SODP Dispatch - 20 March 2025

7 Best Self-Publishing Companies for Books

By Dakshita

You’ve poured your heart into writing a book, not just to see it gather dust in the shadows of a crowded market. You are here to connect with readers, make profits, and leave a mark.

Self-publishing is the key to making that happen, but with the number of self-published books increasing by 264% in the last five years (and only 300 million books sold annually), the competition is fierce.

How do you ensure your story doesn’t get lost? It starts with choosing a self-publishing platform you can trust.

The right platform doesn’t just print your book. It empowers you with high-quality printing, marketing solutions, wide distribution services, and fair pricing so your work shines in the whopping $151.9 billion book industry.

The wrong one? It can bury you under fees, restrictions, and limited reach.

Your books deserve better than that. So, how do you choose a partner that has got your back? In this guide, we will walk you through what to look for and share the top self-publishing companies to bring your book to life with confidence.

Let’s dive in!

🎤 SEO Minion

SEO Minion helps you in your daily SEO tasks such as On-Page SEO analysis, Broken Link Checking, SERP Preview and more. See more ▸

🛠️ Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer allows you to generate keyword ideas and see search volumes directly in Google search results. See more ▸

By Vahe Arabian

🚀 Adapting to AI: the future of reader interaction

Artificial intelligence is not just a tool but a catalyst, reshaping how readers interact with content.

AI has transformed content consumption, elevating reader expectations for personalised and immediate experiences. This shift empowers audiences to demand more from their interactions, requiring publishers to adapt to remain relevant.

AI-curated content has become widespread, with platforms like ChatGPT-4 (used by over 100 million weekly active users) and Google Gemini (adopted by 1.5 million developers since its 2024 rebrand) driving content discovery. These platforms offer features such as concise summaries ("Explain this in 30 seconds"), fostering expectations for seamless integration of content into AI workflows.

Synthetic media is also gaining traction, with 67% of consumers leveraging AI tools to filter information (Edelman, 2023). Transparency is paramount; 68% of readers demand clear distinctions between human- and AI-generated content (Reuters Institute), alongside real-time fact-checking overlays.

Zero-interface consumption is expanding, with voice assistants like Alexa, used daily by 35% of U.S. adults (Pew Research), seeing significant adoption. Articles optimised for voice search and neural interfaces (e.g., experimental projects like Neuralink’s early-stage trials) show promise, though broader adoption remains in its infancy. In the midst of all these, how, then, can publishers adapt to this imminent change?

Strategies for Publishers to Adapt

1. Invest in dynamic personalisation: Use AI to segment audiences and deliver tailored content recommendations, enhancing engagement.

2. Optimise for answer-first queries: Structure content to address voice search (projected to drive 50% of all online searches by 2025) and featured snippets, prioritising clarity and context.

3. Adopt AI-powered tools: Integrate platforms like BrightEdge and MarketMuse into your digital marketing strategy to enhance search trend analysis and optimise content development.

4. Test dynamic paywalls: Analyse user behaviour to serve personalised subscription prompts seamlessly. (The New York Times reported a 20% conversion lift with AI-driven paywall testing.)

5. Audit for ethical AI: Ensure transparency in AI use, addressing growing concerns around authenticity and sourcing. (Tools like the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) provide standards for content labelling.)

The integration of AI into content consumption is rapidly reshaping reader expectations. Publishers embracing AI-driven strategies will lead the industry, meeting evolving demands while ensuring sustained success.

Google AI Overviews caught linking back to its own search results | Search Engine Land

Google is testing placing special and very clickable links in its AI Overviwws, but not to publishers or your own website, but rather back to its own search results. You got that right, Google is testing linking the AI Overviews back to new search queries on Google.com.
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Google’s Mueller Predicts Uptick Of Hallucinated Links: Redirect Or Not? | SEJ

Website owners and SEO professionals are facing a new problem. AI content generation tools are creating fake URLs when referencing real websites. This issue was discussed in a recent social media conversation between industry professionals.
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Google Assistant To Be Replaced By Gemini | Search Engine Roundtable

The time has come for the Google Assistant to be replaced by Gemini, Google's younger and better assistant (despite it being wrong way too often). Google announced, "Over the coming months, we’re upgrading more users on mobile devices from Google Assistant to Gemini. Read more ▸

OpenAI to start testing ChatGPT connectors for Google Drive and Slack | TechCrunch

OpenAI will soon begin testing a way for business customers to connect apps like Slack and Google Drive to ChatGPT. OpenAI plans to start beta testing a new feature called ChatGPT Connectors, according to a document viewed by TechCrunch.
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Italian newspaper says it has published world’s first AI-generated edition | The Guardian

An Italian newspaper has said it is the first in the world to publish an edition entirely produced by artificial intelligence. The initiative by Il Foglio, a conservative liberal daily, is part of a month-long journalistic experiment aimed at showing the impact AI technology has “on our way of working and our days”, the newspaper’s editor, Claudio Cerasa, said.
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