Bowker, the US agency that sells ISBN numbers, reported that the number of self-published titles with ISBNs increased 7.2 percent in 2023 over 2022, topping 2.6 million titles. Growth, as usual, is driven by service providers such as Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, and Amazon KDP, which help authors self-publish and distribute their titles at low or no cost. During the same time period, the number of traditionally published titles fell 3.6 percent, to roughly 563,000 titles. Learn more.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
