Tonight the Addison Book Club met on Zoom to discuss a self-published novel from a former member who sadly passed away recently. “The Protégée” by Dick Hoffman can now be downloaded on Amazon for $0.99. An ambitious young woman climbs the corporate ladder by having an affair with her boss. The young woman, Elizabeth, and her boss, Egan, possess razor-sharp business instincts and terribly flawed moral compasses. Success, tragedy and, finally, independence are all part of the road readers travel with the main characters. Dick Hoffman’s widow Ginny led the discussion, telling us how much of the book was based on real life. It was a fascinating window into the mind of an author. Because you have to be a marketing guru to emerge from the slush pile at traditional publishing companies these days, many authors choose to self-publish. Let’s learn more about the world of self-publishing.
According to Wikipedia, self-publishing is the publication of media by its author without the involvement of an established publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using print-on-demand or POD technology. It may also apply to albums, pamphlets, brochures, games, video content and zines. Web fiction is also a major medium for self-publishing.
In the traditional publishing model, the publisher bears all the costs and risks of publication but retains most of the profit, if the book is successful. In self-publishing, the author bears all the costs and risks, but earns a higher share of the profit per sale.
The $1 billion market of self-publishing has transformed in the past two decades with new technologies providing increasing alternatives to traditional publishing. Self-publishing is increasingly becoming the first choice for writers. Most self-published books sell very few copies. Those which sell large numbers are newsworthy because they are so rare. The quality of self-published works varies considerably, because there are no barriers to publication and no quality control.
History
Early examples
Self-publishing is not a new phenomenon. While most novels were distributed by established publishers, there have been authors who chose to self-publish — or even start their own presses — such as John Locke, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther, Marcel Proust, Derek Walcott and Walt Whitman. In 1759, British satirist Laurence Sterne's self-published the first two volumes of “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.” In 1908, Ezra Pound sold “A Lume Spento” for six pence each. Franklin Hiram King's book “Farmers of Forty Centuries” was self-published in 1911 and was subsequently published commercially. In 1931, the author of “The Joy of Cooking” paid a local printing company to print 3,000 copies; the Bobbs-Merrill Co. acquired the rights, and since then the book has sold over 18 million copies. In 1941, writer Virginia Woolf chose to self-publish her final novel “Between the Acts” on her Hogarth Press, in effect starting her own press.
Stigma
Five years ago, self-publishing was a scar. Now it's a tattoo.
— Greg White, in Bloomberg News, 2016
Until the advent of ebooks and print-on-demand or POD technology, most self-published books were published through a vanity press, so-called because such authors were assumed to be egotistical writers, unable to accept that their work was not good enough to be accepted by traditional publishers. James D. Macdonald claimed that vanity publishing violated Yog's Law which states that "Money should flow toward the author." Vanity publishing usually required a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000 to do a print run of 1,000 books; these books usually ended up in boxes in a garage.
Photographer-turned-publisher Max Bondi said that "investing in a project shows that you believe in it." Nevertheless, part of the reason for the negative stigma is that many self-published books are of dubious quality, because they are written by authors who are still learning their craft and have never been edited or even proofread. For example, in 1995, a retired TV repairman self-published his autobiography in which he described how he had been stepped on by a horse when he was a boy, how he had been almost murdered by his stepfather when he was a young man in Mexico and how his ex-wife had clawed his face with her fingernails. The repairman spent $10,000 to have his 150-page masterpiece printed up. For promotion purposes, he sent copies to a local library, the White House and everybody with the repairman's same last name. These efforts did not lead anywhere; today, the book is largely forgotten.
Self-publishing is still seen as a "mark of failure" by many. The image of self-publishing has been improving and some feel the stigma is gone entirely, while others feel it still has a way to go to cultivate respectability. "No, I don't want to read your self-published book," the book critic Ron Charles complained in the Washington Post, arguing that self-published books lacked quality and were typically published by authors with little understanding of the literary marketplace.
However, rare breakaway bestsellers such as “Fifty Shades of Grey” and “The Martian” were self-published, helping to lend respectability to self-publishing in general. Furthermore, with new avenues of self-publishing, there are more opportunities for authors to break through directly to audiences.
