[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I was thinking more of chapter books for older kids and the young adult market, rather than books that rely heavily on illustrations.

The YA market has a fairly large self-publishing crowd. I'd say even the middle grade (8 to YA) has quite a bit of self-publishing going on. One of the first books I read when I got into self-publishing was a middle grade book and that was at least 5 years ago. I think children's and middle grade are popular genres to write. Lots of moms and dads out there write a book or two for their own kids. Many of them made their way into the self-pub market. It's a very tight market in trad publishing.

OK, this has been my impression--that an awful lot of the self-published material is porn. And that it's the kind of material that would almost never make it to print with a traditional publisher. In addition, neither the authors nor the readers of this material care much about literary quality.

I have nothing to back this up--it's only my impression from seeing covers and blurbs.

There was always an "underground" market and "publishing" for this sort of thing from what I understand--Lots of online places where it was already for sale. What Amazon and smashwords did was bring it out of those places and put it for sale in the light of day. Smashwords had a very hefty amount of it right from the get-go. This "data" is based on conversations I've seen on forums. A LOT of material in this genre was already written and self-published, including the self-publishing print areas. Once Kindle and KDP platform came along, it hit all at once. So a lot of it has always been there--not necessarily by trad publishers, but available because it's a niche market. Those looking for it knew where to go and those writing it knew where to 'publish.'

The porm genre is just more obvious now, and it's easier for it to be distributed. I can't speak to the quality. It is not a genre I read on purpose. I don't care what others read, but I am often offended by the covers. I don't think I should have to see that sort of thing while casually browsing a forum. Towels and grape leaves aside, some of the positioning and/or photos and/or titles are offensive to me.

I forgot about memoirs.

Is a pretty popular category. I do editing and I'd say that I get asked about helping out with a memoir more often than any other genre. HOWEVER, many people asking have little idea how to even begin writing a novel. They aren't really ready for editing...

I would think other nonfiction categories would be a hard sell, because the authors would need some kind of credentials; otherwise why would a reader trust their advice or pronouncements or even recipes?

Not really. If you list your credentials (and most do) it has a chance of selling. There's actually some good stuff out now with self publishing on topics that aren't that well covered by traditional publishers. Financial (trading systems) books are common in that area. They were often done by small publishers anyway. Now it's faster to get to market with a book. The charts/graphs weren't that great on early kindles, but with fire and color, that is improved. I still don't love the charting because those financial guys think everything can be charted and a long period of time versus a short period of time is important. That doesn't always show well on Kindle.

I know a doctor who has now self-published on some medical topics. There's actually a high number of people with various technical backgrounds who want a way to distribute information. More and more of them are getting their books out there and they sell pretty well. Many financial traders have a platform already (existing clients, radio shows even if they are local, seminars). I think this area is seeing some growth in both writers doing it and readers buying it. Being able to buy good technical info for under 10 dollars has been rare, so it's a boon to find a book that provides it.

Are you talking about Avon's Impulse line? As far as I know, that line is for e-books only, but I would not call it self-publishing.

I'd have to go look it up and ask the person who mentioned it because I don't read much romance myself and I haven't read any of that line. I've heard the whatever the "line" is it's poorly edited--as in gets copyedited but no storyline editing and no plot help. Sentence structure is poor, etc.

A number of publishers also have a "self publish" imprint; perhaps the ebook only is a "compromise." I guess it depends on who is paying for editing and how much editing is done.

I think the line between self-publishing, half publishing and so on is becoming very blurry.