Self-Publishing Is Growing Up

In a new attempt to keep up with the rising self-publishing industry, which increasingly demands to be taken seriously, Publishers Weekly is significantly beefing up its coverage of authors who go it alone.

The literary trade magazine has announced that PW Select, its quarterly-turned-bimonthly guide to self-publishing, will go monthly in October—thus essentially doubling its critical coverage of self-publishing authors by the most influential journal in the industry. 

This, by most accounts, is a fitting response to the not-entirely-shocking proliferation of self-publishing in the e-book era.

"It's really become part of publishing—that's probably the bottom line. It's certainly not stigmatized in any way," Jim Milliot, co-editorial director of Publishers Weekly, told The Atlantic Wire in a phone conversation this afternoon. "Most of the major house are looking at self-published authors now."