If you're a voracious science fiction reader you'll be well aware that the traditional print publishing houses aren't capable of keeping up with your demand for quality books. Even more so, you'll be aware that when it comes to science fiction series the wait between releases can often be painfully long.

If there's something that readers universally love about the Kindle, it's the fact you can get so many great books at great prices. What they love more, I assume, is that you can get a lot of good stuff for absolutely nothing too. Nada, zip, etcetera.

The life of an indie author involves several things; ferociously refreshing the sales statistics for their latest releases, obsessively checking social media, maybe a bit of Googling their own name. What it rarely involves, unfortunately, is them looking at how the new ePublishing market can be brought forward, and how that might help them.

The volume of self-published authors, otherwise known as independent, that continue to outsell Big Six books on Amazon's Kindle store is pretty surprising. Less so has been Amazon's decision to operate its own imprints, ensnaring some of those successful indies into formal, mutually beneficial publishing deals.