Book Country, the Penguin Group USA‘s online community dedicated to genre fiction, introduced a suite of self-publishing tools today. While there are dozens of entities offering authors self-publishing options, I believe this is the very first time any unit of The Big Six traditional publishing houses (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, MacMillan Publishers Ltd, Penguin Group, Random House, Simon & Schuster) has ventured into this relatively new and fast-growing (and fast-changing) segment of the book industry.
This is great news on a number of levels:
- Emerging authors and established authors now have yet another option to get their works directly into their reader’s hands.
- The book publishing experience behind this new suite of self-publishing tools may prove to be an advantage over some existing self-publishing options.
- The wide distribution option covers both print and e-book formats across most major online bookseller outlets . . . including Amazon!
- This new revenue stream is also helping Penguin discover new authors for their traditional publishing business. That’s a win-win situation!
I think the biggest revelation with this announcement is the indication that The Big Six are coming around to a self-publishing trend that is popular with both authors and readers. You and I already know it’s a trend that’s here to stay!
Here are links to the Penguin Group USA’s announcement and a related article in today’s Wall Street Journal: