Authors, Are You Ready? 2025 Self-Publishing Forecast Revealed

Self publishing has been a viable, profitable and accessible option for many years now, and it's really getting to be fun in the industry because it's so mainstream and there are so many new services and tools emerging to support all the needs of the indie author. So what does that mean for 2025? What should you know if you're publishing or already published? If you're wondering what 2025 has in store and whether you're ready for it or not, well, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julia the Book Broad, Founder of Book Launchers, four time author. Two of those books are right there. Your host here at Book Launchers TV and my new channel, the NoboringBook Reviews channel. Check it out. Now at Book Launchers, we're a full service assisted self publishing company where we help nonfiction authors write, publish and promote a book to grow their brand and their business. We've worked with more than 750 authors now, and I'm sure in 2025 we'll be adding at least another 100 or more to that list and probably thousands more through the new software we're going to be launching and our new school groups. So yeah, giddy up. We're going to have a good time. But what should you know besides the fact that we're going to be doing more and going deeper to support you as an author? Here are my seven predictions for 2025. Number one AI assisted well, everything is going to become even more prevalent, but let's focus on AI assisted writing. It's going to help office even more with ideation, editing and marketing recommendations. And because you know, I'm a big fan and advocate of using AI in and around the author business, let's take this a little further. A company called Book Launchers is going to release some super cool AI driven software to help you with your book marketing. True story. And if you want to be first on the list to know about it, well, make sure you're getting our newsletter@book launchers.com Newsletter But AI writing assistants are becoming more and more sophisticated, offering real time style and tone suggestions, character development tools for my fiction friends, plot structure analysis, automated research assistance, which is fantastic for all writers but nonfiction in particular. Arguably, Dibli Create has already done this and I've been talking about Dibli for more than a year. Check it out@book launchers.com dibbly but there are plenty of other companies coming on strong with this as well. Now I use Perplexity AI all the time for helping me research video topics and so much more. And having a tool like that built into into your software that you're using to write well, that's kind of amazing. Now this does not replace your creativity or your human lens, but it is going to make the creation process faster, easier, and for me, just a whole lot more fun. For example, when I think of these videos, I will use perplexity to get me started, to give me some facts and research and bullet points. And then I use my mind to critically assess what it's given me, what's missing, what's left unsaid, where it might say that, but I actually disagree that that's where my experience can add or counter what I found in the research. My time is then spent adding value over a search that you could have done yourself. So instead of spending twice as much time because first I have to figure out the structure, the bullet points, the research, and then I add my lens, my time is then spent adding value so then I can focus on what's going to matter to you, where my experience may be of value. And it's less lifting but better output, which is kind of amazing. Number two, as a partial result of AI, but also because every year that passes, self publishing gets more sophisticated and as a result more business driven, which means more and more authors should be and will be using data driven decision making. This is actually one of the reasons I love being an indie author over our traditionally published author friends and clients. Because they don't get data, they rarely know how much their book is selling, let alone if any money they've invested in PR or ads is doing anything. When you're in indie, you have access to metrics, data and you get that very quickly. And while I wish platforms like KDP and IngramSpark gave you more granular data than it does, you can still check your dashboard every darn day if you want. Please don't do that. He'll go crazy. But you have the data to dig into so you can decide if you should run a catalog submission again, if that newsletter swap you did really got results, or if you should be selling ebooks for 99 cents again this quarter or try something different. Plus, with AI getting more sophisticated, you'll have access to tools and more ways to use it for modeling for sales and revenue, and better and better ways to analyze competitor books for pricing and keywords and more. In 2024, publisher Rocket got a big upgrade with its reverse ASIN lookup. You can check out the video I did explaining that, but it's a game changer and then there are tools like ManuscriptReport.com that do a full, full analysis of your book. Check out this data. And they're constantly refining their output. I bought a report about a month ago and gave them a lot of feedback that was basically telling them