This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
By Anna Bell
I can’t believe how much the publishing industry has changed since I started writing this column four years ago. One of the major changes was the boom of self-publishing, but I can’t help thinking that it’s starting to bust.
When I self-published my first novel, two and a half years ago, it was at a time when attitudes around the process were starting to shift. People stopped seeing it as vanity publishing, and readers – as well as publishers – started to take it seriously. The ease of publishing on Amazon’s KDP platform meant that with eBooks, gone were the days that authors had to pay vast sums to see their books published. When I put Millie and the American Wedding up on the KDP site, Nick Spalding, a self-published author, ruled the bestsellers charts, spending months in the top ten. I published three novels that year and was amazed when they climbed the bestsellers chart, and Don’t Tell the Groom even hit the top 100 Kindle books, reaching number 52 in the charts. Back then people were warning that authors would leave publishers in their droves to seek out greater fortune on their own.
Two years on from those dizzy heights and a lot has changed. It’s now much harder to get books up high in the Kindle charts. I’ve seen my Annabel Scott books sales take a bit of a nose dive. I used to think that it was just my books and that perhaps I wasn’t reaching the right market. I questioned whether I needed to do more promotion, or whether I needed to write more books to have greater visibility, but in the end I think it’s just part of a wider trend. 
It seems that publishers have caught up with the eBooks. Publishers now have dedicated eBook teams pushing digital books with all the big online retailers. They’ve got very different bargaining power, than that of the self-publisher. EBooks from traditional publishers have also got cheaper meaning that readers looking to bag a bargain, or even find a free eBook, don’t only find the self-published books anymore.
Alongside these changes for eBook versions of print books, publishers have also developed eBook imprints. Harper Impulse (HarperCollins), Carina (Harlequin) and Choc Lit Lite (Choc Lit) are a just a few examples of publishing imprints that have sprung up. Other publishers such as Little, Brown and Transworld are experimenting with serials, publishing eBooks in different parts – like Lisa Dickinson’s You Had Me at Merlot and Cathy Bramley’s Ivy Lane.
Whilst these responses to eBooks by publishers are impacting the self-published author, they’re also creating opportunities. A lot of the digital first imprints allow direct submissions, meaning unrepresented authors are able to submit their manuscripts. There’s also been a huge number of authors who have self-published that have gone on to land publishing contracts – there are almost too many to mention but Helen wrote about some on Novelicious earlier in the year.
I also get the impression that not as many people are self-publishing. I certainly get a lot less requests for help from aspiring authors about to take the plunge, but many aspiring authors that I knew have since got contracts with the digital first publishers.
What do you think? Is the self-publishing boom over? Are you a self-published author still riding high on your own? Are you an aspiring author about to give it a go?