"Self-published output has grown by 422% over the past five years." (FORBES, Oct. 4, 2013)
"SELF-PUBLISHING IS EXPLODING, but as the industry matures, authors will have to raise the bar on their own offerings, collaborate with editors and designers and take a more entrepreneurial approach to their work."Joan Holman
ARTICLES
Bestseller Success Stories that Started Out as Self-Published Books (Huffington Post)
How to Self Publish a Book (Wikihow)
Self-Published Authors = 50% of the EBook Market by 2020Ą (Publishing Perspectives)
The Choose Yourself Era How To Sell 300,000 Books (The Altucher Confidential)
Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book (James Altucher for Tech Crunch)
How to Self-Publish a Bestseller (The Altucher Confidential)
How Hugh Howey Turned His Self-Published Story Wool Into a Success (& a Book Deal) (Writers Digest)
Self-publishing: is it killing the mainstream? (The Guardian)
How Barbara Freethy Became the Bestselling Amazon KDP Author of All-Time (Huffington Post)
(HughHowey.com)
21 Things You Need to Know About Self-Publishing 2.0 (James Altucher for Copyblogger)
Self-Published Authors Make A Living And Sometimes A Fortune (NPR)
5 Lessons In Marketing And Publishing From Guy Kawasakis "APE" An overview of "APE," the new bible of self publishing, from Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. (Fast Company)
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MARKETPLACE
BLURBA self-publishing platform that enables their users to design, print, promote, share, and sell their own print books, ebooks and magazines. Blurb offers book-making tools catering to diverse digital skills. Sell and distribute globally with Print on Demand (POD) or offset printing.
INGRAM SPARKIngramSpark (IS) is a tool that provides publishers with simple and affordable access to Ingrams global distribution network for print and e-book content.
BOOK BABY Offers ebook production and distribution as well as Print on Demand (POD) book options that include distribution to a network of global booksellers, libraries and online retailers. Books will be available for sale online at Powells Books, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, both domestically and globally. and available for ordering through the largest book distribution network in the world including Ingram, Baker & Taylor, NACSCORP, Espresso Book Machine Book-a-Zine, Partners, Diamond Comic, BPDI along with 50+ others.
BUBLISHThe world's first complete publishing solution with integrated brand-building, marketing and discoverability features and tools to help authors write, publish, promote, sell and track their work while building a dynamic author brand that sells more books.
SMASHWORDSSelf publish and distribute ebooks. Self-serve publishing service where authors upload manuscripts to the Smashwords service, which converts the files into multiple ebook formats for reading on various ebook reading devices. Once published, the books are made available for sale online at a price set by the author.
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SELF-PUBLISHING SUCCESS
Successful Self-Published Authors (Fiction) Barbara FreethyThe bestselling Amazon KDP author of all time. eBook sales hit 4.2 million in May 2014
Successful Self-Published Authors (Nonfiction)
Initially Self-Published Bestsellers The Joy of Cooking Your Erroneous Zones (Wayne Dyer) The Tales of Peter Rabbit A Time to Kill (John Grisham) The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki) 50 Shades of Grey (E.L. James) Still Alice (Lisa Genova) What Color Is Your Parachute The One Minute Manager Eragon Term Limits (Vince Flynn) - Cliff Notes In Search of Excellence (Tom Peters) You Can Heal Your Life (Louise Hay) Dianetics (L. Ron Hubbard)
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BIG NAME AUTHORS JOIN THE SELF-PUBLISHING REVOLUTION
excerpts from an article...
David Mamet and other Big Authors Choose to Self Publish (New York Times, April 16, 2013)
"Although a vast majority of self-published books will never find much of an audience, a surprising number have become best sellers, especially in genres like romance and science fiction. Self-published titles made up roughly one-quarter of the top-selling books on Amazon last year, the company said.....As digital disruption continues to reshape the publishing market, self-publishing including distribution digitally or as print on demand has become more and more popular, and more feasible, with an increasing array of options for anyone with an idea and a keyboard.........
"While self-published authors get no advance, they typically receive 70 percent of sales. A standard contract with a traditional house gives an author an advance, and only pays royalties the standard is 25 percent of digital sales and 7 to 12 percent of the list price for bound books after the advance is earned back in sales........
"Once a small backwater of vanity presses for authors who could not get contracts with mainstream houses, self-publishing now accounts for more than 235,000 books annually, according to Bowker, a book research firm. Big houses like Penguin and Harlequin have opened their own self-publishing divisions because they see it as a profit center of the future."
THE STATE OF SELF-PUBLISHING
excerpts from an article..... The State of Self Publishing June 30th, 2014 | Hugh C. Howey
One reminder that Ive blogged about at length is that most books dont sell very many copies. And thats okay. Its not a self-publishing thing; its a publishing thing. 98% of manuscripts submitted to agents never get published at all. They dont sell a single copy. Nobody mentions this when they deride self-publishing as an option. The false premise seems to be that you can choose to self-publish, or you can choose to have your book on an endcap in every bookstore while you are sent on a 12-city tour by your publisher. Thats not the choice. The choice is to self-publish or submit to an agent. This is the choice.
