On Forbes a couple of days ago, Haydn Shaughnessy wrote an interesting blog post noting that, assuming the trend of the last few years remains in effect, over one million people in the United States alone wrote e-books over the last twelve months. (Or at least, over one million e-books were self-published. If some people wrote more than one book, it could potentially be fewer than one million authors.)
Shaughnessy sees this as a continuation of a trend toward self-expression that started with blogging, though declined with Twitter and other social networking applications. He would like to see a movement in politics or business that recognizes and engages with this movement toward self-publishing self-expression.
While I don’t know about the political implications, I do find it remarkable that self-publishing has taken off like that. It wasn’t so long ago that self-publishing was an object of ridicule—presented in Donald Westlake’s hilarious crime novel God Save the Mark as a way of conning people out of their hard-earned money. (The protagonist’s neighbor has written an alternate-history manuscript involving Roman legions using biplanes, and is soliciting the protagonist for funds to get it self-published.) And I distinctly remember sitting through a presentation in high school from someone who went around to schools to demonstrate mathematically to students that self-publishing was a losing proposition. (As, back then, it was.)
And just over the last few years we’ve gone from that world to one where people self-published over a million e-books in the last twelve months in the US alone. Amazing.
@Chris — You wrote: “I do find it remarkable that self-publishing has taken off like that. It wasn’t so long ago that self-publishing was an object of ridicule.”
Why do you find it remarkable? With the rise of ebooks and outlets like Smashwords that have caused the price of self-publishing to decline to vistually nil, it is unsurprising that self-publishing has taken off. Millions of people think they can be the next Stephen King if only given a chance. Before ebooks, self-publishing was costly and traditional publishing acted as a gatekeeper. With ebooks, both obstacles have disappeared, and wannabe authors have a ready outlet for their “great American novel.”
“With ebooks, both obstacles have disappeared, and wannabe authors have a ready outlet for their “great American novel.””
Actually the people who shoot for the “great American novel” would be better served to stand in line at the traditional publishers since I still think the anointers of such would not touch self-published books; the ones who want to tell great stories are the ones that should go directly to the public since the public decides which stories are great, resonate and endure
Firstly this ‘over a million’ figure is not a statistic, but an extrapolation from 764,448 in 2009 according to the referenced articles above.
Secondly it is clear that no where NEAR a million authors were involved. Probably about 1/3 of a million if the articles are read fully.
Thirdly it is also clear from the referenced articles that a huge number are technical, reference, non-fiction and marketing tools within specific industries – not aimed at the public and not fiction.
If we combine that with questions like . . .
How many paper book non-fiction titles were published ?
How many paper book fiction titles were published ?
How many of the eBooks are simple reissuing of paper titles of either fiction or non fiction ?
It’s very premature to draw major conclusions from the information posted in these articles. However I do recognise that there must have been a significant jump in self publishing of fiction titles considering the developments we have documented here on Teleread on the last year alone.
Ebooks are not all about self-publishing new books, so the figures are further skewed.
Like many other authors I’ve welcomed the chance to republish my earlier books that are out of print. And looking at my sales, readers seem to welcome the chance to buy them in electronic form.
It’s a fascinating new world and changes almost daily.
I hold TeleRead to higher standards than those shown by this article. Not that Forbes and Haydn Shaughnessy don’t deserve a slap in the face as well, but he’s not paid to write about ebooks. Either way, Howard’s comment sums it up very well, though with far more politeness than I can muster.
I expect Shaughnessy’s next article to be about a doubling of America’s population– based on his careful analysis of McDonalds hamburger sales. Unless, of course, people eat more than one a year.
“(As, back then, it was.)”
As it still is. Anyone with aspirations to be rich is much more likely to end up that way by spending their time flipping hamburgers and spending the money on lottery tickets than by writing a book. Or an eBook. The entry costs are lower but the returns haven’t gone up.
Not quite, Jon. The point of the high school presentation was that it was practically impossible to break even on self-publishing, because you had to pay for a print run at such a high cost per book you were never going to sell any. Now, the cost of breaking even is a lot smaller: you upload an e-book to Amazon, and as soon as even one copy sells, you’ve made money. And there are print-on-demand houses that have no or small setup costs, which make breaking even easier on the print side.
Certainly you’re not likely to “get rich”, but it’s now possible to supplement your normal income through self-publishing instead of pouring money down the toilet.
I’m involved in helping several longtime authors get their backlist onto Amazon and B&N. Each of them has at least a dozen titles to revive. If this is a common circumstance, the number of self-publishing authors is probably much closer to 100,000 than 1,000,000.
Christian wrote:
“Howard’s comment sums it up very well, though with far more politeness than I can muster.”
Thank you Christian. Now and again I read some articles here and on other eBook discussion sites where I am quite honestly ‘stunned’ by the poor quality of thinking, argument, evidentiary support or basic business awareness. Being from outside the Publishing business I am always feel a bit reluctant to dive in with guns blazing in case I am missing something and just look stupid 🙂 I think if I remain polite, I can always backtrack gracefully when/if that happens …. 😉