How Boyd Morrison Turned An eBook To pBook Success

Author Boyd Morrison has an interesting piece on The Huffington Post this week about how rejections led to a buzzed about self-published eBook release which led to a print deal.

After 25 publishers rejected his thriller novel The Ark, Morrison decided to put them up on Amazon and see what would happen. “My extensive marketing plan consisted of pricing my books under two dollars and telling a few friends and family, three of whom had a Kindle,” he says in the piece. “You won’t be surprised to learn that my expectations were low.”

Not expecting much, Morrison was pleased that his book began to garner buzz on forums like Kindleboards, Mobileread and Amazon where people were recommending the book to friends. “To my shock, my novels started climbing the bestseller list. Within a month, The Ark, which was getting excellent reviews from readers, reached number one on the Kindle store’s technothriller bestseller list, higher than established authors like Tom Clancy and Brad Thor. In three months, my three books sold 7,500 copies and were selling at a rate of 4,000 books per month.”

This eBook success led to a four-book deal with Simon & Schuster. The Ark was released in May 2010 in hardcover, eBook, and audio formats. Morrison has also secured foreign rights in 18 languages.

Read GalleyCat’s interview with Morrison here.

Is Amazon self-published titles the new place to scout for talent? Or are authors going to forego publisher relationships and self release with Amazon instead? What do you think?

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