{"id":3910,"date":"2011-03-03T13:45:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T21:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=3910"},"modified":"2011-03-03T13:53:02","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T21:53:02","slug":"amanda-hocking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/03\/amanda-hocking\/","title":{"rendered":"Amanda Hocking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who?<\/p>\n

This story is filling up my inbox.<\/p>\n

You can check it out here:<\/p>\n

\n
"This 26-Year-Old Is Making Millions Cutting Out Traditional Publishers With Amazon Kindle"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Or here:<\/p>\n

\n
"Authors catch fire with self-published e-books"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s a backstory here, and I don’t know exactly what it is.<\/p>\n

But the bottom line is this unheard of twenty six year old woman has sold over 900,000 copies of nine different books since she first put her work on sale April 15, 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 There are paperback editions, which retail for $8.99 or $9.99, but the big money’s in the e-editions…four are ninety nine cents and five are $2.99.<\/p>\n

This woman is getting rich!<\/p>\n

She didn’t start yesterday, she’s written nineteen books.\u00c2\u00a0 And she writes genre fiction, stuff about the paranormal, but this is an unheard of success story.\u00c2\u00a0 And she did it all herself.<\/p>\n

Or did she?<\/p>\n

Somehow, someway, her audience found out about her.<\/p>\n

Then again, Ms. Hocking works it via social networking:<\/p>\n

\n
"TP: What has been your strategy for marketing and publicizing your books?<\/p>\n

AH: I didn’t really have a strategy. I think one of the advantages I have is that stuff considered marketing is stuff that I do a lot anyway. I’ve been active on social networks and blogs for years. <\/p>\n

I also send ARCs (advance review copies) out to book bloggers. Book bloggers are a really amazing community, and they’ve been tremendously supportive. They’ve definitely been a major force that got my books on the map."<\/p>\n

Meet Mega Bestselling Indie Heroine Amanda Hocking<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the books didn’t blow up immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 She was selling fewer than 1,000 a month in the spring, but sales blew up in November.<\/p>\n

That’s the power of the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody can know at once, something can blow up overnight.\u00c2\u00a0 But unlike some nitwit getting hits on TMZ, a book actually takes some time to read, it sticks with you.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean for music?<\/p>\n

Turns out your best marketing may be the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming you’re going independent.\u00c2\u00a0 And bloggers are not people who steal, but passionate friends who will promote your work.<\/p>\n

Now in the music business we’ve got gatekeepers.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk to any big time label or manager and they’ll wax rhapsodic about radio.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d truly think it’s the twentieth century.\u00c2\u00a0 You see that’s the way you reach the most people instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you want to go that route, you’ve got to please so many intermediaries, not only the aforementioned managers and labels, but the program directors and the people at TV…\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve got something unique and different, they’re going to say no.<\/p>\n

But the mainstream media means less than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 A late night TV performance is for fans only, it closes almost no one new, there’s a negligible sales bump.<\/p>\n

And there’s a good chance your target audience isn’t even listening to the radio.<\/p>\n

If you make metal music, could you replicate Amanda Hocking’s success?<\/p>\n

I’d say so, if you were good.\u00c2\u00a0 Any genre music that doesn’t fit a radio-ready format could blow up online, because these genres have Net infrastructure.<\/p>\n

But for all the mainstream companies and media outlets saying nobody ever breaks online, that you can’t do it without them?<\/p>\n

Amanda Hocking is proving you wrong.<\/p>\n

Hocking’s version of the truth:<\/p>\n

\n
\nMisinformation & Corrections<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, isn’t it interesting that I heard about this via the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 People e-mailed me and I could immediately go to the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how you reach people today, one on one.\u00c2\u00a0 But this digital word of mouth is faster than speaking, if you’re good, if you hit a nerve, you can become a star seemingly overnight.<\/p>\n

P.S. Music isn’t underpriced, it’s overpriced!\u00c2\u00a0 Albums should be as cheap as Ms. Hocking’s books.\u00c2\u00a0 Go for mass consumption, make the hurdle low, allow people to indulge and build a career…and make a hell of a lot of money.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who? This story is filling up my inbox. You can check it out here: "This 26-Year-Old Is Making Millions Cutting Out Traditional Publishers With Amazon Kindle" Or here: "Authors catch fire with self-published e-books" There’s a backstory here, and I don’t know exactly what it is. But the bottom line is this unheard of twenty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-music-business","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-114","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3910"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3912,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910\/revisions\/3912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}