When Andrew Kaufman released his novel, While the Savage Sleeps as an e-book, he expected to sell a few copies of the paranormal mystery, then move on to writing another book. Instead, Kaufman has a problem. It's actually a very nice problem for an author—While the Savage Sleeps is maintaining a review rating on Amazon of five stars. It also spent several weeks as a top seller in its genre.
In a previous article, Kaufman pitched While the Savage Sleeps, as "Two strangers: distance separates them, a dark secret connects them, but a voice from the grave will draw them together." That premise has obviously appealed to readers enough that Kaufman decided to take the book into print. The book, which spent several weeks on three of Amazon's bestsellers lists by genre and placed third on Amazon's Movers and Shakers List, is available in several e-book formats from Smashwords and now as a trade paperback from Amazon.com.
Kaufman said, "I'm very pleased that While the Savage Sleeps has managed to maintain a five-star review average on Amazon, so it seems the readers are enjoying it. Hopefully that fact will help it transcend the electronic-to-paper gap." He also recognizes that there can be a disparity between the e-book market where he's done so well and the paper market, saying that "There's no way to predict what will happen or what the book-buying public will do."
The success he's seen with While the Savage Sleeps is keeping Kaufman busy. He was in the middle of writing a new stand-alone novel when the e-book sales took off. Now, he's got readers asking when he'll produce the next in the "Savage" series.
Kaufman also has words of advice for authors considering the e-publishing route. "They say unstable ground is the most fertile for remarkable change, and that's certainly the case here. The current publishing model hasn't been working. Great manuscripts were constantly falling through the cracks. Now, thanks to progressive-thinking companies like Amazon, writers are getting the opportunity not only to have their work read, but read by a large audience." Kaufman has become a believer in the e-book publishing market. He's convinced that an author who produces quality work and prices it correctly has an excellent chance of doing well in the e-book market.
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