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Ebooks: why it pays to self-publish
Their books may not be of the highest quality, but self-published authors such as Rachel Abbott are the trade's hottest property

At last year's London Book Fair, a well-respected publisher confessed to running away from self-published authors at parties. Everyone laughed. After all, the writer who dares go it alone is one of the last acceptable victims of literary snobbery.

British author Rachel Abbott, whose DIY debut, Only the Innocent, is currently riding high in the Amazon Kindle charts, presumably couldn't give a fig about all that. She claims to have turned down a publishing deal "because it didn't feel right". Since her success, she's been besieged by agents, who must be salivating at the thought of a ready-made fanbase. It will be interesting to see if Abbott gives into temptation and follows the example of fellow Kindle star Kerry Wilkinson, a sports journalist from Lancashire who has signed a six-book deal with Macmillan, and US author Amanda Hocking, who made a fortune from her self-published paranormal novels before signing with the same publisher. In an interview in January, Hocking sounded relieved to have at last received some help with the editing process. "It drove me nuts, because I tried really hard to get things right and I just couldn't. It's exhausting."

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The Guardian