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By Karen Newcombe

The headline of the Wall St. Journal's D section for March 8, 2013 is "Sci-Fi's Underground Hit", by Alexandra Alter. This article tells the compelling story of how Hugh Howey's self-published book Wool  has earned him over $1 million since it first appeard in 2011, and will now be re-published by Simon & Schuster. Howey has also sold movie rights to filmmaker Ridley Scott, but has retained full e-book rights.

This is the second time in just over a year that the WSJ has run a feature article on the transformation of the book publishing industry. 

In the December 9, 2011 issue, another feature article appeared, also by Alexandra Alter, "How Darcie Chan Became a Best-Selling Author", about the growing revolution in self-publishing and e-books. 

The difference in the past fourteen months is astonishing.  When Alter's first article ran, Darcie Chan had sold over 400,000 books, an unheard of breakout for a self-published e-book.  In today's article Alter reports that four independent authors have sold over a million Kindle copies of their e-books, and 23 authors have sold over 250,000.  

Self-publishing is no longer difficult or expensive, and royalties are highly attractive for authors versus working with a publishing house, running 35 - 75 percent of each book sold. 

This is an exciting time to be a writer: just as they did for professional quality moviemaking and music production, the barriers have come down. Everyman can now participate. 

What will your story be?