Is Self Publishing Here to Stay?

According to Bowker, in 2008, the production of print-on-demand books surpassed traditional book publishing for the first time and since then its growth has been staggering. Now more than twice the output of traditional titles, the market is dominated by a handful of publishers. In fact, the top 10 publishers overall accounted for an astounding 74% of total titles produced in 2009.

Data Taken From Bowker

Based on the data, I don’t think that self publishing is going anywhere soon. It is here to stay.  If you don’t think that you can pull it off by yourself there are companies out there who call themselves self publishing companies, but they are really non traditional publishing companies who help authors publish their own books.  There are the big ones out there, but there are many up and coming smaller companies who may be able to assist. That’s why I call it assisted self publishing when you pay for services through another company.

In non traditional publishing the spectrum runs from doing everything yourself for free to  paying as you go for services you might need (kind of like ordering a la carte) and all the way to paying up to $5,000 or more for package deals.  As you might suspect, I encourage authors to do it yourself or purchase only the service that you cannot do yourself.  In another post I will list some of the many companies that will provide you with these varied services. For now, I think it’s safe to say that self publishing is here to stay.

Go out there and publish your book.

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