For decades, the literary world dismissed self-published authors as amateurs and hacks who lacked the talent to land a book deal. But that attitude gradually began to change with the rise of e-books and the arrival of Kindle from Amazon, which gave authors direct access to millions of readers.
— Alexandra Alter in the New York Times, 2016
Technological changes
A huge impetus to self-publishing has been rapid advances in technology, particularly the exponential growth of the internet and a general shift from analog to digital technology. The internet has been described as a "great equalizer" in the publishing world, since it enables an author to put their books out there and "stand naked before the world." Costs for printing and distributing a book have fallen dramatically. Advances in e-book readers and tablet computers have improved readability; such devices allow readers to "carry" numerous books in a small portable device. These technologies make it possible to have a book printed or digitally delivered after an order has been placed, so there are no costs for storing inventory. Print-On-Demand or POD technology — which became available in the mid-1990s — can produce a high-quality product equal to those produced by traditional publishers; in the past, one could easily identify a self-published title by its lack of quality. Print-on-demand was easy, since an author could simply upload a manuscript, choose an interior file format and a cover, and the book could be printed as needed, avoiding warehousing costs, and reducing the risk of being stuck with a huge unsold inventory. Further, the internet provides access to global distribution channels via online retailers, so a self-published book can be instantly available to book buyers worldwide. A Canada-based firm named Wattpad offers streaming video productions based on the stories of self-published authors as of 2017.
Internet transmission of digital books was combined with print-on-demand publishing with the invention of the Espresso Book Machine which was first demonstrated at the New York Public Library in 2007. This machine prints, collates, covers and binds a single book. It is in libraries and bookstores throughout the world, and it can make copies of out-of-print editions. Small bookstores sometimes use it to compete with large bookstore chains. It works by taking two internet-delivered PDF files — one for the text and one for the cover, and then prints an entire paperback book in a matter of minutes, which then drops down a chute.
Amazon's introduction of the Kindle and its self-publishing platform — Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP — in 2007 has been described as a tipping point in self-publishing, which "opened the floodgates." It was an "exclusively electronic self-publishing platform" which was e-book only, free for authors to upload their books and gave authors control over how their books were priced — as well as access to the same distribution channels as major publishers.
Self-publishing today
In recent times the publishing industry as a whole is in a great deal of flux, in a sort of "Wild Wild West" state. The online retailing giant Amazon has had a huge impact on the bookselling industry, driving many brick-and-mortar bookstores out of business and making inroads into publishing as well. Amazon has enticed readers away from bookstores and into an online environment, and its KDP and CreateSpace distribution channels have spawned a huge growth in self-publishing. As a result, the numbers of self-published authors are ever-increasing.
There is an anti-establishment aspect to self-publishing, in that it has been seen historically as a way to defy authority or resist oppression. The self-publishing movement can also be viewed as a part of the Do-It-Yourself culture which "flourishes in environments of communitarian support." A writer who is rejected by the usual system can find solace in self-publishing. Some struggling authors complained that the traditional publishing model was too "insular," keeping out different ideas about stories, as well as ones with unusual characters or plotlines or which dealt with minorities. Self-publishing was a way for these formerly outcast writers to connect with readers. Libraries also have become involved with self-publishing; the Library Journal and Biblioboard worked together to create a self-publishing platform called Self-e in which authors submit books online which are made available to readers. These books are reviewed by Library Journal, and the best ones are published nationwide; authors do not make money this way, but it serves as a marketing tool.
The dramatic changes have impacted the standard publishing industry as well, which is controlling a smaller share of the overall publishing market, forcing many traditional publishers to consolidate to reduce costs. The squeeze has been applied to such authors, some of whom have complained that traditional publishers have often asked for the author to contribute part of the startup expenses personally, in effect deviating from the usual model of the publisher providing all upfront expenses. Self-publishing is still a "difficult and demanding way to go" but is increasingly becoming a respectable, if alternative, choice for a writing career. Self-publishers who are savvy, motivated and hard-working can build audiences and make money.
