Self-publishing The New Hero

Indians young and old are writing more than ever. The increasing literacy and exposure is leading to more Indians writing blogs, articles and books. Its like an explosion and the only release for this explosion were the traditional publishing houses, in a very small way the radio or TV or the large screen. Until now.

Writers, poets, authors were hemmed in by the limited options that traditional publishing offered for the last couple of decades. The author would approach various publishing houses in the hope that his/her manuscript would get published. This exercise could take a couple of years, unless the writer was known or famous. After all that waiting, there was no guarantee that the author would be able to publish a book. If a traditional publishing house did not accept an authors manuscript the author had few recourse except to lock up his manuscript. This manuscript represented a store house of mans experience, knowledge and ideas and all of this was stifled since there was nowhere else for the author to go. The writer could not publish a book, unless a traditional publishing house accepted it for publishing.

What has changed?

The internet and changes in technology enabled a wiff of change that began in the form of self-publishing a book. It is only now that Indians are being exposed to self-publishing / POD/ vanity publishing. Self-publishing a book gave the writer a CHOICE. It empowered the writer by giving him an option of publishing his book and on his own terms.

With self-publishing in India, Indians now have a choice of publishing their book asap, no waiting! They can enjoy copyright to their work, they have full control over the entire production process. And also have creative control over their book. Here the author is often the star. With India alone churning out over 90,000 books in a year, and growing, we can expect to see a boom in the number of books available to a reader.

Thanks to technology the avenues for book selling and buying of self-published books has multiplied too. The internet has made it easier for people to shop from their drawing rooms. The entire transaction now can be completed without moving from your chair. The ease in shopping and eBooks is giving a major flip to self-published books.

The world and increasingly India is moving to shopping on the internet and nowhere is it more visible than for books. Many physical stores are closing down or in the process of reducing the shelf space given to books.

Technology has given a flip to distribution of print books and production and sale of eBooks. Many titles that have been self-published as e-books or print books have gone on to become bestsellers, 50 Shades of Grey, Gone Girl, Immortals of Meluha, to name a few. Now the writer has increasing number of options and that is good news both for the writer and the reader.