The commercial success of self-publishing is shown in a snapshot survey by this site which reveals that 21% of the Top 100 best-selling ebooks this year are by self-published authors.
The figure, gleaned from Amazon’s Kindle Top 100 of 2013, is particularly significant as making the list is a major target for the traditional publishers with big-name authors such as James Patterson, who has six books in the list and Suzanne Collins, Lee Child, David Baldacci and John Grisham, who all have three entries apiece.
There isn’t a self-published ebook in the top 10 (which has Dan Brown’s Inferno at No 1 and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn at No 2) but successful series author Colleen Hoover leads the way for the indies at No 11 with Hopeless.
Self-published star H M Ward is in 19th place with Damaged. Ward, who is a New Adult and Adult Romance writer, has sold over two million books in 2013 and had two books (including Damaged) in the New York Times top 20 at the same time earlier this year.
There are 17 self-published authors in the top 100 with a total of 21 entries between them as some have more than one title. I have included Maya Banks and Sylvia Day among the authors as they are hybrid authors who self-publish some of their own work and are also published by traditional publishers. I haven’t included Sylvia Day’s three books in the Top 100 under the self-published totals.
Other indie authors in the top 100 include Elisabeth Naughton, another series writer, who is in 21st spot with Wait For Me while J M Scott has a boxed set at No 29 and J C Reed’s Surrender Your Love is at 32nd, with the same author also having an entry at No 54. Jasinda Wilder’s Falling Into You takes 42nd place and Fallen Too Far by Abbi Glines is at 50th…and on it goes.
This is a snapshot survey as the Kindle Top 100 of the 2013 changes on a daily basis and there are still a few weeks to go before the end of the year but it illustrates the success of self-publishing. I’ll make a final tally at the end of the year and post the results on this site.