12 independent publishing facts for Independence Day

1. According to a USA Today poll, 82 percent of Americans want to publish a book, while The New York Times reports that 81 percent of people believe they have a book in them.
2. Almost 900,000 books were self published in 2011.
3. According to R.R. Bowker, there are presently some 73,000 “small” publishers in America. “Small” means having one to 10 active books in print.
4. Males make up 54% of small independent publishers, while 42 percent are female and 3 percent won’t say.
5. On average it takes 475 hours to write a fiction book and 725 hours to write a nonfiction book.
6. It takes an average of 10 to 15 hours to design a book cover.
7. On average, the editing process takes 61 hours to complete.
8. Fiction is considered successful if it sells 5,000 copies. A nonfiction book is deemed successful when it sells 7,500 copies.
9. Most authors never sell more than 150 copiesof their book.
10. According to Self Publishing Resources, nonfiction books outsell fiction by two to one, but at least 20 percent more fiction is being published via the Internet and POD.
11. Juvenile and poetry are the most popular self-published fiction genres, while self-help, how-to and business lead in the nonfiction genres.
12. The largest advance ever paid for a self-published book was the spectacular $4.125 million Simon & Schuster paid for Richard Paul Evans’s The Christmas Box.

Laura

RESOURCES:

http://www.mypublishinguniverse.com/a-few-facts-about-self-publishing-283.php

http://makemarketpublishyourbook.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-publishing-facts-and-exciting-time.html

http://chilawoychik.com/2012/05/15/publishing-facts-fancy-with-a-few-surprises

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