2013 Reveals Success of Self-Publishing

2013 was a big year for self-publishers. On the heels of 50 Shades of Grey author, E.L. James, who initially self-published her erotic trilogy, many other self-publishing hopeful have similar dreams of stardom.

According to the Star, self-publishing titles in Canada this year alone are in the hundreds of thousands. Mike O'Connor, publisher of Insomniac Press and a York University instructor, says, "Compare that to the 20 to 30,000 (books) being published by (traditional) publishers a year. It far outstrips that."

With new technology and the addition of eBooks, self-publishing is becoming more and more popular.

According to the Star, Mark Lefebvre, director of self-publishing and author relations at Kobo, says there are at least 250,000 titles from self-published authors on his company's site. "A year ago, it would have been a quarter of that. They represent, on a weekly basis, 20 per cent of Kobo's sales. That's the equivalent to what Random House (the biggest publisher in Canada) does in weekly sales."

Kindle has even sold more than one million copies each of 14 self-published titles this year.

Read the full article from the Star here.