The Self Publishing Boom And How It Gave Birth To Unsuspecting Authors

We have to admit that self publishing is now a very acceptable means of putting your work out there.

To quote Mediashift, "Mid-level authors already know that the era of large advances, generous royalties, book tours and media spots are over. They have to spend their own time and money to create a website and publicize their books. Publishers just don't have the resources to offer them full support. Why? The Internet, online bookstores, e-books, and an economy in decline are cited as some root causes of the steady slump in the traditional publishing industry. In 2005 sales were down by 9 percent (and have continued to fall). Yet in 2006 print-on-demand exploded."

Sure the big names like Random House might still make a difference in terms of publisher credibility but the power of the big publishing houses are no longer as prominent as they'd like it to be. Self publishing has blurred the definitions and means of "HOW" to get published as long as well they see the light at the end of the tunnel and eventually just get their book to the marketplace.

Today's definition of self-publishing includes subsidy and vanity presses, print-on-demand companies, and book packagers, which many would like to clarify as being publishing or author services companies.

"Author Solutions' brands -- AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford, Wordclay, and Xlibris -- have published more than 120,000 books by 85,000 authors," Publishers Weekly's Lynn Andriani reported her article.

In the end I think it's going to lean a lot on the author's preference, ambition and capacity to pay.


Read the full article, Self-Publishing, Author Services Open Floodgates for Writers