How many books are published in a year? Is the number going up or down? How many copies are sold? We know these figures are, and have been for a long time, very controversial. Because there are so many books that do not count in these figures, especially self-published titles on places like Amazon that don't require an ISBN. Which makes calculations about the indie sector particularly tricky. Which is why the latest set of figures is so interesting. Hat tip to Jane Friedman for pointing me to this.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
The headline figure is that in the US more than 4 million books were published in 2025. That's up 32.5 percent. But the number of self-published titles was up from 2.5 to 3.5 million, making up pretty much the whole of the increase. That is, even though there are huge numbers unaccounted for in these figures, the number that do have an ISBN has still skyrocketed.
AI's Role in Publishing Growth
What is the cause of this rise? Jane Friedman certainly has an inkling. And I don't think it's an uncontroversial one. AI-generated content is likely to have had a lot to do with that number. Worth thinking about when we consider, for example, the distribution of income pots from subscription pools.
UK Government Reverses Course on AI Copyright
And talking of AI, as I trailed last week, we now have the results of the UK government's assessment of the legal state of AI and copyright. You will recall that the originally preferred option was a large data mining exception, which would allow firms to use copyrighted material to train AI unless rights holders opted out. And you will recall that there has been a massive outcry, culminating in the publication of “Don't Steal This Book” last week.
The news is that this is no longer the government's preferred option. At present they are unclear what the preferred option is, but they are committed to protecting creative industries as well as technology. Maybe they might learn something from the European attempts to do likewise.
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
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