I’m visiting my first book club later this month to talk about “being an author.” I’m a self-published author, and I wanted to put together a little one-pager to start the conversation and to rely on in case the group is shy about questions. That thought had me searching the internet for some statistics about publishing in general and self-publishing in particular. This is what I found:

• New, self-published books first outnumbered new, traditionally published books around 2008/2009 with the rise of print-on-demand technology and digital platforms like Amazon KDP.
• Ever since, self-publishing has far outpaced traditional publishing in output:

(Rounded numbers based on Bowker reports of registered ISBN numbers for new books.)

• The industry estimates around 300,000 new book titles are published on Amazon each month.  That’s 10,000 each day, or over 400 books each HOUR.
• There are roughly 40 million books listed for sale on Amazon across print, ebook and audio titles.

I put 2013 in the table because that was the year my husband self-published his first science fiction book. It’s no wonder I remember the self-publishing world being so different back then. (Shameless plug: You can find information about his military sci-fi and dystopian series over on https://thiscorneroftheuniverse.com/ )

A lot has changed in 13 years. Discovery for any author, self-published or not, amounts to finding a golden fish in a very big pond. Self-published authors will also always start from a position of doubt with readers who don’t know your work. There is no gatekeeper managing the quality of self-published books.

What’s especially interesting to me is that the number of self-published works each year seemed to level off, comparing 2023 to 2024. I suspect the giant leap in 2025 is a new wave of AI-based writing. It’s never been easier to create a “book” of any quality and publish it. Amazon has even had to implement a rule that a self-publisher cannot upload more than three books in a day. A DAY!?!!?!!!

It took me 10 months to write, finish and publish Tangled Roots after Driftless Spirits. I appreciate some self-publishers have a broad team to take first drafts to completion more quickly, but the idea that a three books per day rule is needed just amazes me. We live in a very different world, both as old-fashioned authors and as readers trying to find great reads.

What will the statistics look like next year, or even three years from now? I do think that AI is a “disturbance” to the market for books. Will it contract naturally as more retailers require disclosure of AI-generated content? Will readers increasingly reject self-published books because good quality is too hard to find? I’m genuinely curious how this will play out in the coming years.