Book market diversity

You may know I was formerly a journalist. And there is a lot of truth to the old adage that "News is like sausage, once you see it being made, you don't want to eat it." So I am breaking my disinterested publishing silence in the wake of so many obviously planted and slanted stories attacking Amazon as a bookseller.

Yes, it's hilarious if you follow the mainstream media (what I like to call the Square Press), which so clearly is in the same bed as Big Six publishers. Much like that of the club newsletter called Publisher's Weekly and the cranky paranoia issued by the Author's Guild, the message has been "Amazon means the death of literary quality and a competitive book marketplace."

Perhaps it means their death, but me and thousands of other authors are feeling very much alive in the new era. I'm not a big "numbers guy" but here are some numbers that tell me Amazon has been great for books. My books, at least. My books may have nothing to do with literature, though...

Amazon: bought me one house.
Traditional publishers: tied up rights to my out-of-print books for a total of 25 years.
Amazon: has allowed me to give away nearly 700,000 books so far this year, during which time my income doubled.
Number of non-Kindle device owners who asked why my books aren't available outside Amazon: zero.
Amazon: is publishing the third Fear book early next year.
Traditional publishers: have sold zero books to me in two years.

Amazon equals one happy author.  More than that, a happy person.
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