Research On Self-publishing

With the development of Internet and digital technology, self-publishing as a newpublishing form, has an increasingly effect on the traditional publishing market. A largenumber of self-publishing forms have emerged very quickly, such as Lulu.Com, Smashwords,Nook Press and ’Kindle Direct publishing’ by Amazon. Although self-publishing in China isstill in its infancy, its rapid development showing in the background of the digital publishingtrends will bring breakthrough change and huge impact on the publishing market. For thosenew publishing models which are still in the exploratory phase, further defining the conceptof self-publishing, researching the case-study about typical self-publishing models home andabroad, then analyzing the impact on traditional publishing industry, will have a theoreticalsignificance in academic research as well as giving proposal of self-publishing.Firstly, this paper will complete the concept of self-publishing by the definition, type andcharacteristics from the existing literature, then conclude its characteristics of fool, fast,interactive, universal, networking, globalization, quantification, through the comparing withdifferent publishing forms such as network publishing, blog publishing, self-publishing,on-demand publishing, etc. to have a more clear understanding of self-publishing. Secondly,through case studies, the publishing processes and characteristics of foreign typicalself-publishing KDP and Lulu.com will be analyzed. Furthermore, China-styleself-publishing model such as wiki publishing model based on Baidu library, Shengda modeof network literature as the core, Douban mode of small minority literature, Jingdong modewhich based on technology platform of electricity supplier, and Weixin mode which based onplatform of social network will be analyzed. Finally, this paper will summarize thecharacteristics and advantages of various platforms, combined with China’s publishingenvironment, analyzed the development of the pros and cons of these modes.Undoubtedly, the development of self-publishing has a significant impact on traditionalpublishing, here we analyzed how self-publishing affects traditional publishing in differentsegments, therefore leading publications or publishers to have an overall consideration when choosing self-publishing. As to the factors which affect the development of self-publishing inChina, we pointed out in this paper that the rapid growth of the Internet, the universal ofreading devices and the popularity of network literature, social network and network paymentcan all help the development of the self-publishing in China. However, the outdated ideas ofsome publications, the network exclusion by some writers, the fast reading habits, therestrictions by the publishing policies, the insufficient copyright protection and so on alsohave an opposite effect on the development of self-publishing in China.Self-publishing in China has obtained great achievements as well as encountered manydifficulties. Laws and regulations are still in a state of absence in this new publishing area.Chinese regulation and control in the fields like internet publication regulation, formalpublications copyrights and ISBN control are different from other countries in Europe andAmerica. So the development of self-publishing in China requires constant innovation andexploration of better self-publishing model. Therefore, based on the above analysis, this paperconcluded some constructive suggestions and strategies on the development of Chineseself-publishing that the Chinese publishing should update the concept of publication, makefull use of the network technology, find suitable marketing position, train compoundpublishers, improve the publishing laws and regulations and explore a new self-publishingmode in China.