Self-publishing is taking off in the UK. In fact, the self-publishing market grew by 79 percent in 2013 in the UK, according to new research presented by Steve Bohme, research director at Nielsen Book, at the Literary Consultancy conference this morning in London.
The Guardian has the scoop: “With print sales falling by 10% last year, and book purchasing as a whole down 4%, ebook sales continue to grow, according to Nielsen’s comprehensive tracking of book purchases, up 20% in the UK in 2013, with 80m ebooks bought by UK consumers, to a value of £300m. But it is the DIY market which is showing the most eye-watering growth, up 79% to 18m self-published titles purchased, worth £59m, according to the statistics released on Friday.”
While self-published books are on a rising trajectory, they still only represent a small portion of the overall publishing market in the UK. In fact, according to the report, this portion of the market only accounts for 5 percent of the total books bought and only 3 percent of the money spent on books last year. However Nielsen expects these numbers to continue to grow.