Self-Publishing Authors Set Record! More than One Million Books Self-Published in 2017
Congratulations to self-publishing book authors for making 2017 a record breaking year in terms of raw output! Bowker has published a study on just how prolific these authors were last year. Here is how the company describes the impressive growth rate:
“The clear message communicated by the 2017 data is self-publishing is still evolving, still growing at a rapid pace, and shows no signs of slowing down. The largest increase was in print books, showing an increase of 38%…Self-publishing grew at a rate of more than 28% in 2017, up from an 8% increase during the prior year. The total number of self-published titles grew from 786,935 to 1,009,188, surpassing the million mark for the first time.”
Wow!
And, to help answer a question I get asked a lot, “Who should I turn to to help me publish my book myself?”
“CreateSpace, which recently announced it would become one service with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and offer enhanced distribution and other services to former CreateSpace customers, was very strong in 2017 and accounted for the bulk of the increase, growing a robust 50%. Looking ahead, we don’t expect any decline in Print On Demand self-publishing as CreateSpace authors move to the KDP platform. In fact, the three major service providers supporting indie authors, CreateSpace, Smashwords, and Lulu, accounted for over 88% of all self-published print and e-book titles in 2017.”
Although Bowker doesn’t mention IngramContent, we’d be remiss if we did not mention this service, and just the other day we got a press release from Meridian Publishing Network about a new service the company is offering designed to help people start their own small book publishing company.
So, there are a lot of options for publishing your own book (contact me if you want to know more), but I am delighted to see this uptick. I think self-publishing or running a small book publishing company can be a great way to express one’s creativity, business acumen, and maybe make some money, too.