The number of books self-published in the U.S. saw more rapid growth in 2018, jumping 40% over 2017, according to Bowker’s annual survey of the self-publishing market. In its report, “Self-Publishing in the United States, 2013-2018: Print and E-books,” the total number of print and e-books that were self-published in 2018 was 1.68 million, up from 1.19 million in 2017. Bowker measures the size of the market based on the number ISBN’s registered and thus does not include self-published e-books by Amazon’s Kindle division, which uses an Amazon identifier.

Bookstore sales tumbled 10.3% in August, compared to the same period a year ago, according to preliminary figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The poor August report continues to reflect what has been a soft year for physical bookstores. For the first eight months of 2019, bookstore sales dropped 6.1% from the comparable period a year ago.

It’s almost impossible to be a big fish in the book pond these days, as the pond is really more of an ocean and grows exponentially. How do you compete? There’s no one-shot, sure-fire answer to that question, so do your research and try everything. And in the meantime, get started on another book.

Here are the top three reasons for why people buy books:

1. Author is well known to me (68%)
2. Book cover (53%)
3. Book recommended by a Friend (38%)

News info above from Publishers Weekly