Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab

This month, the company, which is owned by Bertram Capital, a private equity firm, bought a rival, Xlibris, expanding its profile in the fast-growing market. The combined company represented 19,000 titles in 2008, nearly six times more than Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer books, released last year.

NVDL: Xlibris have been wooing me for a while. I am considering self-publishing this year...

clipped from www.nytimes.com The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them. At least, that is what the evidence suggests. Booksellers, hobbled by the economic crisis, are struggling to lure readers. Almost all of the New York publishing houses are laying off editors and pinching pennies. Small bookstores are closing. Big chains are laying people off or exploring bankruptcy. A recently released study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that while more people are reading literary fiction, fewer of them are reading books. Meanwhile, there is one segment of the industry that is actually flourishing: capitalizing on the dream of would-be authors to see their work between covers, companies that charge writers and photographers to publish are growing rapidly at a time when many mainstream publishers are losing ground. the appeal of self-publishing is that they can put their books on the market much faster than through traditional publishers.