Exactly as the thread title says. For a while, I've been wondering these questions due to restarting my book blog and index, participating in various discussions, and previously studying the publishing industry and book market.

Self-publishing is the new norm for writers, especially new and aspiring ones. In fact, it's largely the only method for emerging writers. But with ease of self-publishing came the increased difficulty in refining and promoting one's work in a more and more highly competitive market. And in many cases, the writing platforms don't provide adequate support for authors or even readers in finding good stories in the influx of dropped or spam ones. From there, then comes the hurdle in monetizing one's work or making any visage of a steady career in writing.

So, what do you think the future of self-publishing is? Works by indie authors are slowly increasing in quality to match that of traditional publishing standards. But with Amazon CreateSpace being the predominant self-publisher, but with no system or feature to support indie authors, finding new talent and potential bestsellers is basically nonexistent.

I'd personally love to see Amazon tack on an automatic option or feature noting that a book is self-published, and then have readers be able to filter book titles by only self-published in order to support indie authors. Currently, the only real way for self-published titles to show up in searches is by having a history of reading and buying ones previously. Ranking on Kindle for certain categories is beyond competitive and unsteady as a hot streak in the top 100 or 1000 could last only for a few months. And of course, no matter what type of publishing, the author is the main, and often sole, marketer. Yet, promotion only works successfully with an established audience, either through the author's efforts or a given platform. But building an audience up is easier said than done.

In short, what improvements on writing platforms, methods of self-publishing, etc. do you think could be done to better support small authors?

Perhaps in this digital age, we'll soon see better support implementations as businesses and organizations rise to the occasion and capture this lost high potential...

Edit: I'm asking these questions due to reading some Reddit threads the other day. So, I was curious what everyone else thought here. :D

    Curated themed selections are good tools, because readers most often don't care if a book is self-published, contracted or non-contracted.
    They usually go not only for a certain genre, but for a specific theme or trope.
    Lists as "The 10 Best Dungeon Crawler Novels", "Greek Myths Inspired Novels", "Top Ten Cooking Themed Novels", "7 Novels with a Jerk Protagonist" or even "15 Indie Novels with Tragic Ends Worth Reading" can highlight indie novels as well as others.
    I think the only reason a regular reader will look for a novel (or book) is his own expectation of having a good experience, and not because he 'must support an indie writer'.

    Edit:; I forgot to mention that these 'curated' selections shouldn't be replaced for new selections the way Webnovel does every Thursday (or Thuesday). The best way is to have a blog or fixed place to keep ALL the selections, so a new reader will be able to see older posts.

      By the way, recently Webnovel showed us a new way of sharing and make our own curated selections, using the "Reading Libraries" the app offers.
      You can select and group novels by any criteria in a new library and can make comments (perhaps assessments and ratings) and you can make your own witty review or recommendation of any book inside the collection. I'm yet to discover if we can share the selections externally (can we @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL ? ) to make this tool really useful.

      Book_Keeper

      Hmm, what I am about to write is my personal opinion and it is solely based on personal experience.

      Self-publishing has grown massively during the last couple of years. When I published my first book on Amazon in 2016, there were not nearly as many new releases as there are now. However, this is not a bad thing. While it does bring more competition, it also brings more readers to the genres that are being written.

      While it is true that when you are self-published everything depends on your own ability to promote, but this also means that you are in control of everything, and if it does not work out, you only have yourself to blame.

      AMS is a great feature, and there are many other options for promoting your books, it is just a question about sitting down and actually understanding the market.

      Even if you are traditionally published, which I also have a book which has been, it does not mean that the publishers will do a lot to market your book. The publisher's house has a lot of new books, and they will not give all of them an equal amount of attention and funds to promote. Even there it depends a lot on your own effort.

      After experiencing both traditional publishing and self-publishing, I for one, know that self-publishing is much more to my liking. I have full control over everything and I am also able to make the decisions.

      There are many ways of getting promotions now, and many indie authors are doing very well. In fact, I found that many indie authors are doing better than many traditional authors. They do not have to share as big a percentage of the royalties and they have more control over their own projects. I see self-publishing as the future of publishing.

          SrtaA Yes, as you say, readers don't care about whether a book is self-published or not and merely just search for what they like. Support for indie authors typically are tied within certain writing communities and platforms, so on a space where traditional and self-publishing collide, both are put on the same level of expectations.
          And I'll be sure to check this out these reading libraries; it's good to see Webnovel pick up some features from other sites.

          Tinalynge Yes, promoting/marketing is mainly up to the writer regardless of publishing type. Even previously traditionally published authors are using self-publishing because they have more control and can receive more profits now that they already established a fanbase on which to promote and make sales. Until authors get to this point, however, yes, it is a question of taking time to understand the market. The future is definitely self-publishing, and I look forward to seeing how the industry continues to play out, especially with the abundance of online writing and publishing platforms and services.

          Thank you both for your well thought responses!

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