Simon & Schuster to Launch New Self-Publishing Service
Simon & Schuster has announced that it will start charging fees for authors to release, distribute and publicize their own self-published books in print and eBook formats. In turn, Archway Publishing (the name of the new service) will pay out a large share of the proceeds for the self-published titles.
This is the latest sign of a growing piece of the pie for self-published authors, with one of the largest publishers getting into providing these services to writers. Self-publishing has become one of the fastest growing aspects on the publishing industry.
According to the research firm Bowker, over 200,000 self-published books were released in 2011 – up 60% from the previous year. While most sold under 100 copies, some even hit the USA Today Best-Selling Books List, including Amanda Hocking‘s paranormal romance eBooks.
Self-publishing service AuthorSolutions has published close to 200,000 titles by 150,000 authors since its inception in 2007. The Bloomington, Indiana company was bought out by Penguin (which is now merging with Random House).