Simon & Schuster Steps Into Self-Publishing

By Leslie Kaufman at nytimes.com:

Simon & Schuster is testing the water in the booming self-publishing market.

The publishing company announced Tuesday that it was teaming up with Author Solutions, based in Bloomington, Ind., to create a separate house called Archway Publishing, which would be available for authors wanting to self-publish fiction, nonfiction, business or children’s books.

Self-publishing is a rapidly growing sector of the book industry, but big publishers have been tentative about entering the market, partly for fear of tarnishing their brand by allowing content they have not reviewed to be published under their name.

Simon & Schuster believes it has gotten around that problem by teaming with Author Solutions, which already has a robust self-publishing business, including partnerships with Harlequin, which specializes in romance books, and Thomas Nelson, which focuses on Christian books.

…

One odd twist of the deal is that Author Solutions was purchased by the British publishing giant Pearson in July. Pearson has made Author Solutions part of Penguin, a Simon & Schuster competitor. But since Simon & Schuster was already far along in the planning with Author Solutions for the new brand, it decided to go forward anyway.

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