Smashwords’ Mark Coker deilvers keynote at Self-Publishing Book Expo

Self-publishing isn’t going anywhere, and Smashwords’ Mark Coker recently took a look at how we got here.

The Self-Publishing Book Expo was held in New York City recently with Coker giving the keynote address. Several trends have led to the explosion of self-publishing, and many of those reasons have allowed Smashwords to grow into a leading distributor of e-books.

Here were Coker’s 10 trends in the self-publishing marketplace:

1. Rise of ebooks
When Smashwords was incorporated in 2007, e-books accounted for one-half of one percent of the market, according to Coker. Amazon brought a lot of attention to the ebook market and it starting growing exponentially, Coker said.

“Today around 35 percent measured in dollar terms of the overall publishing market goes to ebooks and for some genres it’s even higher,” Coker said. “Print is not dead though. The growth of e-books has slowed. I think e-books will continue to grow of books purchased and read but at a much lower rate.”

2. Trends in publishing tools
“The printing press is free and available to you, the knowledge is free and available to you,” Coker said “You have the knowledge and tools to publish like a professional and writers are taking advantages of these tools. It allows writers to go faster to market.”

3. Self-publishing authors hitting best sellers lists
Self-published authors appear on every major ebook retailer’s best-sellers list, along with USA Today and the New York Times lists. Coker predicts this will only become the norm.

“By year 2020, 50 percent of the ebook market will be controlled by indie authors.”

4. Stigma of self-publishing disappearing
“Six years ago, self-publishing was viewed as an option of last resort, it was viewed as a place for failed writers,” Coker said. “(Indie authors) realize now their books can be as a good or better than what is published by New York.”

With that, however, Coker notes the stigma of traditional publishing increases with much of it being self-inflicted. Examples include traditional publishers pricing ebooks too high, not publishing fast enough and aren’t giving authors enough control.

5. Traditional publishers don’t yet understand the indie author movement
A shining example was Pearson Penguin buying Author Solutions, a self-publishing company that has exploited authors.

“This acquisition confirmed the worst fear of many authors that their publishers don’t care about them,” Coker said. “I know that’s not true. I met so many people in the publishing industry. Publishers do care about authors, they care about people but this was big mistake that they made, getting into vanity publishing.

“It was a mistake for a publisher to take money from a writer; they should never take money from a writer. The money should flow from readers to publishers to writers and not the other way around.”

6. Rise of e-books subscription services
Oyster and Scribd are the fastest growing distribution channels at Smashwords.

7. Amazon vs. Hachette
A deal was recently reached between Amazon and Hachette.

“It looks like Hachette prevailed with the ability to control ebooks, but this dispute revealed a lot of ugliness in the industry,” Coker said. “It created a lot of division. We saw authors attacking authors with people who took sides. It was unfortunate it devolved into that, but the dispute gave many publishers insight into Amazon’s strategy.”

Coker notes that Amazon is in the business of controlling its suppliers. Amazon views books as commodities and puts “the squeeze” on suppliers so they can offer consumers lower prices.

“Publishers don’t like being treated they are selling a commodity. This isn’t a product that could be outsourced to China,” Coker said. “This is a product that is created by writers like yourselves.”

Amazon will also put a large emphasis on its own books under its publishing umbrella.

“They have the right to decide what books they are going promote and what they have shown is that they are going to give a merchandising and discovery advantage to books that are published under Amazon and nowhere else,” Coker said. “Exclusivity is going to be core for them going forward.”

8. E-books going global
Last year, 45 percent of sales through Apple iBooks came from outside of the U.S. (on Smashwords).

9. Self-publishing leading to a tsunami of low quality books, but they are invisible
“Readers don’t respond to poor quality books,” Coker said. “The flip side is that it’s leading to tsunami of high quality books and enables more high quality books to be published like never before. That’s why self-publishing is so great, by allowing everything to be published, amazing works of brilliance are allowed to be published.”

10. For authors, everything gets tougher from here on out
“Like cobwebs of stainless steel, ebooks are immortal,” Coker said. “They will always be on the shelf. They will never be out of print. This is both good and bad. Self-published means you can earn you annuities for the rest of your life, but also means more competition, and the competition is going to get fiercer and fiercer every single year.”

Coker notes that supply of books will likely surpass the amount of people available to read them all. Therefore, it will make the road a bit more difficult even for those seeking the traditional route.

“For authors perusing traditional paths, lower advances, fewer publishers and fewer agents,” Coker said. “And for all authors it means it’s going to be tough to stand out.”

However, Coker’s own story about having to borrow money to keep Smashwords afloat in the beginning led to his last point to the authors at the Self-Publishing Book Expo.

“This is not the time to quit. This is the time to start,” he said. “Even though the future is challenging, there has never been a better time to publish. You now have access to a global market of millions of readers who are looking to discover the very best books.”