it wasn't that great. And within a month they had improved their reporting functionality dramatically. So I expect by the time you watch this video they're already doing much bigger and greater things. But this report is just a small fee and look at the market analysis it gives you. I really like the look at other books which you can use for marketing purposes, but also your own research. Again, data driven decision decisions are going to be what all the successful authors are using. Heck, they already are. And it's giving indies a big advantage over traditional authors and even some hybrid authors because they don't get the data fast either. One thing many authors don't realize when they go hybrid is that they now have a publisher who has the data and they may not be quick or effective at distilling that data to you. And the more data you have, the better decisions you can make. And the tools that help us with this are coming on fast and furious, which is so exciting. So my first prediction, just recapping because I've covered a lot already, is AI assisted writing. And AI assisted everything is going to become commonplace and improve even more in 2025. And along with AI tools, the ability for authors to prediction number two really make data driven decisions to make their book business flourish. And it's going to be the edge that successful authors have over those that aren't successful. So now my third prediction for 2025 is that being a bestseller will be less important than ever for authors. Bestseller status has already lost its shine in 2024. The Wall Street Journal list went away and then the USA Today list went away and came back. Weird. So more and more people are aware that being a bestseller is not really a great goal to pursue. And while some people still really want that Amazon bestseller flag, more and more people really know it's not a game changer for their life. And my point that I always make to people is well, have you ever met an author that does not call themselves a best selling author? So what does it really mean to say you're a bestseller anyways? I think the focus is already shifting to a business focus versus a singular event where you get a title that doesn't have the weight it used to have. The focus is on long term success and longevity of your book and what it does for your platform, business and brand and I am here for it. Let's focus on what matters as an author and that is income and impact. All right, Prediction four so we got AI, we've got data driven decisions and a business focus. Well, number four is video promotion is going to evolve and become something that is not only beneficial but necessary for authors. Now if I've just scared the pants off you, you don't have to be on camera. I've shared in the past videos and tools that will allow you to do a lot with images to create a great video. I think it's better to be on camera, especially with AI becoming more and more prevalent. I think that humanity side of everything will matter more and be a better point of connection. But I mean you can also clone yourself and that's getting so good it's going to be hard to tell. But there some super successful faceless YouTube channels so it's not mandatory. But I do believe that having success as an author is going to require video. Whether it's live online readings, book excerpts in video format, sharing behind the scenes, or bringing your readers together in some sort of a live video format. Those are going to become more and more popular for book marketing, brand building and business building. It's already a big thing, which is why I think it's going to go from a it works and it's good to do to a you basically have to do it or you're being left behind behind kind of thing. Now don't worry, I'm going to have more tools and resources and support for you with this in 2025. So make sure you're getting our newsletter@book launchers.com newsletter so you don't miss all these free things and support that we create for you. All right, Number five It's not new. This has been a prediction for years, but it's been right every year. Audiobooks will continue to rise in popularity with more readers opting for audio or mobile device consumption. Print is still my first priority, but one of my favorite things right now is to get the audiobook and the digital book together. Not for whisper sync, although it's a nice feature, but so that I can still make my notes and highlight the sections of the book in the ebook. But I'm listening more than I'm reading, so I'm driving and listening. But I still like to have the notes. And especially now that I'm doing my no boring book review channel, I want to have notes to highlight my favorite pieces to create those short reviews. I'M buying a lot of books in two formats. But regardless, audiobooks have been gaining popularity for the last six years or so, and that's not slowing down in 2025 and it's not going to be any different. The only thing I think is going to be different is someone, as in some company is finally going to allow us to distribute our voice cloned audiobooks on their platform. Not their digital version, but the one we make ourselves in our voice with a tool like 11 labs. I'm hoping it's ACX, but if it's Spotify or someone else, well, I don't know who it's going to be. But it's coming and I am