John Locke joins the Kindle Million Club.

John Locke has become the first self-published author to sell more than one million e-books through Amazon.

The author used Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform to publish and sell his titles. He joins Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins and Michael Connelly in what Amazon dub the Kindle Million Club.

Locke said: "Kindle Direct Publishing has provided an opportunity for independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the book selling industry. Not only did KDP give me a chance, they helped at every turn. Quite simply, KDP is the greatest friend an author can have."

Russ Grandinetti, vice-president of Kindle Content, said: "It's so exciting that self-publishing has allowed John Locke to achieve a milestone like this."

Locke, from Louisville in Kentucky, has written nine novels includingVegas Moon, Wish List, A Girl Like You, Follow the Stone, Don't Poke the Bear! and the New York Times bestselling e-book, Saving Rachel. His latest book is called How I Sold 1 Million e-books in 5 Months.

Locke joins Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins and Michael Connelly in the Kindle Million Club.

eBook Spam hits Kindle

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing is now faced with a huge problem--EBook spam. The report stated that Amazon has been flodded with spam titles, either pirated, plagiarized, of no real consequence or in some cases even blank eBooks. This goes directly to the heart of Amazon's failure to monitor, even slightly, the type of content they are publishing.

Independent publishing has always encountered perception problems in the marketplace and most authors have been making a valiant attempt at overcoming this by utilizing editors, designers, and creating the kind of product that would be seen and recognized as professional. The Amazon spam issue is a difficult problem to solve for the online retailer but easier for authors.

The spammed titles are virtually all at the 99 cent price, which means anyone publising an original eBook should avoid the lowest price points. This is something that I've written about for some time, the lower the price on eBooks the more negative the perception. Amazon's price point for seventy percent royalty is $2.99 and any author publishing a serious eBook should rarely if ever venture below that retail price point.