A recent article in Publisher’s Weekly revealed:
A staggering 764,448 titles were produced in 2009 by self-publishers and micro-niche publishers, according to statistics released this morning by R.R. Bowker. The number of “nontraditional” titles dwarfed that of traditional books whose output slipped to 288,355 last year from 289,729 in 2008. Taken together, total book output rose 87% last year, to over 1 million books.
That’s great news for some authors and aspiring authors…and terrible news for others.
It’s now easier than ever to get a book to market, and spend very little money doing so. And, the time it takes, once written, edited and designed, is coming closer and closer to rounding to zero.
BUT, it’s also terrible news for authors who are not willing to build communities and aggressively market their books. Because, in the space of a single year, your competition for hearts, souls, eyeballs and dollars has just gotten nearly 500,000 books larger.
There’s now 87% more noise in the span of a single year.
Your quest is to become the signal.
Question is…are you willing?
And…are you able?
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
The empowered author is really taking over, but with that comes some issues. Like you mentioned Jonathan there’s a lot of static on the signal now. So the question becomes ever more important: What does my tribe want/need?
Give them respect, good quality resources, and stellar/inspirational/actionable info and that relationship with them is forged with adamantium.
Thanks for the info! Ian
No doubt, the more authors build direct relationships with their communities, the better off they’ll be. In fact, for those willing to do the work, I truly believe there is more opportunity as a writer than ever.
Sure – I’m willing; in fact, I’ve been at it already for 3+ years and see a small trickle of sales every month. There’s still more work ahead, but at least my writings are being read. Fortunately I’ve developed a personalized marketing plan for my poetry niche, which gets modified every year. Without the advantage of celebrity and name-recognized, self-published authors, like myself, must use their time smartly and finances wisely.
–Joe Breunig
Reaching Towards His Unbounded Glory
So true, Joe. We’ve all and want lives outside writing and selling book, using time and money wisely is so important these days
Amen! I’ve been obsessing about this on my own blog since the news came out on Wednesday! Three posts and counting.
I think it’s a good thing. If you write a rubbish book then you should get poor sales. Just write excellent content and get it in front of people and you’ll make enough money to make you happy.
To make it worse, I don’t think you can just show your book on Oprah anymore, since she changed her scene. You know, because Oprah always invites me to share my books on her show