Controversies and problem areas
In the traditional publishing model, editors and publishers act as a filter or screen, weeding out possibly radical, badly written or otherwise substandard content. In contrast, self-publishing enables authors to bypass this filter and sell their books directly to the public. The wide-open uncensored nature of self-publishing has caused problems and controversies with pornographic or abuse-themed content. Amazon has a policy against selling content relating to rape, incest and bestiality which states "We don't accept pornographic or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts," but it is sometimes difficult for book distributors to distinguish what type of content is acceptable and what is not. Some retailers have had to remove problematic content. A survey found that self-published erotica had more extreme themes than mainstream books. Erotica is about 1% of the mainstream market but 29% of the self-published market, according to one informal survey in 2013.
There have been some controversial self-published books, such as that of a man who posted a photo of his dead wife, whom he had murdered. Celebrity Kim Kardashian self-published a 445-page book which consisted entirely of selfies, a book described in Slate magazine as having "no literary ambitions at all — it barely has words."
While editors at a traditional publisher would often insist on fact-checking and doing due diligence regarding claims made by an author, there are no requirements in the self-publishing model for this to happen. Self-publishing has attracted political provocateurs such as Milo Yiannopoulos who was able to publish his tome “Dangerous” on Amazon despite being dumped by traditional publisher Simon & Schuster as well as Breitbart after a video surfaced of him condoning pedophilia.
As a check on self-published content — and as part of its overall strategy of empowering consumers by giving more information — Amazon permits reviews of its products, including books that it sells. However, it is possible for self-published authors to game the Amazon review system to make their books appear better than they are, perhaps by encouraging large numbers of five-star reviews by paying anonymous reviewers to write fake laudatory comments. According to one view, the system is at serious risk of fraud and deception. Amazon has responded by emphasizing reviews in which the book purchase is verified, and it has fought back by — in some cases — suing people and service firms who sell fake reviews.
Process of self-publishing: from concept to manuscript
The author as a self-publisher also takes on many of the creative tasks to complete the finished works, which include creative writing as well as selecting the writing software, editing, marketing and cover design. While self-publishing means that the author is in control of the entire process of production from writing and editing to layout to distribution — along with choosing publishing platforms and selecting marketing variables such as the price — many of these tasks can be outsourced to professionals. Professionals can be located through search engines, freelancing websites such as Reedsy, word of mouth, identifying and contacting creative assistants who have worked on already-published books and searching relevant forums. Authors can spend up to $5,000 for a variety of services to assist with publishing.
There is strong agreement that self-published authors fare better if they are able to employ a skilled editor, preferably one with a financial interest in the success of the book and who can bring a savvy understanding of the market as well as a strong sense of story development. Self-published author James Altucher describes working with an editor:
Nils and I went back and forth on more than 15 different rewrites for my book. The difference between the original version and the final version is like the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad.
— Self-published author James Altucher in 2013
A liability for self-published authors is that if they can find a skilled editor, he or she is still being paid by the author for upfront editing work and may not care whether the book is successful or not. A big advantage for working with a traditional publishing arrangement is having an editor and publisher who have a financial interest in making the book a bestseller.
A self-published author is responsible for the technical aspects of self-publishing, which include formatting for printing and digital conversion. Formatting can be complex and time-consuming but patient people can learn how to do it by themselves, but often hire this task out to experienced freelancers.
Unless a book is to be sold directly from the author to the public, an International Standard Book Number or ISBN is required to uniquely identify the title. ISBN is a global standard used for all titles worldwide. Most self-publishing companies either provide their own ISBN to a title or can provide direction about how to get one. A separate ISBN number is needed for each edition of the book. It may be in the best interest of the self-published author to retain ownership of the ISBN and copyright instead of using a number owned by a vanity press.
The direction of the marketing and promotion effort is the responsibility of the author. Self-published authors can negotiate to have audiobooks made.
Kindle Direct Publishing
Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP is Amazon's e-book publishing unit which was launched when the company began selling its Amazon Kindle book reading device in 2007. Books can be published in numerous languages. Amazon's KDP has hundreds of thousands of self-published titles. Amazon's KDP program uses ASIN identifiers instead of ISBNs to identify e-books. Amazon does not release sales figures of its authors. Many authors prefer Amazon for its global clout and reach. One analysis suggested that Amazon earned $2.3 billion from e-book revenues in 2016, and 25% of these were from self-published e-books; and Amazon released 4 million e-book titles in 2016, and 40% of them were self-published. Another estimate was that Amazon controls 70% of the e-book market.
Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service lets readers read any books in its catalog, provided that the users pay a monthly fee. Amazon tracks which books are selected and read by subscribers. Authors who wants to have their books included in this program enters into Amazon's KDP Select program, and as part of the agreement, the authors promise to make their books exclusive to Amazon. Authors can opt out of the KDP program every 90 days. An estimate in 2017 was that of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited market, about 60% of the books read and borrowed were self-published. Amazon initially began the program by paying authors whenever their book was chosen, but then it switched to an arrangement in which it pays authors based on pages read. Each month, Amazon establishes a fund from which to pay authors, based on Amazon's accounting of which pages are read. Amazon has been criticized for short-changing authors by paying them out of this monthly fund. As a result of the program, many Amazon authors found that their income decreased substantially when the company switched to the pages-read basis. The collective fund for KDP authors in August 2017 was $19.4 million which was the "largest ever" of the monthly funds, but overall authors received the lowest amount, which was $0.00419 per page for that month. Some authors tried to compensate for less income by slightly altering and republishing their work, to try to increase the total of pages read. The change to the pages-read model was criticized as being a "huge pay cut" for authors. None of the big 5 publishers contributed books to Kindle Unlimited as of 2017.
The self-publishing market
Overall publishing market is expanding. Since 2000, there has been an increase in the sales of digital titles, audiobooks and self-published paperbacks, including printed as well as e-books. The overall market for all books — including from traditional publishers — is growing as well.
Explosive growth of new titles. The growth in new titles has been strong, particularly in the past decade. In 2002, there were a quarter million new titles, but since 2009, the number of new titles has topped 1.3 million each year. In 2010, according to a different analysis, there were 4.2 million new titles published. Much of the growth in new titles has been because of self-publishing. In 2011, self-published books made up 43% of all print titles, helping to increase overall growth of print production, according to Bowker market research. In the middle of the second decade, the growth of print titles seemed to ebb somewhat, perhaps eclipsed by the growth of e-book titles. For instance, from 2014 to 2015, print titles grew by 34%; from 2015 to 2016, print titles grew but more slowly by 11%. In 2017, there were reports that sales of physical books were increasing in the United States.
Strong growth in self-publishing. There has been a "dizzying rise in self-publishing," according to one view. Self-published book titles in production tripled from 2006 to 2012. 2008 was a watershed year; for the first time in history, more books were self-published than those published traditionally. In 2009, 76% of all books released were self-published, while publishing houses reduced the number of books they produced. Back in 2008, there were 85,468 self-published titles; in 2011, 247,210; by 2012, 459,000; by 2013, 458,564; by 2017, 786,935 self-published ISBNs. During a period of six years, growth of self-published titles was a remarkable 218%. These numbers don't count titles published by Amazon's KDP which identifies books by ASIN numbers instead of ISBN numbers. These are worldwide figures, but the numbers are strong for particular markets as well; for example, in the United Kingdom, readers bought 18 million self-published books in 2013, a 79% increase from the year before. The numbers are strong for particular platforms too; for instance, in 2012, of books sold by Amazon's Kindle KDP service, a quarter of those sales were self-published.
A saturated market of mostly junky titles. The self-publishing ecosystem has become flooded with titles. While self-publishing overall is booming, most new titles are poorly written or confused or otherwise lacking in appeal. There are a few dozen self-published books that are winning most of the sales, so for the others, even quality self-published books seeking to get attention, it is increasingly difficult to be noticed. Of profits paid to authors by Smashwords, the best-selling 1% of titles earn half of all sales money. Some authors earn modest profits from their work. For example, writer Wayne Hicks of Arkansas published five titles, spending $700 on editing and marketing services, and spent 1,000 hours creating and promoting his books; he's sold 1,000 copies for a profit of $1,400.
The largest, by far, percentage of authors are making less than $500 a year self-publishing, because there's a glut. There's over 350,000 books being self-published every year and readers are not finding them. There's just no way to expose people to all of these books.
