There
has been an explosion in self-publishing.
Traditional publishing puts out about 350,000 new books a year, but
self-published authors released nearly five times that amount – 1.677 million
such books were released in 2018, according to Bowker, which tracks these things.
Just
from 2017 to 2018 there was a jump of almost a half-million self-published
books, with 1.192 million released in 2017.
The
vast majority of self-published print books comes from Kindle Direct Publishing
(Amazon). In 2018, of the 1.547 million
self-published print books released, 1.416 million came out of KDP.
The
other leading publishers in 2018 of printed, self-published books are:
·
Lulu
– 37,456
·
Blurb
– 17,682
·
Author
Solutions – 16,019
Interestingly,
there were only 130,440 self-published e-books in 2018. It seems over 90% of all self-published books
have a print edition. So much for print
being dead. The three leading e-book
publishers, according to Bowker, are Smashwords (71,696), Lulu (30,021) and
Author Solutions (10,585).
So
if you are an author, should you self-publish?
Well,
that depends on a number of factors? Ask yourself:
·
Do
I want the associated prestige/benefits that a publisher potentially offers
more than my potential to have editorial control of my manuscript, retain all
of my rights, and publish the book faster?
·
Am
I good enough to be published by a leading publisher – and can I get a literary
agent to represent me?
·
Will
I be a good entrepreneur and turn my book into a small business if I
self-publish?
·
Do
I know what needs to be done to get a book edited, published, distributed and
promoted?
·
Am
I okay with making a small royalty via a publisher that may sell more books
than if I self-publish, even though I make more money per a sale of a book when
I self-publish?
Self-publishing
is easy but it takes work. For some, it is exactly what they desire and need to
do; for others, it’s get published by the establishment or sit on the
sidelines.
Self-publishing
continues to balloon in terms of number of titles released but the sales per
title are decreasing, meaning the market is overwhelmed with competing titles
and the quality control on some of these books is not very good. To self-publish is to believe in yourself and
to take ownership – literally – of your writing career. Are you ready for it?
Having
promoted many self-published authors, I can say that some are quite good -- well written and edited, nicely packaged, good cover design, smart title, and
a fair cover price. Sometimes you cannot tell a self-published book from a book
put out by the Big 5.
In
the end, no matter who publishes one’s work, it falls upon the shoulders of authors
to get out there and market their brands and promote their books.
BOOK FAIRS & AUTHOR FESTIVALS
Writer’s Digest recently posted this
useful link to find book conferences and festivals, by state, for 2020.
Book Piracy in the Hundreds of Millions of Dollars
“A 2017 Nielsen consumer survey found that e-book piracy reduces U.S. book sales by $315 million annually, taking a huge bite out of authors earnings, regardless of whether the authors are traditionally or independently published,” said Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors Guild in Publishers Weekly recently. She adds: “Explosive growth in the sale of counterfeit books, among other deceitful schemes has been enabled by third-party seller platforms such as Amazon and eBay.”
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Can You Follow The 3-Minute
Book Publicity Rule?
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Job Hunting?
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Attending A Conference?
https://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/how-authors-can-maximize-attending.html
Brian Feinblum’s insightful views,
provocative opinions, and interesting ideas expressed in this terrific blog are
his alone and not that of his employer or anyone else. You can – and should --
follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com.
He feels much more important when discussed in the third-person. This is
copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2019. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now
resides in Westchester. His writings are often featured in The
Writer and IBPA’s Independent. This was named one of
the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the
top book marketing blogs. Also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best
resource.” He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America.
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