here for that too. My first choice is always narrate your nonfiction book yourself. But it's expensive. We have clients with 120,000 word books and the production on those books is north of $6,000 just for the audiobook. That's a lot of time spent recording it and producing it. So being able to clone your voice and produce the book that way will save a ton of money and time. And the cloning functions are so good now. Not perfect, but good. So by the end of 2025, I think we're going to have that functionality and capability. But no matter what, produce an audiobook if you can. All right. Prediction no, not seven yet. We're not there yet. Prediction 6 as much as I am not on TikTok, BookTok is going to remain a dominant force in book marketing, with publishers and authors increasingly partnering with influencers to promote their new releases. This is more for fiction now. I've heard some authors in the nonfiction space that have been able to crack the nut and make it work for them. I don't use TikTok, so I have never tried. But what I know to be true is that there are authors making a lot of money selling their books on TikTok. So unless something changes with the platform's accessibility is still going to be a place authors are working because it's working. All right, now we're at 7. Number 7. Book discoverability and consumption is going to change as AI makes our customized recommendations for readers. This is exciting and a little scary for authors. ChatGPT has search capabilities and if you use my buddy Chatty as much as I do, it knows you and your deep dark secrets. Watch this. I'm going to ask Chatty a couple questions. See what happens as I'm asking for reading recommendations. The kind of freaky part is the first list. I had read 7 out of the 10 books that I asked Chatty for recommendations. So Chatty was right on. When I asked Chatty to revise the list, I'd read eight of the books. Now when I get to the recent ones, I get it to focus in on, hey, give me something that's been just released. This is where it gets really interesting, because the books recommended were ones I wasn't familiar with at all and you see some of the same author over and over again. So now the question you should be asking is how do I get my book to show up on these kind of searches? Generative AI goes beyond traditional keyword matching. It understands the nuances of natural language queries and delivers more insightful and tailored responses. And it's not just chatgpt AI is powering so much, which means the old keyword way of doing things is still going to matter. But there's going to be so much more factored into this. Just try searching in Perplexity AI for book recommendations on a specific subject. And then again, the question is how do you get your book to show up in that? And this is a big thing for 2025. And speaking of innovations and things coming for data driven decisions, Spotify's made some updates too where authors can customize their author page on Spotify as well as get a whole lot more data on who's listening to them. So keep an eye on Spotify. They've got some really big innovations that are also tying in to to my predictions on audiobook growth. Data driven decisions focusing on your book as a business, not a bestseller. All the things 2025 is going to be an epic year for authors and I am pumped to be here and be supporting you on this journey. Now, there's a lot of other predictions I probably could have made, so what did I miss? Let me know in the comments below. I mean, as far as topic and content predictions, I think we're going to see a shift towards more people looking for a deeper understanding of what is in our food. I'm already seeing that. For years I've been the only one pointing out, hey, that's got food coloring in it and that's not good for you, or that has a nasty little chemical in it. But for the last six months I've already felt like there's more awareness and with impending political changes, a whole lot more attention is going to be paid to what we're eating, what we're spending, and so much more. So those are some content changes that I think we're going to see. I also saw a recent report that the sale of Bibles has gone up dramatically, which leads me to consider there could be an increase in demand for books around God, faith, religion and books that just help us make sense of complex data and complex ideas now. But keep in mind as we talked about AI assisted writing. If AI can write it easily, then you need to dig deeper and provide more of your human lens to the topic. But you will also have access to so much more data to understand what readers are wanting. This is going to be fun. Let's chat about it in the comments below. I cannot read to hear. I cannot read to hear. I cannot wait to read what you think we have in store for us in the next year. One thing is always true. We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday and when you comment the day a video comes out, you'll be entered to win a fabulous prize. And we award those prizes every other week in our livestream. Now this is my video where I talked about what the business book trends are for self publishing authors. You know what kind of money they're making in roi. And this video right here is the latest and greatest from the channel. Click on over. Say hi when you get there.