page_title: Self-publishing
section_title: The self-publishing market
hierarchical_section_title: Self-publishing / The self-publishing market
caption_attribution_description: English: Amazon.com owns about 70% of the e-book market, according to publishing guru Jane Friedman, citing statistics from Michael Cader of Publishers Marketplace, in September 2017. Source: Jane Friedman
context_page_description: Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author without the involvement of an established publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD technology. It may also apply to albums, pamphlets, brochures, video content, and zines.
  In the traditional publishing model, the publisher bears all the costs and risks of publication, but retains most of the profit if the book is successful. In self-publishing, the author bears all the costs and risks, but earns a higher share of the profit per sale.
  The $1 billion market of self-publishing has transformed in the past two decades with new technologies providing increasing alternatives to traditional publishing. Self-publishing is increasingly becoming the first choice for writers. Most self-published books sell very few copies. Those which sell large numbers are newsworthy because they are so rare. The quality of self-published works varies considerably, because there are no barriers to publication and no quality control.
context_section_description: Overall publishing market is expanding. Since 2000, there has been an increase in the sales of digital titles, audiobooks, self-published paperbacks, including printed as well as e-books. The overall market for all books, including from traditional publishers, is growing as well.
  Explosive growth of new titles. The growth in new titles has been strong, particularly in the past decade. In 2002, there were a quarter million new titles, but since 2009, the number of new titles has topped 1.3 million each year. In 2010, according to a different analysis, there were 4.2 million new titles published. Much of the growth in new titles has been because of self-publishing. In 2011, self-published books made up 43% of all print titles, helping to increase overall growth of print production, according to Bowker market research. In the middle of the second decade, the growth of print titles seemed to ebb somewhat, perhaps eclipsed by the growth of e-book titles. For instance, from 2014 to 2015, print titles grew by 34%; from 2015 to 2016, print titles grew but more slowly by 11%. That is the growth of new titles; book sales increased as well, growing by 3% in 2016. In 2017, there were reports that sales of physical books were increasing in the United States.
  Strong growth in self-publishing. There has been a "dizzying rise in self-publishing," according to one view. Self-published book titles in production tripled from 2006 to 2012. 2008 was a watershed year; for the first time in history, more books were self-published than those published traditionally. In 2009, 76% of all books released were self-published, while publishing houses reduced the number of books they produced. Back in 2008, there were 85,468 self-published titles; in 2011, 247,210; by 2012, 459,000; by 2013, 458,564; by 2017, 786,935 self-published ISBNs. During a period of six years, growth of self-published titles was a remarkable 218%. These numbers don't count titles published by Amazon's KDP which identifies books by ASIN numbers instead of ISBN numbers. These are worldwide figures, but the numbers are strong for particular markets as well; for example, in the United Kingdom, readers bought 18 million self-published books in 2013, a 79% increase from the year before. The numbers are strong for particular platforms too; for instance, in 2012, of books sold by Amazon's Kindle KDP service, a quarter of those sales were self-published.
  A saturated market of mostly junky titles. The self-publishing ecosystem has become flooded with titles. While self-publishing overall is booming, most new titles are poorly written or confused or otherwise lacking in appeal. There are a few dozen self-published books that are winning most of the sales, so for the others, even quality self-published books seeking to get attention, it is increasingly difficult to be noticed. Of profits paid to authors by Smashwords, the best-selling 1% of titles earn half of all sales money. Some authors earn modest profits from their work. For example, writer Wayne Hicks of Arkansas published five titles, spending $700 on editing and marketing services, and spent a thousand hours creating and promoting his books; he's sold a thousand copies for a profit of $1,400.
  The largest, by far, percentage of authors are making less than $500 a year self-publishing, because there's a glut. There's over 350,000 books being self-published every year and readers are not finding them. There's just no way to expose people to all of these books.
  — Novelist M.J. Rose in 2012
  E-books expanding. E-books are a relatively new technology, and growth in the number of e-book titles as well as sales have been strong since the middle of the first decade. In 2011 and 2012 the size of the market, in terms of trade publisher e-book revenues, was $2 billion, about 16% of the total trade industry. Monthly e-book sales increased 49% from 2011 to 2012. On another measure, based on statistics from Smashwords, the service had only 140 e-books published in 2008; by 2016, it had published 98,000 e-books. In another measure, from the six-ye
caption: Amazon.com owns about 70% of the e-book market, according to publishing guru Jane Friedman, citing statistics from Michael Cader of Publishers Marketplace, in September 2017.[46]
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