Q&A with Maya Banks: “In a perfect world, I wouldn’t self publish”

I don’t see Maya Banks‘ name pop up in indie publishing articles as frequently as Konrath, Hocking, Eisler and Locke, but perhaps she should start being included; the erotic romance novelist has been publishing for less than four years and earned 600k last year, and says she’s on track to easily break that figure in 2011. She’s a very productive, business-minded author who self-publishes digitally as well as through traditional publishers, and last weekend she joined Dear Author for a Q&A about her career and the industry. It’s absolutely worth reading if you’re interested in the business of digital publishing—here’s just one answer:

“What made you decide to start self-publishing? Will you move away from ‘traditional’ publishing to a completely self publishing format?”

The truth of the matter is I do not want to self publish. I know a lot of authors who do and are wonderful at it. They are savvy businesswomen and will have wonderful, lucrative careers in self publishing. I have the contacts. I have the know how. I have the business sense. But at the end of the day, in a perfect world, I wouldn’t self publish. If I had a publisher I trusted, was familiar with and would pay the royalty rate I would be satisfied with, I’d be happy not to self publish at all.

I decided to self publish simply because my current digital publisher was no longer interested in keeping the contract terms that had been previously established in place and I would have to take a 25 percent cut in pay to continue publishing with them. I wasn’t willing to agree to those terms. We both had different wants and goals and we couldn’t find common ground. This happens in business all the time.

I have no plans to move away from traditional publishing to a completely self publishing format. Right now I only have plans to self publish the one or two titles that I would have published through a digital publisher and I’ll continue to publish my other series through my NY publishers.

I have a firm belief that I should not cut myself off from any publishing format and go exclusively to a print or exclusively to a digital form of publishing. I’m currently publishing in mass market, trade paperback and digital. I have readers who buy and read me in all three formats. I want to make my readers happy and be available in any and all the formats that they prefer to buy andread in. Shutting myself out of one or the other markets only hurts me as an author and alienates a portion of my readership.

I want readers to be able to find my books in WHATEVER their preferred format is and I want to make it as easy for them as possible.

Read the full Maya Banks interview at Dear Author.