UK independent publisher Andrew Franklin, founder and managing director of Profile Books, delivered a virulent assault on the current self-publishing environment at the Literary Consultancy conference Writing in a Digital Age in London, as reported in The Guardian. "The overwhelming majority [of self-published books] are terrible—unutterable rubbish," Franklin said. "They don't enhance anything in the world." There are "now unmeasurable numbers" of books being self-published, according to Franklin, and "these books come out and are met with a deathly silence, so the principal experience of self-publishing is one of disappointment." This outburst is especially surprising as Profile Books is clearly no stranger...

Penguin Group’s self-publishing service, Author Solutions, is being sued, Courthouse News Service reported earlier this week. The complaint by three authors states that Author Solutions cheated them out of royalties and charged them for typos that were inserted by the company. There was an interesting passage in the Courthouse News Service article that gave financial and statistical information about Author Solutions. "Author Solutions' revenues are estimated at $100 million per year," the complaint states. "Of the $100 million Author Solutions earns as revenue, approximately one third of that amount, or millions annually, comes from book sales. The rest of its revenue is derived from...

In partnership with a Bloomington, Ind.-based self-publishing organization known as Author Solutions, Penguin Books India made an interesting move today by launching a self-publishing platform specifically for the Indian audience. It's a tactic that may one day soon bring the Subcontinent at least somewhat closer to actualizing the self-publishing revolution that seems to have taken over much of the western world. Partridge Publishing is the name of the new platform, and in a release distributed by Penguin Books India today, the company suggested that it will soon be "opening up opportunities for aspiring writers [in India] who don't have enough means to get their...

A few days ago I mentioned that independent book publisher Author Solutions had announced an e-book distribution deal with Scribd. Today it comes out they have announced a similar deal with Barnes & Noble for the Nook. As with the Scribd deal, AS e-books will be set at a default price of $9.99, but authors may choose to set their own prices instead. Erin Cox at Publishing Perspectives notes with some amusement that, shortly after Nintendo announced a classic e-books cartridge, Random House has now announced it will be making video games. The Wall Street Journal article is fairly sparse...