happened on the Internet today. A formerly suicidal (literally) writer named Kiana wrote to a writer named Joe, about the impossibility of getting published in the traditional marketplace. She had taken his advice, she said, went digital, and turned everything around. Her book has been selling on Amazon.

Today she got an extra gift: When Joe shared (with permission) her message of appreciation and hope, her latest’s ebook’s rank on amazon.com shot up around 45,000%. Yeah, 45 thousand percent.

Way to go, guys.

Here’s the whole story.

And here’s a brief quote that stood out as useful for me:

“For the first time ever, writers have a choice.

Choices are empowering. Having the ability to control our futures, even with something as simple as self-publishing an ebook, means we aren’t helpless anymore.

That’s a very good thing.”

The upshot is that we are no longer dependent on a corporate publisher to get our work out there and get money for it. In fact, we can’t rely on that paradigm because it’s different. Some say dying, I say morphing.

Gone are the days when a name publishing house will take a change on a no-name writer. They won’t bring you into the business. With very rare exceptions, you have to do that for yourself. You have to build a platform, as they say. And once you’re established and successful, then maybe they’ll come courting.

When that happens, here’s what you need to remember.