— Novelist M.J. Rose in 2012
E-books expanding. E-books are a relatively new technology, and growth in the number of e-book titles as well as sales have been strong since the middle of the first decade. In 2011 and 2012 the size of the market — in terms of trade publisher e-book revenues — was $2 billion, about 16% of the total trade industry. Monthly e-book sales increased 49% from 2011 to 2012. On another measure, based on statistics from Smashwords, the service had only 140 e-books published in 2008; by 2016, it had published 98,000 e-books. In another measure, from the six-year period from 2011 to 2017, e-book sales on Smashwords tripled. In the e-book market on Amazon, self-published titles were estimated at about 40% of unit sales, while e-books by traditional publishers captured about 80% of total dollars, because of higher prices. Several reports indicated that e-book readership and sales among major publishers had "hit a speed bump" around the middle of the second decade, from the years 2014 to 2016. A 2017 survey of 1,200 publishing companies found that the market for e-books had declined from 22% to 18%, although the survey did not count self-published e-books or books published through a single retailer such as Amazon. From 2015 to 2016, e-books declined in terms of title registrations by −3%. Most likely the decrease was the result of major publishing companies raising the prices of e-books on average from $6 to $10, which had the effect of dampening demand. The "Big 5" traditional publishers include Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House. These firms have 37% of the overall book market in 2017, but only 26% of the e-book market. Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch said that one of the reasons for an e-book slowdown was that readers continue to love the physical form of printed books, and that the physical book format is "hard to improve on." However e-books as a format offer numerous benefits, such as the ability to resize text, to click on a word to learn its definition, scroll, hunt for specific words and so forth. So, it is likely that e-books will continue to become more popular.
Traditional publishing is losing share. There are major shifts in the publishing market as a whole, with sales by "indie publishers", which includes self-publishers, surpassing the "Big Five" which includes Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House.
More crossover activity. As self-publishing loses its stigma and its benefits via technology become more apparent, there are more instances in which new authors choose self-publishing as their primary route, as well as established authors leaving traditional publishers and self-publishing their titles. There are greater instances of self-published authors selling their books in major retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart.
Rapid growth in all-you-can-read subscriptions.
Proliferation of devices which can read e-books. These include smartphones and tablets and laptop computers. As a corollary, the number of people using single-purpose dedicated e-book reading devices, such as Amazon Kindles, declined from 30% of all adults in 2013 to 19% in 2015.
Prices being pushed down. Digital piracy, proliferation of titles, and lower-priced e-books means that there is downward pressure on prices affecting the entire publishing industry, although the market as a whole is growing.
Changing patterns of readership. There are some people who don't buy or read books, and a few studies suggest that the buying of books as well as readership are declining for some people. In 2010, according to one report, 9% of Americans didn't read a book, and this increased to 16% for 2013. The same report chronicled a decline in the percentage of American book buyers, from 21% who didn't buy a book in 2010 to 35% who didn't buy one in 2013. In 2016, 72% had never read an e-book. A study in 2017 found that students were better able to assimilate information when it was read from printed textbooks, rather than online, although reading online was usually faster than print, and students thought, mistakenly, that they learned better by reading online.
Self-publishing is dominated by Amazon. Amazon commanded 70% of the self-publishing market in 2014. There are competitors such as Smashwords and others but the lion's share of the market is owned by Amazon. An estimate in 2017 was that Amazon had four million books for sale in its Kindle store. A report concluded that Amazon is the big leader in the e-book and e-book reader market, owning 80% of the English-language market. Amazon has not gotten along with traditional bookstores, many of whom refuse to stock Amazon titles.
Self-publishing seems better suited for certain genres. Genres that do well for self-publishing include romance, erotica, mysteries, thrillers and science fiction, in the sense that self-published books in these genres tend to have a more favorable chance of finding success. A survey in 2014 found that self-publishers made the most money in the genres of romance and science fiction/fantasy. In the past, traditional publishers underestimated the market for erotica in which many self-publishers have focused. Alisha Rai's erotic novel “Serving Pleasures,” published through Amazon’s CreateSpace, appeared on the bestseller list of the Washington Post. Genres which do not do well for self-publishers include cookbooks, nonfiction and academic publishing. Generally academics have steered clear of self-publishing, as the market is dominated by university presses and academic journals which publish slowly, don't pay much and subject content to strict peer reviews. There are reports that some scholars are frustrated with the state of academic publishing, and while most still choose the traditional publishing route, there are some who have chosen to start their own journals or independent presses or who have expanded into blogging.
