Welcome to the future of publishing.

Amanda Hocking lives in Minnesota, and writes young adult paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Her My Blood Approves series is about vampires in Minneapolis. She also wrote the Trylle Trilogy, which is a paranormal romance without vampires, shifters, mermaids, fae, angels, dragons, ghosts, or ninjas.

But what’s remarkable about Ms. Hocking is that she’s experienced enormous success by self-publishing her works exclusively as electronic texts, as the Huffington Post reports:

Unknown, living paycheck to paycheck in Austin, Minnesota, rejected by publishers all over New York, Amanda Hocking decided to self-publish on ebook platforms only. She sold 100,000 of her works in December, and over 10 months she’s had more than 900,000 in sales. She’s 26 and is now making enough money to quit her day job and become a full time writer, in fact she’s a millionaire.

Paranormal romance is not precisely to my taste, but no one interested in culture can ignore the economics of popular culture. And at least this comment from the Huffington Post article, while acknowledging the fear provoked by the ongoing revolution in publishing, acknowledges what I’ve long seen as the need to embrace the inevitable:

As a long-time author it frightens me somewhat to see the industry change so much so quickly. Yet it’s also exciting to witness this kind of people power in the making. The Internet is the great equalizer. I firmly believe that those of us in the industry need to embrace the change or we will eventually go down in flames. You can’t stop progress, only delay it.