Many of the trends had to do with eBooks and self-publishing. The last one really caught my eye though:
"Indie authors are beginning to outsell traditionally published authors
The New York Times bestseller list now has self-published authors on that it every single week. One year ago, that was very rare. Mark believes that within the next three years you will see a tipping point where more authors are self-published than take the traditional route. Indeed, if you look at iBookstore in the US today, six of the top ten today are self-published. Today’s top-selling ebook in the world is a Smashwords book."
Seeing a self-published book on those lists used to be a novelty. Now the self-publishers and taking over.
Publishers Weekly recently opened BookLife, a site geared toward self-publishing and with an open invitation to self-published authors to send in their books for review by Publishers Weekly. (This is itself a big step since none of the big reviewers accepted self-published titles until now.)
The site also had an article about the sales of self-published books, Surprising Self-Publishing Statistics:
"The Author Earnings report takes its data from 7,000 top selling digital genre titles on Amazon's category bestseller lists. It found that:
• The Big Five traditional publishers now account for only 16% of the e-books on Amazon’s bestseller lists.
• DRM (digital rights management) “harms e-book sales at any price point.”
• Self-published books now represent 31% of e-book sales on Amazon’s Kindle Store.
• Indie authors are earning nearly 40% of the e-book dollars going to authors.
• Self-published authors are “dominating traditionally published authors” in sci-fi/fantasy, mystery/thriller, and romance genres but -- and here is the surprise -- they are also taking “significant market share in all genres.”
What does this tell us? Indie publishing is not only here to stay - it’s taking over!
