Amazon has chosen such a time as this to reveal to the world that an independent British author has took the bestseller slot on the Kindle Store in the final months of 2011 having published his book using Kindle Direct Publishing.
It's almost as though Amazon wants to remind the world that it has a publishing platform for ebooks too, what with Apple's iBooks Author taking the spotlight in recent weeks (for some of the wrong reasons).
Locked out
But let's not be cynical, and instead celebrate Kerry Wilkinson's great successes on the platform with his Jessica Daniel detective series:
"This time last year, I hadn't even started writing Locked In and now I have a number one bestselling book in the Kindle Store, outselling many authors that I have grown up reading," said Wilkinson.
"It has been terrific to be able to utilise Amazon's KDP platform and engage directly with readers."
Yes, terrific. Locked In also hit iBooks' top five, with Wilkinson's second and third books out now and two more to come in the series this year.
While staying wooly on exact figures, Gordon Willoughby, Kindle EU director, added, "Kerry Wilkinson's series of detective novels have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the Kindle Store and we look forward to helping many more independently published authors achieve similar levels of success in 2012."
So it seems that self-publishing is here to stay - and while that's excellent for the many thousands of would-be novelists devoid of a book deal, it's another nail in the coffin for the publishing industry.
