Helen Brown investigates the rise of the self-publishing phenomenon, as it becomes easier to produce books outside traditional publishing houses, in the Telegraph.
From the story...
Cavendish and her friends aren’t alone in making the leap into self-publishing. Grosvenor House Publishing (from whom they bought their self-publishing package) saw a 20 per cent increase in business last year and Jane Rowland, the editor of The Self Publishing Magazine, confirms that the sector is growing “probably due to the well-documented shrinking of commercial book lists and budgets, coupled with a population that is more determined, and financially able, to pursue their publishing ambitions”.
Although there is no way of breaking down the types of book being self-published, Rowland estimates that it’s 60 per cent fiction and 40 per cent non-fiction. With the growing number of self-publishers comes a new public respect for self-published authors. So commentators who once derided “vanity published” writers are now beginning to acknowledge an empowered DIY culture. It’s no longer publishing for rejects, but “alternative publishing”; a bold stance outside the homogenised mainstream.
Self-published literature is nothing new. It’s been around, in one form or another, since the printing presses got rolling.
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