Posted on December 22, 2013 at 12:00 AM by Jeffrey Bruner

Once upon a time, a young lady decided that the traditional route of releasing her work was too slow. Her name was Beyonce.

When her album was ready, Beyonce uploaded it to iTunes and made it available to everyone.

Instant happiness.

She sold more than 1 million units in just seven days and made a whole bunch more money than if she had only pressed CDs and distributed them to all the Big Box Stores in the universe.

"Wait a minute!" cried Target. "You can't do that!" shouted Amazon (ironically).

"You must still use us to distribute your music so that we can take an outrageous cut of the profits!" they yelled. "We will pout and hold our breath until you apologize!"

"Don't let the door hit ya where the Lord split ya," replied Beyonce. "Bye."

She left to go film her Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi, which did not care how Beyonce chose to distribute her music. And Beyonce lived happily ever after.

The end.

***

Do we call Beyonce a "self-published recording artist"? Of course not.

So stop letting people call you a "self-published author." It's a derogatory term used to imply inferiority. There are good and bad novels. There are good and bad authors. As long as you don't cut corners, and invest in professional editing and cover design, you will increase your chances of success -- regardless of whether it's you or your editor at Random House who uploads the final book to Amazon Kindle.

But never let others define you. Let your own actions do that!

Comments
<p>Ha ha.&nbsp; Very clever.&nbsp; Although I suspect it might have been Jay Z's idea, but I'm not sure because I don't pay much attention to the Carters.&nbsp; Anway, great move on her part.&nbsp; Didn&rsquo;t Radiohead do something like this a few years back?&nbsp; The world is changing, no doubt about it, and it helps all of us out here trying to make our way in it when heavy hitters like Beyonc&eacute; and Jay Z go the indie route.&nbsp; I wish them well.</p>
Marianne Sciucco | 5/24/18 at 2:32 AM
As writers, we should have been watching the ground shift in the music industry very closely. Of course, Beyonce had her fame and market share from Destiny's Child to set up the media and market for her indie move. Few of us have that level of pre-launch cred to fall back on, but as far as the nice satisfied glow that you've done the best work you could, we can feel that. Even if the media doesn't help sell our books for us.
Richard Sutton | 5/24/18 at 2:32 AM
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