LOUISVILLE, Ky. ? Crime fiction author John Locke was the first independently published author to sell more than one million Kindle eBooks using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Now he’s the first author to sign a book distribution deal with Simon & Schuster to get his next book into book stores nationwide.

Locke, a commercial real estate developer by day, writes the Donovan Creed series in spare time. Simon & Schuster will begin distributing paperback editions on February 1. He has sold over 1,700,000 ebooks. His Donovan Creed series has sold more than 1,500,000 copies. Locke wrote The Donovan Creed Series to offer an escape from the everyday. The title character is a very tough man (and former CIA assassin) with a weakness for very easy women. The action is fast moving, the dialogue is smart, savvy and sexy. The stories are filled with quirky characters and clever surprises.

?WISH LIST? will be the first in the series to be released in paperback. It is due out in February 2012 with an initial print run of 750,000, followed by ?SAVING RACHEL? and ?VEGAS MOON.? The book is now available as a pre-order for $4.99 at Amazon.Com

Locke says that publishing is the only industry that looks down upon those who try to branch off on their own, those who choose to self-publish, and start something from scratch ? be an entrepreneur.

? I tried all the conventional ways to promote my books,? he said. ? People would contact me and I?d capture their emails. Then I got on Twitter and promoted the Kindle eBooks. I sold books one person at a time. My readers liked the characters in my books. And we generated a following. It took a year to develop the mailing list and my following.?

He says he has about 100,000 loyal readers, and hopes to greatly expand his readership with the new market paperback distribution deal with Simon & Schuster.

Locke?s background is in niche marketing, where he built a successful business selling specialty insurance, before going into niche real estate developments. He said the business model for selling eBooks on Kindle piqued his interest. “Because Kindle doesn’t just level the playing field for the self-published authors, it actually slants it in our favor.”

Specifically, he saw that a self-published book could be offered on Kindle for 99 cents, and still turn a 35 cent profit. Though he was in awe of this platform, no one else he spoke to seemed impressed. From that moment on, his goal was to become the world’s greatest 99-cent author. And, arguably, he is.

The success of the Donovan Creed Series and Locke’s sales have resulted in an unprecedented paperback distribution deal with Simon & Schuster, who will bring the eight books of the series into the retail market in 2012.

Locke began writing later in life, starting in his spare time. He never tried to go the way of the traditional publisher because he was unknown and untrained. Besides, he thought self-publishing would be fun – an opportunity to write without abandon.

“Wouldn’t my time be better spent writing stories than query letters?”

He finished his first book and thought it was dreadful. As did everyone he asked. Without skipping a beat, he scrapped it and started over. That was when ?LETHAL PEOPLE? was created, the first in the hugely successful Donovan Creed series.

Locke is now a New York Times Best-selling author. Every eBook he has written and published has gone on to become a bestseller because of his savvy selling directly to his audience. He?s sold 1.7 million books in four years with his system.

To check out the his books, click on DonovanCreed.Com

To read a cyber crime thriller that chronicles the life of a hacker,

click on CyberStyletto.Com

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