Ever hear the saying that “Everyone has a book in him?” Apparently, many more people are getting that book out via self-publishing, a once disreputable route to authorship.
The number of self-published books produced annually in the U.S. has nearly tripled, growing 287 percent since 2006, and now tallies more than 235,000 print and “e” titles, according to a new analysis of data from Bowker Books In Print and Bowker Identifier Services.
The research explores the dramatic U.S. growth of an area once relegated to the fringes of publishing. It finds that while production increases are occurring in both print and e-book formats, the latter is driving the greatest percentage gains.
It also shows that while self-publishing may seem like a cottage industry, it is dominated by large firms that offer publishing services to individual authors.
“Self-publishing is now supported by a sophisticated and highly accessible support structure,” said Beat Barblan, Director of Identifier Services for Bowker, an affiliate of information powerhouse ProQuest.
“It’s provided everyone who has a story to tell with a method for sharing it and leveled the playing field to an unprecedented degree. This is no longer just vanity presses at work – self-publishing is out of the dark corners and making its way into the mainstream. Notable success stories include a number of self-published authors landing their titles onto the prestigious New York Times bestseller list for ebook fiction.”
Self-publishing may involve a lot of do-it-yourself work, but its infrastructure is dominated by a handful of large firms.
The Bowker research notes that “In 2011, CreateSpace dominated the print segment, supporting the creation of 58,412 titles (39 percent of self-published print books). Smashwords topped the e-book producers with 40,608 titles (nearly 47 percent of total self-published e-books).
“The combined divisions of Author Solutions (part of Penguin Group) produced a total of 47,094 titles and Lulu Enterprises checks in with 38,005 titles. The Bowker analysis shows that beyond these four players, no company has more than 10 percent of market share.”
Marketing a self-published book is still the toughest part of the business, Bowker says, but the Internet offers many avenues to attract reader attention via online excerpts, customer reviews, and social media. We see many of our author friends, particularly those specializing in genre works, actively promoting their e-books on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
We’ve also seen many authors selling their e-books very inexpensively in Kindle and other digital editions, which encourages readers interested in the topics to give them a try.
Amazon itself has even gone into the e-book publishing business and has had considerable success moving its titles.
The Self-Publishing Report and other Bowker Market Research studies that illuminate the business of books are available at http://www.bookconsumer.com/
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- Authors making a bundle through Kindle Direct Publishing
- More than 50M adults reading ebooks, buying habits changing
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Tags: Author Solutions, best sellers, Bowker research, CreateSpace, e-books, Lulu.com, self-published books, Smashwords
