On my decision to self-publish…

On my decision to self-publish…

On my decision to self-publish… (Jackie Collins)

If you pay attention to book publishing news and blogs, then you probably already know I’ve decided to try my hand at self-publishing by re-writing and releasing a NEW version of my book The Bitch.

Little did I know when I gave an interview to Galleycat in February that the press would pick up the story so quickly! To date, from that one interview, there have been over 120,000 stories and articles posted online about that one decision.

As you might imagine, the buzz has set off a bit of a firestorm of comments, gossip, conspiracy theories and the like about my publishers and me.

• “Did she get in a fight with her publishers?”
• “Did they drop her from their roster?”
• “Is she dropping them from her roster?”
• “Does this mean publishing is dead?”

So I’d like to take a moment to set the record straight.

First, I have fantastic relationships with my two publishers, Simon & Schuster UK and St. Martin’s Press US. No juicy story about a tiff or spat between us—we’re good. I’m currently writing my 29^th book “The Power Trip,” and it will be published by both companies, respectively.
But times are changing, and technology is changing, so I wanted to experiment with this growing trend of self-publishing.

My thoughts on eBooks

Let me say up front that I will personally always love physical books. I love how a new book feels in your hands. I love turning the pages one-by-one as you curl up in a chair and engross yourself in the story.

But I also know that to stay successful, you’ve always got to be thinking two steps ahead of the game. And by all counts, the book industry is going the way of the CD industry. Almost nobody buys CDs anymore; we get our music fix on iTunes.

And more and more people are opting for eBooks over paper. For example, with Goddess of Vengeance, I think we sold an equal amount of hard covers and eBooks.

And in England, they just bought the digital rights to all my books and Lethal Seduction immediately jumped to #2 on the bestseller’s list. That’s a book that’s 10-years-old! I was quite impressed with that.

Read the rest of the story....