Konrath: Self-Published Authors Are the "Negro League" of Publishing
Thursday, March 24 By Andrew Shaffer 
Bestselling thriller writer Barry Eisler recently rocked the publishing with his admission that he had abandoned his $500k traditional publishing contract with St. Martin's Press to self-publish.
Eisler will also likely give up his chance at another New York Times bestseller – not because it won't sell, but because it will be self-published. In a 12k+ word interview with Eisler, self-publishing prophet J.A. Konrath bemoaned the New York Times' decision to exclude self-published ebooks ("indie authors") from its bestseller lists.
Eisler: Yes. Apparently, bestselling indie authors aren’t "real" bestsellers. Some sales are more equal than others.
Konrath: Maybe I'll get lucky and the Times will publish a separate bestseller list for indie ebooks. "Separate but equal" is fair, right?
Eisler: I almost wish they would. It would be pretty funny to see how many more books the indie [aka self-published] bestsellers were selling than the legacy bestsellers.
Konrath: It would be kind of like the old Negro Baseball League. The white establishment segregated them, and the Negro league wound up having the best players. Eventually, the establishment had no choice but to combine them.
(via J.A. Konrath's blog)
Reader Comments (1)
Yes, let's get a bestseller list based on Amazon's sales figures.
Only problem is how do you rank it?
The only figures I have seen from Amazon is their 2010 sales of Kindles; "Millions". Good luck getting useful figures out of Amazon, that will be a first.