From an article in The Province by author Peter Darbyshire:
… As it turns out, there are a few Canadian writers who have already gone indie and aren’t looking back.
In the 1990s, writer Cliff Burns formed his own imprint and published his book Sex and Other Acts of the Imagination after being unable to find a publisher.
“Self-publishing saved my career and my sanity,” says Burns, who “got tired of all the power resting in the hands of editors and agents who clearly had no affinity for work that carves a different path . . . now, new technologies like print-on-demand and blogging have placed more power and responsibility in authors’ hands.”
When asked about the future of books, Burns says, “I think in the next decade or two, the physical book will become more of a curio, like vinyl albums” and that people will mainly read on “screens of various kinds.”
It’s a claim that’s backed up by Burns’ sales, as his ebook editions outsell the print ones by a considerable margin.
And it’s also a claim backed up the marketplace, as ebook sales in general are rapidly gaining on print sales. Forrester Research reports that ebook sales in the United States hit $966 million in 2010, up from $301 million the year before.
In Canada, HarperCollins says it’s seen a 500 per cent increase in ebook sales since 2009, while Random House Canada has seen a 400-percent jump.
The success of ebooks and indie writers has opened up the market for more writers to experiment with the new technology. Joey Comeau, who is one of the creative mad geniuses behind the online comic A Softer World, feels the stigma of self-publishing has finally faded thanks to ebooks.
“If you aren’t with a real publisher, then you aren’t a real writer,” he says, explaining the historical prejudice against self-publishing. So he went with a real publisher for his early novels. But Comeau recently put out a new book, Bible Camp Bloodbath, on his own, in both print and ebook form. And the success of that led him to selfpublish another book a few weeks ago, The Girl Who Couldn’t Come.
