Power to the Author!

While publishing continues to evolve away from the paper and print medium it has been for centuries, power seems to be shifting gradually away from large-scale publishers and toward individual authors. Writers, who in the past might have resorted to self-publishing hardbound books and storing them in their garage, now have a range of e-book options. Now anyone with an electronic manuscript can be his or her own publisher, no longer dependent on one of the big houses for distribution , publicity, and promotion.

With publishers increasingly focused on the big books, first-time authors and others have been pushed to search for new options. One has been smaller houses, which can make books with sales in the four-figures work financially for them, but another is self-publishing and the rise of the e-book. New ways of approaching e-book publishing continue to be devised by companies and individuals. A recent article in PW online details some of these new options.