Author Solutions – The Indie Book Writers Blog | Self Publishing | Get Published

In other posts, I have suggested for some time that agents and traditional publishers are watching self-published authors for titles that may make sense for them to pick up. The story of Annie Downs is further evidence that is happening. You can watch Annie’s video interview below and hear it directly from her, but I think her story is quite interesting. She is a blogger and speaker and found she was missing an opportunity by not having a book. So she chose to publish with Westbow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson and a strategic partner with Author Solutions. What makes her story interesting is she was not picked up by Nelson, who watches Westbow titles closely, but she was actually picked up by Zondervan, who is a competitor of Nelson. I find that interesting because Annie is a first time author and may not have been published by either Nelson or Zondervan if she only pursued  a traditional publishing option. However, she self published, started to build a following and a platform and Zondervan picked up her book. Pretty cool.