The 20Booksto50k conference is one of the premier publishing events focusing on shop talk for self-published authors. The conference aims to empower individuals with the ability to earn a living from their writing, and there is no reticence on anyone’s part in discussing their intention to make cold, hard cash from their writing and, ideally, quit their day job.
This year’s event was held Nov. 6–10 at the Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas. The event attracted 1,700 attendees, including authors and vendors. As with the earlier 20Books conferences in 2023—in Seville, Spain, and Amsterdam, Netherlands—discussions revolved around two key topics: direct selling and artificial intelligence.
When it comes to direct selling—i.e., extracting yourself from dependency on Amazon—Shopify has emerged as the preferred platform, with print-on-demand fulfillment through Bookvault and ebook and audiobook fulfillment through BookFunnel. Ream has emerged as a preferred platform for subscriptions. (Read our coverage of Ream’s launch earlier this year; also, we covered how one indie author drives direct sales using Shopify, among other tools.)
Numerous authors also spoke of the benefits of using Kickstarter to fund initial sales and production, especially for those looking to put out a higher quality product. Longtime indie author Joanna Penn said she has never subscribed to the hyper-prolific school of self-publishing and is focused on just two projects a year. Penn said that Kickstarter has helped make this possible and, in 2023, she raised $45,000 for her book Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness into Words and $31,000 for Pilgrimage, a memoir about walking pilgrimages.
Of course, Penn has a significant author platform. When selling direct or raising money on Kickstarter, the importance of having a pre-existing community of readers cannot be understated. The majority of conference speakers discussing the need for writers to go wide were already established authors who are bringing their audience with them when they shift sales platforms. Typically, they already have a direct-marketing apparatus in place, either through email or social media.
Going wide may be less viable for new authors just coming into indie publishing. And those skeptical of the advice to go direct are quick to point out that it’s not as if Amazon has stopped selling books. It remains and is likely to remain the far dominant sales channel. To its credit, Amazon appears to have noted the shift in sentiment; the company brought a large team of reps to 20Books and has sent sizable teams to other public-facing book fairs as well, including the just concluded Miami Book Fair.
The shift to direct sales has been prompted, as is well known, by dwindling payments for authors in Kindle Unlimited, while the ecosystem has been further complicated by the seemingly unstoppable proliferation of copycat, plagiarized, and disposable titles. Which brings us to AI, which has turbo-charged the problem of title proliferation and copyright infringement.
Some authors at 20Books, particularly those with a track record of sales and an existing audience, said they were experimenting with using AI to speed up their own production, though few were keen to admit this publicly. The reaction to the use of AI among speakers was polarized. Elizabeth Ann West of the Future Fiction Academy (and a former employee of Sudowrite) offered the most compelling presentation in favor of the topic. She invited users to experiment with the FFA’s prompting tool. John Truby, author of The Anatomy of Story and other books, was among those opposed to the use of AI, calling it “a deal with the devil” while touting his own plot-outlining software.
One area where AI has broad acceptance, without shame, is audiobook narration. Some authors advocate using AI-generated audiobooks to test the market. Should a book or series prove popular with readers, they then advocate investing in a human audiobook narrator with name recognition who can potentially open up a new audience and extend the book’s longevity in the marketplace. Narrators with name recognition drive their own sales: For proof, just look at the success of Podium, which employs popular narrators, continues to grow, and is now publishing some 1,700 audiobook titles a year. (Here’s our coverage of Podium from 2021.)
As is often the case with conferences, nearly all the presenters at 20Books had a product to sell, be it software, a website, consulting, a suite of services, or their own books. Some author-entrepreneurs have moved into establishing publishing companies: Authors James Blatch and Mark Dawson announced the launch of Fuse Books, a new hybrid publishing company coming in January 2024.
What’s next for 20Books? The 20Books event is organized by Craig Martelle and Michael Anderle of LMBPN Publishing. At the start of this year’s show, Martelle and Anderle welcomed everyone and commended each other for their mutual success, getting choked up in the process. It was genuinely moving and clearly marked the end of an era; it was officially announced later that Martelle is stepping down from running 20Books Las Vegas. The event is being taken over by Joe Solari and will be rebranded and relaunched as Author Nation. (Earlier this year, Martelle hosted a high-priced, invite-only indie author Mastermind workshop on the island of Mallorca. One presumes he’ll continue with this project. Anderle, of course, is continuing his prolific writing career at the helm of LMPBN Publishing.)
Meanwhile, the 20Books conference brand will continue in Europe; the next event is scheduled for March 2024 in Seville. It is being organized by Lantia, a publishing services company that offers services in Spain, Latin America, and Europe; Lantia also runs EBL.com, an indie author platform in the US.
