Book Business Set to ‘Transform and Roll Out’

Across publishing – once an industry virtually unchanged for centuries – revolutionary transformation is under way. Instead of an industry reliant upon middlemen and suppliers, publishing is becoming a service consumers can purchase.

In a newly-published white paper from Bloomington-based Author Solutions, a world leader in indie book publishing, Keith Ogorek enumerates four clear paths that authors may follow to achieve their publishing goals.

“If you were an author even as recent as 20 years ago, the opportunity you had to get published was very limited in the sense that you had one path that you could pursue. You had to find an agent, and that agent had to be sold by you to represent you, and then that agent had to resell your book to a publisher. There was more supply than there was demand,” Ogorek, Author Solutions senior vice president, marketing, explains to CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “Well, roll forward 10 years later and now every

can get published because of the opportunities that have been created through self-publishing and those that remain through traditional publishing.”

In July 2012, Penguin acquired Author Solutions from Bertram Capital for $116 million. According to a company statement reported at that time, Author Solutions generated $100 million in revenue in 2011, and has grown at about 12 percent per year for the past three years.

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