If you self-publish, you can immediately move on to writing the next work. You dont have to look back at all if you dont want. You have the rest of your life to promote that work, if you decide to promote it at all. If you are one of the 1% to secure an agent, the earliest you might see that work in a bookstore is a year. More likely, itll be three to five years. And youll be asked to rewrite that work, not based on any artistic vision, but based on whats currently selling, what publishers are currently looking for.
The truth is that when it comes to trade fiction, more self-published authors are making a living today than traditionally published authors. And despite what some people claim, this isnt because of output. Those self-published authors are doing better with fewer published titles, on average. The biggest names and highest earners in traditional publishing are overwhelmingly authors who debuted prior to 2009 and have a lot of works available. And the biggest earners on both sides publish in the genres that readers overwhelmingly prefer.
Also, despite what some experts would have you believe, self-published authors are still breaking out with their first works. AJ Riddle and Brenna Aubrey are two examples, and the current bestseller lists on Amazon are loaded with new self-published authors youve never heard of. Andy Weirs THE MARTIAN sold a ton of copies and was picked up by Random House and 20th Century Fox. This was a debut novel, and Andy hasnt published anything since. He succeeded through self-publishing faster than he would have landed an agent if he went the traditional route.
The claim that these are exceptions ignores that every book in the bookstore is an exception. It also ignores the fact that there are more exceptions among the self-published crowd than there are among the traditionally published crowd. We know. We counted.
Another thing that has been mentioned over and over again here but rarely gets any press is that not all of us got into this because we wanted to make money. Many of us would pay to write if there was a fee involved. We love this like a hobby, one that we attempt to do on a professional level. I pay more for a single lens as a passionate photographer than it costs to have a manuscript professionally edited and wrapped in gorgeous cover art.
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WHY EVERY ENTREPRENEUR SHOULD SELF-PUBLISH A BOOK
excerpt from an article by entrepreneur and author James Altucher (Tech Crunch, Jan. 28, 2012)
"Ive published eight books in the past seven years, five with traditional publishers (Wiley, Penguin, HarperCollins), one comic book, and the last two Ive self-published. In this post I give the specific details of all of my sales numbers and advances with the traditional publishers.
"Although the jury is still out on my self-published books, 'How to be the Luckiest Man Alive' and 'I Was Blind But Now I See' I can tell you these two have already sold more than my five books with traditional publishers, combined.
"If you, the entrepreneur, self-publish a book you will stand out, you will make more money, you will kick your competitors right in the XX, and you will look amazingly cool at cocktail parties. I know this because I am seldom cool but at cocktail parties, with my very own comic book, I can basically have sex with anyone in the room. But dont believe me, it costs you nothing and almost no time to try it yourself.
"The rest of this article is really three discussions: Why self-publish rather than use a traditional publisher, why entrepreneurs should self-publish, and finally, HOW does one go about self-publishing."
Purchase James Atucher's self-published book CHOOSE YOURSELF on Amazon.
..THE INDIE AUTHOR ..MANIFESTO
excerpts from an article..... June 30th, 2014 | Mark Coker, CEO, Smashwords
Over the last few years, book publishing has witnessed a dramatic change in attitudes regarding self-publishing. Much credit goes to indie ebook authors and the readers that have embraced them. Prior to the rise of ebooks, traditional publishers controlled the access to retail distribution. Without access to retail stores, it was nearly impossible for self published print authors to achieve commercial success. Without commercial success, it was difficult for self published authors to escape the stigma of "failed author."
All this changed with the rise of ebooks over the last six years. Starting in 2007 with Amazon and followed closely thereafter by Sony, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Apple iBooks, major ebook retailers opened their virtual shelf space to self-published ebooks.
Indie authors began publishing high-quality ebooks at low consumer prices, and consumers responded by propelling some of these authors into the bestseller lists.
A few years ago, it was practically unheard of for an indie author to hit the New York Times bestseller list. Now it happens nearly every week. The commercial success of these indie authors inspires the next generation of writers.
Today, indie authors are in the cool kids club. An increasing number of new writers now aspire to indie publish. If the trend continues, within a few years it's likely more new writers will aspire to self publish than traditionally publish.
Much as been written about the advantages of ebook self publishing from the writer perspective, such as faster time-to-market and dramatically higher per-unit royalty rates. Despite these surface advantages, few outside the indie author community have yet to grok the true drivers behind the indie author movement.
It's not an exaggeration to label the indie author movement as a global cultural phenomena. Authors no longer need publishers to reach readers. We're witnessing a transition from a publisher-centric world to an author-centric world. The full extent of these changes won't be felt for several more years.
Like any cultural movement, the rise of indie authorship is driven by profound changes in social norms, ethical values, customs, belief systems, technology and business practices.
With this radical change in mind, I have created my INDIE AUTHOR MANIFESTO.
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