I got all pithy with my headline yesterday, only to be factually proven wrong by John Locke (neither thinker nor Lost character, though I suspect they’d both prove me wrong on some things). This John Locke is the author of books like Vegas Moon, Wish List, and Saving Rachel. He’s a New York Times bestseller, and doesn’t have a publisher, an agent, or a book deal to speak of. He’s also the first self-published author to sell a million ebooks, says ReadWriteWeb:

Rather than being published by major publishing house – and all the perks that have long been associated with that (marketing, book tours, prime shelf space in retail stores) – Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books (as of yesterday) having used Kindle Direct Publishing to get his e-books into the Amazon store. No major publisher. No major marketing.

Locke writes primarily crime and adventure stories, including Vegas Moon, Wish List, and the New York Times E-Book Bestseller, Saving Rachel. Most of the e-books sell for $.99, and he says he makes 35 cents on every sale. That sort of per book profit is something that authors would never get from a traditional book deal.