Rachael Lucas

Blogger, novelist, marathon runner, mother. Tired.

The last month has been completely bonkers, Sealed with a Kiss was still number one in the Amazon romance chart. I hadn't really had any thoughts about what would happen next. And then the emails started arriving from agents. My instinctive reaction was to steer clear - I was quite liking the whole going-it-alone self-publishing thing.

TJ Cooke

Formerly a legal executive and adviser to the BBC’s Eastenders. Since then he has dovetailed his career between advertising copywriting, freelance journalism, screenwriting and self publishing novels

As Winston Churchill famously said, 'Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.' We may well be 'at the end of the beginning' of of a period of change in publishing trends. Amazon et al have now made their mark in the direct publishing world, and if they haven't yet caused the industry to sit up and take note, they surely soon will.

Anne-Marie Scully

Author of infertility memoir, Motherhoodwinked and founder of digital publishing company Orchard Wall Publishing

If tweeting or blogging on fan fiction sites isn't your thing and you prefer the traditional medium of a book, you no longer need to wait for a contract from a traditional publisher to get your work out there thanks to ebook retailers like Amazon and Kobo who offer self-publishing platforms.

Edward Parrott

Retired and now writes novels as a hobby

I've been writing as a hobby for many years - the challenge of creating a subject and turning this into a finished novel is thrilling. It's only now I'm retired, however, that I've been able to give it a real go. This is all down to self-publishing.

Preetam Kaushik

Freelance journalist

Big budget self-publishing may soon be on its way out, when the test ground for getting your words to see the light of the day can happen in fraction of an amount of the spending that typically happens while self-publishing.

Orna Ross

Novelist and Director of The Alliance of Independent Authors

I have been bowled over by the creativity, hardwork, generosity and kindness of the indie author community, who are so generous in working together for each other and demonstrate daily that self-publishing is the most creative and reader-centred route an author can take today.

Dave Morris

Author, scientist, game designer. Can dance a little

If your own tastes run more to Henry James than E L James, you will find all this talk of tribes to be very far from your own understanding of the value of literature. If so, it's not all bad news.

Megan Holm

Teen blogger and Movellas.com author

I am in my late teens and I am dyslexic. When I was 10 years old I struggled to read and hated the books we studied in class as they were all so boring, but I loved the books my mum read to me and soon figured out that if I could read well enough I could read whatever I liked. Now I have a library of over 400 books on my iPod and read for an average of fourteen hours a week.

Tom Hunter

Arts and Geek Culture. Arthur C. Clarke Award Director and Editor-in-Chief at LondonCalling.com

I've never met Chuck. I live in London, he lives somewhere in America. I'm a bit sketchy on the precise details of exactly where he claims to live, but that's okay and, regardless of this shocking lack of personal information, I recently decided I'd enjoy the opportunity to give Chuck some of my money.

David Prever

Sony Award winning radio presenter and author. His debut novel, The Blood Banker was a bestseller on Amazon Kindle

For ambitious writers there's no longer any excuse to wait around for a publisher to come calling. Self-publish on Kindle and if the book is as good as you believe, the phone might ring. Every author craves that nod of approval, even the self-published success stories.

Jason O'Mahony

Irish Political Blogger

Up until recently, self-publishing triggered certain images. An author announcing a new book. Admiration from friends and family, followed by realisation that author has not being endorsed by professionals putting faith through cash on his skills as a writer, but has paid for book to be published.

Katy Brand

Award-winning writer, comedian and actress

Have I made a huge mistake? I have walked away from talks with two well-known traditional publishers, and decided instead to go with a new crowd-funded publishing company called Unbound, and now, as I watch the subscriptions come in, I begin to panic - will I reach my funding target?

Laxmi Hariharan

Broadcast branding specialist & author epic fantasy

I am just back from The Literary Consultancy's (TLC) http://www.literaryconsultancy.co.uk/ revolutionary Writing in a Digital Age conference. Organise...

Reno Charlton

Author and copywriter

Imagine if that first Harry Potter manuscript had fallen into the hands of the wrong reader when it was sent to Bloomsbury - we might never have heard of Harry or J.K and the world of children's literature might be very different today.

Ashley Hames

Author and writer

I write in quite a bizarre way - back when I had my first book in mind I would write maybe 10,000 words in a weekend and then spend weeks unable to add a single word.

Rick Holland

Collaborating Poet and Artist

We are, it seems, in the midst of a revolution of culture that paints us all as independent artists. We collect our artefacts from wherever we want to and make with them. Culture beneath that of the corporate megaliths has never seemed so loud and energetic.