Promoting a self-published book
There is wide consensus that since the market is flooded with titles, the most difficult task facing self-published authors is attracting attention to their books. Some authors have tried unconventional methods to cut through the clutter. For example, self-published author James Altucher offers to pay readers if they can prove they bought and read his book; he explained that people are more likely to value what they pay for, and this offer entices them to actually read his book. While he takes a small loss each time a reader accepts his offer, overall he feels it promotes sales. Experimentation helps. One strategist suggested that an author should have a creative marketing campaign and try one tactic each day, while studying those tactics undertaken by successful self-publishers. One author spends roughly $70,000 annually creating and promoting her books and hires a dozen freelancers for various parts of her operation. Another self-published author gave 80 books to friends, who told their friends, to generate positive publicity. A strategy that helps many self-published authors is to write a series, making the first installment free and charging for subsequent versions.
Authors have tried numerous approaches to promoting and marketing their books, including:
· Building a web presence.
· Building a mailing list.
· Promoting e-books through targeted giveaways.
· Offering a limited-edition print book.
· Promoting books through social media.
· Writing a blog.
· Having an author website.
· Raising funds for advertising through crowdfunding.
· Having book signings.
· Going to craft fairs.
· Hiring a public relations firm.
· Generating positive word of mouth.
· Joining a self-publishing group.
· Adding an audio book.
· Becoming an indie publisher.
· Entering contests open to self-published authors.
· Donating paperback copies to libraries.
· Getting books into local bookstores.
Most book contests are open only to books published by established publishers, but there are a few contests open to self-published writers. One is the Illinois Library Association — in conjunction with BiblioBoards and with Reaching Across Illinois Library System — which sponsored a prize for best self-published novel; the contest is open to Illinois-based self-published writers. The British newspaper The Guardian — in conjunction with selected publishers — has a Self-Published Book of the Month award, which began in 2014; entries are submitted digitally and must be in the English language; the contest is open only to residents of the United Kingdom.
Self-published books which became successful
While almost all self-published books do not make much money, there are dozens of self-published books that have broken through to huge audiences and success, and which get much media attention. The number of authors who have sold more than one million e-books on Amazon from 2011 to 2016 was 40, according to one estimate.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James was originally published online as “Twilight” fan-fiction before the author decided to self-publish it as an e-book and print on demand.
The science fiction novel “The Martian,” by Andy Weir, was originally released as chapters on his personal blog, and then self-published as an ebook in 2011. The rights were purchased by Crown Publishing which re-released it in 2014; the novel went on to become a bestseller and then a major motion picture starring Matt Damon.
Blogger Alan Sepinwall's self-published book “The Revolution Was Televised” became an instant hit, winning a prominent review within two weeks of publication by critic Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times. Sepinwall hired an editor and spent roughly $2,500 on services to get his book ready for publication.
Minnesota social worker Amanda Hocking uploaded several books in 2010 and sold a few dozen copies. She published several more manuscripts and within a few months was making enough money to quit her daytime job. She later won a deal with Macmillan publishers and went to being a millionaire in a year. She sold her series to St. Martin's Press in 2011 for $2 million.
Swedish author Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin wrote a book in 2010 which helped get children to go to sleep; his “The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep” title featured amateurish illustrations with "clunky prose" and a monotonous storyline, but parents bought it for the catchy subtitle of "A new way of getting children to sleep." He released it on Amazon’s CreateSpace, and it became a bestseller.
Erotic romance author Meredith Wild sold 1.4 million digital and print copies of her books and founded her own publishing company called Waterhouse Press; she founded the firm in part because she felt that her novels were "not being taken seriously" as an indie author. An advantage of having her own imprint is that it is easier to get books into chainstores and big-box retailers.
The breakout hit "Wool" by Hugh Howey was self-published originally and garnered more than $1 million in royalty monies, and has generated over 5,000 Amazon reviews.
James Altucher's “Choose Yourself” in 2013 sold 44,294 copies in its first month, debuted at No. 1 on Amazon's top non-fiction list and was a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
Victoria Knowles achieved notoriety in July 2014 when her self-published book “The PA” reached the No. 1 spot in the iTunes chart for paid books.
Matthew Reilly's self-published “Contest,” the first of his action-thriller novels, in 1996.
Comments