Evidence suggests that soon we may have many more people writing books than people who want to read them. Many booksellers are struggling to find readers. Most of the big publishing houses are laying off staff and trying to cut their expenses. Smaller independent bookstores are closing shop and bigger ones are tinkering with the idea of filing for bankruptcy.

Despite the upheavals in the world of traditional publishing, some segments of the industry are doing well. Many companies are being formed to capitalize on the dreams of authors who were for some reason unable to get traditional book deals. These companies charge writers to publish their books and they are slowly luring away authors that traditional publishers need to keep their businesses going.

Self-publishing has been made very popular by the people who failed to get book deals and decided to sell their own books becoming very successful doing it. Right now traditional publishers are trying to reduce the number of books that are not selling so well to concentrate on blockbuster bestsellers. At the same time, self-publishing companies are gearing up for increased business as more authors fail to secure book deals. The sad part is that these companies are looking to make profits from authors even if their books sell only a handful of copies. Self-publishing companies do not rely on the money made from sales of books. Instead they charge authors for fees such as editing, proofreading, copy editing, and cover design. This way, even if a book doesn’t succeed, the publisher has already made a profit on it.

Self-publishing companies are growing because many more people are willing to write books than several years ago. Some people want to publish books as gifts to family and friends, some are professionals who want to enhance their resumes by publishing books, and others are people who feel that they have at least one good book in them. Several years ago, only an elite few were willing to jump into the world of book writing. However, today anybody can write a book and it will look just as good as any book published by big publishing houses.

The self-publishing industry’s growth has been fueled by the increasing number of vanity presses. Although these presses used to exist some years back, the technology was not advanced enough for them to print massive numbers of books at low cost. However, the technology has since improved greatly and vanity presses are popping up left, right, and center. The hefty upfront costs that vanity presses used to ask from authors has resulted in many authors deciding to publish their own books.

Many authors are being lured into the self-publishing industry because they can have their books ready for sale in a fraction of the time that traditional publishers need. However, authors fail to contemplate what they are losing by snubbing book deals from traditional publishers.