, so why not give self-publishing a shot? The opportunities are there for authors with good solidly written books. Amanda came out of self-publishing and I bet there will be others.