As an increased number of authors are able to effectively wear all of their hats and achieve success as self-publishers, the paradigm shifts just a little. Even in an over-saturated market, these are exciting times.

-A.M.
http://amschultz.com

In the 1990s, Print-On-Demand publishing using high-speed digital printers became an affordable reality. For a few hundred dollars anyone could have a trade paperback published and available for sale to the public. Suddenly there was a surge of POD books written by many authors previously rejected by traditional publishers. By the turn of the 21st century POD books began to make their way into brick-and-mortar bookstores and onto the web pages of Amazon.com.

The corporate style publishers attempted to squash POD publishers by painting them with the stigma of being vanity houses. Bookstores were advised not to stock their books if they wanted to continue to receive sweetheart deals and promotional dollars from the mainstream houses. Book reviewers with major newspapers and trade publications dependent on advertising dollars, were discouraged from writing reviews on books produced by these evolving digital publishers.

The big publishers, the chains, and the reviewers created an effective Catch-22 to limit access to the marketplace. The bookstore chains refused to stock books that weren’t reviewed in the media, and reviewers refused to review books that weren’t available for sale in the chain stores. The mainstream publishers benefitted from having their titles automatically reviewed and stocked on the shelves of the bookstore chains.

There was an ongoing effort to deter authors from using POD publishers by spreading the myth that no agent would represent an author of a “self-published” book. This is untrue; when a book has achieved a track record of significant sales, agents and publishers are chasing after the author to snag a deal. If the book is a good read, consumers don’t care how the book was published or what imprint is on the title page.

The increasing popularity of ebooks has leveled the playing field in favor of new authors—they don’t need a publisher taking a big piece of the profits from downloads sold, nor do they need to jump through hoops to try to obtain distribution through the dwindling number of bookstores.

Authors are starting to ask publishers what specifically are they going to do that will benefit the sale of their book. With all the turmoil in the publishing industry, a contract with a mainstream house isn’t as enticing or as profitable as it might have been a couple of decades ago.

$100 million in revenues for Authors Solutions in 2011 might sound impressive within the industry, but what percentage was generated from the sale of services to authors and what percentage was produced from the actual sale of books published by ASI???

Industry reports indicate that 80% to 90% of all digitally printed books never earn enough royalties to surpass the breakeven point and produce a financial profit for the authors. Ironically that’s about the same percentage of traditionally published books that earn out the advance paid to their authors.