Mark Coker of Smashwords, a man I hold in the highest esteem, whom I’ve listened to at conferences, read word for word in emails, and have followed the advice of, recently posed this question: why would any author want to traditionally publish for 25% when there’s so much more to be made by self publishing and reaping a 70% or more royalty per sale? I can tell him why–because I’m finding the percentage of readers and reviewers who are writing about my first Kensington Brava book that they’d never read me before staggering. And we’re only at the Advanced Reader Copy stage right now. I have about 3 dozen titles for sale, most through one of the larger small presses, and some through self-pub. My top sellers at digital first publisher Samhain have sold over 20,000 copies each and have topped category bestseller lists at all the big outlets. These reviews from new readers are coming from people I see on Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, and even live and in person at conventions, but still they never read me until I signed with a NY publisher and they picked up an ARC of that NY book. Don’t get me wrong, it […]